Stuffed round zucchini

Growing up I was taught never to throw away any food. Leftovers were sacred, even when we had so many of them that we had to eat the same thing over and over again. I have to say, though, that there are some ways to make leftovers interesting —sometimes even more interesting that the original dish. Take fried risotto, for example. I like it even more than risotto itself. Same goes with my mom's meatballs —I definitely like them much more than her boiled dinner, which I actually don't care much for.

Last week I cooked like a maniac, mostly to gear up for cooking Thanksgiving dinner this week. I had to make room in the fridge because our little Swiss fridge here is so tiny I'll have to pick up the turkey on the same day I'm cooking it because there's no way in hell I'll be able to stick in the fridge. And of course I ended up with lots of leftovers, which I had to use ASAP because, you guessed it, I needed the tupperware and I needed the fridge to be as empty as possible. So I came up with this recipe... I figured that by combining great ingredients the result would be great too. And I was right.

STUFFED ZUCCHINI

For 3:
3 round zucchini
1 cup leftover saffron risotto (or one cup cooked rice)
3 hot Italian sausage links
1 onion, chopped
1 cup tomato sauce (I used the leftover from my ossobuco recipe)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 cup broth

Cut the top of each round zucchini off, then scoop out the pulp with a spoon. Mince it, mix it with the chopped onion. Crumble sausage and saute it with onion and zucchini mixture, stirring to crumble. When the sausage is browned, add rice, sauce and cheese, stirring well to mix.

Fill each zucchini with sausage mixture and place in a baking dish. Pour broth into the baking dish (so the zucchini won't stick to the bottom of the dish) and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for about 25 minutes.