Greek style roasted stuffed zucchini with carrots and smoked french beans

Food makes travel so exceptional, because you get to taste what it's actually supposed to taste like! Last year we were in Greece for our holidays. Hardik and I fell is love with the enthralling beauty of the country and the food. Even though we are vegetarian, the local eatery personnel were kind enough to recreate traditional Greek recipes in vegetarian version. We were so impassioned with the taste of those authentic flavorful dishes, not to forget the Greek olive oil and all other farm fresh veggies, feta cheese and ugh....I can keep going on and on. So coming back to this recipe, I tried to recreate one of our our favorite meal that we enjoyed there and I am very delighted to share it with you guys too. This dish is also very popular and you can find it in mostly all the authentic Greek restaurants. It is roasted zucchini stuffed with a delicious mixture of rice and feta cheese. It is very easy to make and stomach filling. So without much a do lets get cooking.

Prep Time: 20 min

Cook Time: 40 min

Total Time: 60 min

This recipe makes 2-3 Servings

1 cup= 250 ml

Ingredients

Main course

3 small zucchini*

1/2 cup uncooked rice

1 cup water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 green chili

1 onion, chopped

1 green chili, chopped

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

1 tsp chili flakes

Salt as per taste

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 tomato, diced

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Sides

1 carrot

1 cup chopped french beans

2 tsp olive oil

2 tsp lemon juice

Salt & Pepper as per taste

I made a quick video for you guys.

Tip: I used 3 small zucchini, because I could not get big ones from the market that day. You must aim for big ones, as it becomes easy to stuff with our rice and feta mix.

Directions

- Preheat the oven to 180 C. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

- In a medium sauce pan, bring water to boil. Stir in the rice. Cover, and cook the rice. Remove from heat and set aside

- Slit the zucchini in the middle and place it on the prepared baking sheet. Roast for 25 minutes or until tender and skin starts to brown.

- While the zucchini is roasting, heat oil in a medium skillet or a wok over a medium high heat. Add cook the onions & green chili with Italian seasoning, chili flakes, and salt.

- Then stir in bell peppers and tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes are tender.

- Spoon in the cooked rice and mix everything thoroughly.

- Remove the pan from heat, mix the feta cheese and spoon the mixture into the roasted zucchini.

-Return to the oven and cook on 180 C for 5-8 mins or until you can see the feta cheese melting.

-While zucchini is in the oven, take a skillet on a medium heat. Add olive oil and saute the carrots. Later add salt and pepper. Once cooked remove from heat.

- Similarly cook the french beans on a high heat flame with salt and pepper. Do not disturb the french beans until browned from one side to achieve the burnt texture. Once completely cooked, remove from heat and squeeze some drops of lemon juice.

- Assemble everything together and serve hot.

*If you do not like zucchini, you can also enjoy this recipe with bell peppers. For that, cut the bell peppers in half, remove the seeds and place them upside down in the oven until they are tender and smoked on the sides. Later follow the same steps mentioned above.

*If you like both zucchini and bell peppers.... bingo! Take one big zucchini along with one large bell pepper, and enjoy this mouthwatering combo with our rice and fetta mix.

Did you make this recipe?

Let me know how it went! Comment below and share a picture on Instagram with #happinessizhomemade

❤ Priyanka