Bean-stuffed Zucchini

I was thinking about beans and zucchini when it occurred to me that maybe I could stuff zucchini with beans - making a variation of this theme. I would have preferred to make this with some nice large home-grown zucchini, but I couldn't wait for some to magically appear so I went ahead and did it with the small ones I can get at the stores - picking the largest ones they had.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (~ ¹/₂ lb) dried pinto beans, soaked overnight
- water
- lard
- 1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
- 1 large clove of garlic, chopped
- 1 jalapeño pepper, chopped
- 4 medium sized zucchini, halved lengthwise and hollowed
- grated cheddar cheese
to serve:
- pico de gallo

The pinto beans were soaked in an excess of cold water overnight.

The coarsely chopped onion was fried in lard until starting to brown. The soaked beans were added WITH the water they were soaking in. Added salt, chopped garlic, chopped jalapeño (including seeds). The pot was brought to a boil and kept boiling for 2 hours, adding more water as needed.


The zucchini were halved, hollowed with a tsp and arranged in a deep baking pan. The beans were distributed evenly between the zucchini halves and the whole thing was baked for 40 minutes at 200 C (400 F).^[1]


After removing from the oven, the bean-stuffed zucchini were sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese - served immediately with pico de gallo on the side.


^[1] If I had used large zucchini, I would probably have baked them a little longer to make sure they were done.