Baked Cheesy Zucchini and Squash

Last week I decided to re-work a Pinterest recipe that I had found. It sounded great and combined two of my favorite things, zucchini and cheese. How could it go wrong? Well, other than my biggest zucchini having a strange bug that had tunneled through the whole thing, it tasted great! (No, the bug zucchini wasn't used, so this recipe for me definitely had way more yellow squash then zucchini.)

Here's the recipe:

What you'll need:

Two Medium Zucchini

Two Medium Yellow Squash

A reduced fat bag of shredded cheese (I used a 4 cheese mexican blend)

Salt, Pepper, Garlic, Basil & Parsley

Non stick Spray

Baking Dish

Preheat oven to 350*. Then spray down baking dish with non stick spray. Then cut up the squash and zucchini and combine in baking dish.

Add in all spices to taste (extra garlic and basil for me!) and mix.

Fold in shredded cheese (I used about 1 cup of cheese). Use a little bit of extra cheese to cover the top off.

Place in oven uncovered for 15-20 minutes, or longer, depending on the crunch level you want on the squash and zucchini. Mine took about a half hour, and I also mixed it up one time in the middle to move the cheese around. Once the veggies are at the doneness you like, put the oven on broil to brown the top of the cheese.

Serve with a chopped up scallion on top, and you're done! 

At only 60 calories a serving (makes 6 servings) this is an awesome dish to curb your cheese craving, while getting a fair amount of veggies at the same time! 

Enjoy :)

Lemon Orzo & Asparagus Salad and a huge Sandbox

Happy Monday! Who am I kidding.. ugh.. it's Monday..

This weekend managed to be a very productive one! As I've mentioned in earlier posts we are doing a LOT around the house for the summer. One of the bigger projects is the backyard. We are expanding our patio area, I'm starting a garden, and we have ordered mini-man a swing set for his birthday, and the husbutt had the idea to put it into a big big sandbox (I'm talking 24' x 16' sandbox, aka an estimate of 14,000 POUNDS of sand). So this weekend was phase one, build the sandbox frame. We called in some back up (aka my parents), and decided to bar-b-q for dinner, so my mom and I cooked while all the boys built. 

So anyway, I decided to try a new recipe I found on Pinterest while the grill was going, and it was AMAZING. 

Its a (very) lemony orzo salad. Of course as usual I added a few of my own twists to it. We didn't have tomatos, just sundried tomatos, but since I'm the only one of the 4 people eating who like sundried tomatos, I had to leave them out. I also have one hell of a time finding Orzo in any of the food stores here (weird? yes I think so) but I found Riso pasta (aka shorter orzo) so I used that isntead. We added black olives (awesome move) and a bit more garlic than what was called for, and a little less olive oil. Point being, it came out great! 

It's a bit high in calories because of the pasta. I'm estimating one serving to be around 280 calories. But its defintely worth it, with a piece of grilled chicken cut up on top of it! 

Here's the link to the original recipe!