Stuffed Eight Ball Zucchini

The name of this zucchini is so funny, isn’t it? We laughed when I found on the Internet that it is called 8 ball zucchini. I wonder if there is a story behind this name. I love its name as much as how it looks. They are so lovely!
These zucchinis are not that popular in my city, and I had never tried to cook them until today. I saw them stuffed on several food blogs. I must admit that I envied these bloggers every time I saw these cute balls and said internally: “I wish I could find 8 ball zucchinis here!”

We received a package of fresh foods from mom II today. A great fresh fragrance welcomed us as we opened the package. There were fresh and organic tomatoes, green peppers, artichokes, several fresh herbs, topinamburs, green olives, dried figs, goat cheese and some homemade bread in the package. They are all in the kitchen and I can’t wait to try them all! However, one of the vegetables in the box was a great surprise for me and it made me much happier! She sent 2 eight ball zucchinis with a note on them. The note says “These zucchinis are already in the fridge, that’s why I’m sending only two. I thought you will like these ball shaped zucchinis. The small one is for you, the bigger is for my son. Enjoy!” I couldn’t believe! We hadn’t talked about these zucchinis before, she just anticipated that I would love them. How nice!

I had been planning to use bulgur when stuffing vegetables for some time, so I made these stuffed zucchinis with bulgur and mince for the first time. They were absolutely scrumptious! I already had 4 green bell peppers, so I stuffed them with the same stuffing mixture.

Check out Zucchini Fritters to use up the insides you scoop out.

Print

Stuffed Eight Ball Zucchini

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 40 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
• Yield: 6 1x

Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 2 eight ball zucchinis
• 4 green bell peppers
• 1 cup water
• 150g mince
• 100g bulgur
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• ½ tbsp pepper or tomato paste
• ½ tbsp extra pepper paste
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp olive oil (extra)
• ½ lemon, squeezed
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• ¼ bunch of parsley, chopped
• ¼ bunch of fresh dill, chopped
• a few fresh mint sprigs, chopped
• ground black pepper to taste
• cumin to taste
• dried thyme to taste
• salt to taste

Instructions

1. Cut the tops of zucchinis and peppers, but do not throw them away. Scoop out the insides of zucchini and remove the seeds of peppers. You can use the zucchini insides making zucchini fritters if you don’t want to waste them.
2. Mix all ingredients and stuff zucchinis and peppers with this mixture. Do not overfill them, leave about ½ inch to their tops as bulgur will rise when cooked. Place stuffed vegetables into a pot.
3. Loosen pepper paste in water and pour it on the stuffed veggies. Cook it over medium heat for about 40 minutes until they get soft enough.
4. Drizzle them with 1 tbsp olive oil when cooked. Serve warm with a dollop of yogurt.