Well, did you survive the holiday with all of your digits? Do you have your eyebrows and is your beard now more of a fu man chu?

We survived ours just fine. So fine, in fact, that the only fire we got even remotely close to was in our Weber Kettle Grill. The most damage done at our house was to several waistlines and my sleeping habits.

It was a weekend of activity, kicked off by a pool party on Friday and another one on Saturday and a quick trip to the farm in Cheney on Sunday and another pool party on Monday. Ho. Ly. Cow. It was a lot of food.

I didn’t actually do much of the cooking, though, thankyouverymuch. Sometimes, I just can’t hack it and I need to call in my girls to bring the potato salad and the spinach salad and the flag cake. I bought chicken drumsticks and pre-made hamburger patties and called it a day.

Except, this guy had been hanging around for almost a week waiting to be eaten and I just couldn’t let him languish anymore. He’d been found on my desk one day last week and I’d been contemplating in deep meditation how best to use him up.

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Knowing there might be some vegetarians at the pool on Saturday, I decided to forgo wrapping him entirely in bacon like a mummy and throwing him on the grill, which was my first idea.

In keeping with the water theme, I settled on a zucchini boat. Or, four zucchini boats. Really, they were more like life rafts.

Anyway, I wanted to keep it veggie and I wanted to use stuff that was already in my refrigerator because I’d already been to the store eleventy billion times that week and I was over it. So, without further adieu, this is what I came up with.

Zucchini boat filling

1 block of cream cheese, softened
3 oz bleu cheese
2 cloves of garlic
a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 C mixed red and green peppers, diced
1 tsp Chiliracha (or Sriracha)
1 tsp worchestershire
1/2 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Stir ingredients together and set aside.

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For the boats themselves, just cut a large zucchini in half both the long way and the short way, to make four sections. Then, with a spoon, scoop out the seedy guts.

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I gave my boats each a liberal spray with Pam and a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and then I filled each one with about 1/2 to 3/4 C of the filling, depending on the size of the cavity.

Once all that was done, though, I thought they looked a little naked. I looked around for some Panko or croutons, but alas, the cupboard was bare, Being one to never say never, I whipped a hot dog bun out of the cabinet and popped it under the broiler for a couple of minutes until it was golden brown, and then I cut it up into rustic crouton-sized bits, and I topped each boat with a sprinkling.

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Mr. Meat and Potatoes put them on the grill over indirect heat for about 8 minutes. Of course you can’t turn them unless you want to lose all the good stuff. Basically, you just want that zucchini to get nice and soft, If you cut in and it still has a bit of crunch, throw it back on the grill.

My veggie friends and non-veggie friends alike enjoyed these. and just cut off pieces of each boat as they desired. I’d say this made 8 decent-sized side dishes or could even be 16 appetizer-sized bites.

Happy grilling season to everyone. Here’s to nimble fingers and keeping the fire in the pit and to boats either on the water or on the grill.

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