Cheesy Zucchini Rice

Today's pin  is Cheesy Zucchini Rice from http://bunsinmyoven.com.

I'd been eyeing this recipe for awhile.  It just sounded tasty to me. And easy. And well, you know how much I like quick and easy to prepare foods.  I liked this as well because it combines some protein with a starch and veggie all in one pan.

Things went alright till I needed to add the zucchini.  Have I told you how much I wish recipes would give me the cups or pounds amount and not what size zucchini to use?  Well, yes I have, but I'm doing it again. So I used 1 medium zucchini and that was approximately 3 1/2 cups and I'm wondering a little bit if that was too much. I don't think that you should really say that there are too many veggies, but I had a few problems with the amount...I think.

After you cook the rice you are supposed to remove it from heat and then add the zucchini and cheese etc. Then you cover it and let sit. Now I didn't expect to have very soft zucchini after this point, but it just didn't seemed cooked enough and I wonder if it is because my zucchini was too big of a medium and that made it so it didn't cook well enough. So I put the pot on the heat for a bit longer and cooked till the zucchini was more tender.

After trying it, I also felt there wasn't enough cheese compared to the zucchini and rice so I added about a cup more.  Everyone agreed with the addition, well everyone who doesn't claim to dislike cheese even though he likes cheese sandwiches, pizza, quesadillas...

I generally don't put salt in dishes like this.  I prefer everyone to salt it like they want.  I notice we useless salt this way in general. We all salted ours and then Rex remembered that we had just bought some specialty salt - smoked salt. When we were done eating our first serving we each got a small serving more and added the smoked salt.  Yowsa! This upped the flavor by a long shot and we instantly thought of bacon. We all liked the rice (3 thumbs up and 2 OKs) , but with the addition of this salt we really liked it.

Verdict: the recipe really needs a more specific zucchini amount. If I did have the right amount of zucchini it needed to be cooked softer - for this recipe.  It would be a good side dish to grilled chicken.