As unappetizing as this may sound to an adult (should a vegetarian be considered a hypocrite for encouraging the consumption of aliens?) kids love stuff like this, and by this I mean: GIMMICKS!
Trust me. Make them for your kids. They won't even know that they are eating vegetables. As moms, we can feel good about tricking our kids into eating green things.
Serves 4
Preheat oven to 350
4 small to medium sized patty pan squash
1/2 lb ground beef or italian sausage (or vegetarian substitute)
1 cup marinara sauce
1/2 cup shredded cheese
So start out with these strangely shaped and hard to find things called patty pan squashes?...squashi?...squashies? Is there a plural for the word squash? Nevermind, that's not imporant when fooling gullible kids into eating things they ordinarily wouldn't try.
Wash the patty pans well and cut off any "icky" looking dents or bruises, afterall, any mom knows kids hate "icky things" so lets just get that out of the way at the jump okay? Then think Halloween and carve those babies by cutting around the top stem and removing it. Hollow them out by digging out the seeds with a spoon just as you would a pumpkin. Brown the meat (or meat substitute, in our case we use Morning Star Farms Crumblers) and mix the marinara sauce in. Spoon the meat and sauce mixture into the "alien boats" and top with shredded cheese of your liking-mozzerella or cheddar or whatever.
Bake them at 350 for about 30 minutes and then tell your kids that alien space ships landed on their plates and the *ONLY* way to save humanity is to eat them before the aliens escape and enslave all humankind. Enjoy a nice warm full belly as well as the nightmares that are likely to ensue...but hey, they ate a vegetable.
