Stuffed Zucchini

So we grew up on stuffed zucchini...whenever one got away on the plant and came into the kitchen with tough skin and big seeds, Mum would stuff it with mince and cheese...YUM!
Being that I am a mostly vegetarian now, and we have a garden that also grows zucchinis of size, I needed to come up with a new stuffing plan.
Upon return recently there were a couple of large yellow zucchinis in the garden that my husband was particularly proud of!

Zucchinis first must be gutted - remove the seeds!

I remove the seeds after cutting the zucchini in half long ways (again, apologies for the strange angle of the image, I still can't figure out why it does that!).
I then made a rice, tomato mixture which involved sauteeing off some leeks from the garden, a cup of rice, a handful of chopped fresh tomatoes, a big handful of parsley and one and a half cups of water or stock - salt and pepper. I cooked this through, using the absorption method.
I then added it to the zucchini.

The next bit involves cooking the zucchini.
So I place the two halves together and wrap them in foil and placed them in a large baking dish.

This is then baked at about 180 degrees for 25-40 minutes, depending on the size and bulkiness of the zucchini. You want it to be soft in the middle.

The finished product was delicious and served with a garden salad (literally from the garden!), with lettuce, spinach, sorrel, radish, cucumber and celery.

You definitely don't want to eat the skin, but the flesh of the zucchini is melt in the mouth delicious!