Author Marlena Kur's book Stuffed! goes far beyond the typical stuffed bell peppers we all grew up eating. In fact, you'll find a recipe called S'more-Stuffed Sweet Potatoes which uses the familiar S'Mores ingredients and a bit of cinnamon for the filling. The filling is then stuffed into four sweet potato halves and broiled to finish the cooking. The final garnish is a sprinkling of graham cracker crumbs. To me this would make a fine dessert. Later in her book you will find a chapter called Fruit Boats. Fruits such as papaya, watermelon or watermelon are used to prepare Fruit Boats.

Her book contains the following chapters:

Pepper Boats
Cucumber Boats
Eggplant Boats
Sweet Potato Boats
Squash Boats
Mushroom Boats
Baked Potato Boats
Avocado Boats
Tomato Boats
Zucchini Boats
Fruit Boats

Illustrating the recipes are numerous luscious color photos found throughout her book.

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

Stuffed! by Marlena Kur is all about edible food boats. Everything from avocado to zucchini is covered in this book. I found a recipe in every section that I wanted to try. I admit my favorite might be the s'more stuffed sweet potato which includes chocolate, marshmallows, and crushed graham crackers. A close second is the shepherd's pie potato boat. The pictures are lovely and tempting. This is a fun cookbook that offers something for everyone!

Stuffed is a great recipe book for people who love veggies. The best recipe was the butternut squash one I actually made it last night and my kids loved it!!

I received a copy of this for a fair and honest review. I am a lover of food and the joy that it brings to my heart and stomach. Food is a big part of my life, culture and family. I saw this and I love stuffed mushroom and there was a whole section on the mushroom. So I was right on board to see what else could be stuffed. I love how each vegetable had its own section and fruit was in a section of its own.

Looking for ways to serve up vegetables in a new and interesting way? Then this is the book for you! Some ideas are so unique, as in serving butternut squash stuffed with something other than stuffing. And serving sweet potatoes with choices other than with marshmallows (though there is a dessert choice using them). Really well thought out with ideas the average cook can easily adapt to their regular menu.

Marlena had some really creative takes on food. Food boats the perfect vessel and such a great way to present food. I had not considered all of the fruits and vegetables that could be used as boats, so this did a great job in expanding the food boat horizons. Can't wait to try some of these awesome recipes!

Some classic combos but also some rather strange fillings - poached egg in a pepper shell or marshmallow and chocolate in a sweet potato shell anyone? Or cold fillings like guacamole or chickpeas sitting on top of a hot shell? And why use ingredients like garlic powder when finely chopped fresh garlic would be a more obvious choice? It may be the new trend but I don’t think that vegetable boats are really for me. Sorry!

Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review.

I absolutely love this digital copy of Stuffed! by Marlena Kur. I follow a vegan diet and the recipes (although some contain meat and diary) are easy make switches to accommodate my vegan diet. The cook book is so different from the usual cookbooks that have mains, breakfasts, desert recipes etc., Thanks so much for the ARC I will definitely be treating myself to a hardcopy of this beautifully illustrated book..

I can't believe I have been missing out on so many wonderful meals! Stuffed opened my eyes to the many possibilities of stuffing different vegetables (some I never even thought of) to make tasty, fresh, and healthy meals! Great variety of recipes and beautiful photos of the finished product. Loved this book and pre-ordered mine!

Stuffed! by Marlena Kur
The Art of the Edible Vegetable Boat

Marlena Kur, creator of Zest My Lemon on Instagram has broken the book into eleven chapters all dealing with creative ways to “stuff” peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, sweet potatoes, squash, mushrooms, baked potatoes, avocados, tomatoes, zucchinis, and various fruits.

The photography is gorgeous and made me want to take a bite more than once. Each recipe was colorful and delicious sounding. Some might be easier to assemble and keep together than others as some vegetables are rounder than others.

The ideas for fillings no doubt could be interchangeable with Philly steak filling in a potato instead of a pepper or hummus in a cucumber instead of a pepper. So many ideas and now I am thinking of other stuffings to try in various food “boats”.

Some of the ideas that I wrote down are:

The sweet potato with s’mores topping – oh my – would love to try chocolate and marshmallow on a sweet potato someday!

Oatmeal in a squash with a lot of tasty additions? I can definitely see that as a delicious meal sometime in the future. I can also see this for brunch or perhaps even served in a B&B somewhere.

Shepherd’s Pie potato boats…intriguing idea…hmm…or filled with moussaka

Buffalo Chicken potato boats…yum!

Okay…did not know that the author of this gorgeous book with intriguing recipes had a website or Instagram presence so am off to join and do some more sleuthing and recipe reading.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing & NetGalley for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

This is a great recipe book for getting vegetables into your diet. It’s full of amazing recipes and the photos are amazing.

Stuffed! Is a fun cook book with new ideas for meals or sides!.=
I read many fun, new recopies that will break me out of ho-hum. Some of the directions were a little confusing in their wording and I am nervous about trying a few of these recipes.
There are a few I look forward to trying (mostly the peppers and baked potatoes; too bad I'm not an avocado fan!)
This was interesting but not something I would use a lot.

A nice collection of recipes involving stuffing fruit or vegetables. Think stuffed peppers with a twist.
The featured 'boats' include:

Bell Peppers
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Aubergine
Sweet Potato
Squash
Mushroom
Potato
Avocado
Tomato
Zucchini
Fruit

Overall, some great variations of classic dishes, and some new things to try.

Looks lovely but the format is sadly incompatible with my device so I cannot provide proper feedback. My apologies. I will be certain to check it out once it’s published. Thanks for the opportunity!

I mistakenly assumed this was a vegetarian cookbook since it's about stuffed vegetables, which it is decidedly not. The recipes rely heavily on meat, eggs and cheese, with few vegetarian selections and few vegan options. The start of the book offers more vegetarian options, but those ones are not really to my family's tastes (such as "Burnt Eggplant, Tahini, and Pomegranate Cucumber Boats").

This will be a great cookbook for paleo dieters, as it contains very few grains at all and not much gluten. It is likely to please more adult palates, but I'm not sure how well it would work for families with young kids. I cook with a lot of veggies (they're the staple of our meals) but I'm not sure my kids would eat many of these dishes -- or they'd eat the meat and cheese fillings out of them and leave the healthy veggie boats behind.

While touted as quick and easy, I'm not sure I'd qualify most of the recipes in this way. The Tuna Poke Avocado Boats certainly would, since the fish is raw, but the other ingredients need to be prepped and marinaded for a half hour there too. Many of the recipes involve cooking the "boats" (potatoes, squash, mushrooms, etc.) first and then filling with various things (generally cooked themselves) and cooking again. The starter dishes are quicker, but you'd still have to make something else for dinner when you made those.

Sample dishes:

Hummus and Crudites Bell Pepper Boats
Couscous, Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Cucumber Boats
Saffron Chicken with Fennel Salad Cucumber Boats
Creamed Corn Stuffed Eggplant Boats
'Smore Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Spaghetti Squash Egg Bakes
Chicken Enchilada Portobello Boats
Broccoli and Tahini Stuffed Potatoes
Greek Lamb and Rice Stuffed Tomatoes

The book has color photos but could use far more of them. It would also be helped by some sort of description or intro to each dish. There is no information given for the recipes, not even a chatty sentence about what it tastes like or easy substitutions.

According to the author's bio, she worked in insurance and then rose to fame in 2015 via Instagram and is now a full time mother, blogger, "influencer" and "ambassador" for a variety of food brands. It would have been fun to have an Instagram picture of each of the recipes and even a few hash tags.

This book is likely to be popular with Kur's fans and with people who avoid gluten/grains and who cook with meat, dairy and whole foods with a variety of flavors.

This cookbook shows you how to make “boats” out of different types of food. These “boats” are like plates, but they use one fruit or vegetable for the bottom of the boat, and many other foods are used to fill up the boat.
Peppers are cut in half and filled with hummus, tomatoes, carrots and celery. Another tempting choice is Philly cheesesteak pepper boats, they contain steak, cheese, peppers, mushrooms, onions and butter.
The ingredients are put together easily, and baked and broiled to make a tasty entree.
A dinner entree is made from lobster tails, cucumbers, celery, scallions and other spices.
Eggplants are the basis for eggplant-parmesan boats that contain eggplant, mozzarella, tomatoes, tomato sauce and breadcrumbs that can be made and cooked in about half an hour.
The Asian Stir Fry Stuffed Sweet Potatoes look amazing, they are stuffed with sweet potatoes, broccoli, mushrooms and carrots.
The S’mores Stuffed Sweet Potatoes contain sweet potatoes, chocolate,graham crackers and marshmallows that are mixed together or layered to make a gooey chunk of sweetness!
There is even a wild mushroom and herb polenta in a portobello boat, that has layers of mushrooms, sauce and polenta that will fill you up for a while!
Kids will love making boats out of their food, and guests will be able to use their imaginations to make their boats - enjoy!

I'll be honest. I am not going to make vegetable boats for weekday dinners. I requested this book to find out how to enhance my party food - I usually end up getting veg sticks, tortilla and dips- and grapes and cheese on sticks.
This book gives a lot of interesting ideas, I loved the 'cucumber boats' section. the book is categorised pepper, cucumber, baked potato, tomato, zuccini, sweet potato, eggplant boats , etc sections.
Lovely recipes, and would love to try a few. My only critism would be that I wish there was a bit more photographs. Seeing the end result is the main motivation for me to try these recipes.

Food as the vehicle why didn't I think of that? My mother used to make cucumber boats and stuffed peppers but I guess I had forgotten about preparing food that way. Lots of good ideas for fun and healthy meals.