I was scanning the NYT health section and came across two delicious sounding zuchinni recipes that I would love to try:

Greek Zucchini and Herb Pie

Provencal Zucchini and Swiss Chard Tart

Let me know if you try either of these. I need to wait for the zucchini crop to explode…

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Here we go.

Breakfast

Zucchini ricotta frittata
Zucchini chickpea pancakes (Yes, a bit more savory than pancakes at iHop.)

Lunch

Zucchini and cheese patties
Zucchini cakes (You can do this on the BBQ.)

Dinner

Shrimp and zucchini stir fry with crispy basil
Zucchini dumplings (Really nice technique.)
Zucchini pasta (Delicious AND low carb.)

And for desert:
Zucchini bread
Zucchini chocolate muffins

You haven’t run out of zucchini, have you?

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No, not a savory pie with eggs and cheese and herbs but, well…like an apple pie. With all it’s cinnamony homey goodness. Why not? There’s zucchini bread and muffins and cookies…

Her husband was so happy when he got home and immediately sat down to what he thought was one of her excellent flaky apple pies. I mean the whole house smelled so good. He took a bite and thought, hmmm, this is different…upon closer inspection he realized it wasn’t apple but…argh, could it be…ugh, zucchini!

He was livid! You see, ever since he was a young lad he was tortured with over cooked watery zucchini and vowed never to eat it again.

  Zucchini Crisp Ingredients

My sister swears it tastes just like apple pie so
I figured why not?

I’m not much of a pie baker but love crisps so today
I made the all American favorite… Zucchini Crisp.

Crisp Topping

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup rolled oats, old fashion style
• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, Mountain Rose
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, Redmond
• 4 ounces sweet butter, chilled, cut into small pieces

Mix together all the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl. Use your fingers and mix in the butter with the dry ingredients until completely incorporated. The topping should hold together when squeezed together but fall apart into pea size pieces easily. Set aside.

Any extra can be put into a airtight container and refrigerated for two weeks or frozen for up to 3 months. Double the recipe to make extra if you wish, the topping is nice to have on hand for a quick dessert.

Now for the Zucchini Filling:

• 4 cups zucchini or other summer squash cut into 3/4″ pieces
• 1 Tablespoon Minute Tapioca
• 2 teaspoons of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 Tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat your oven to 350F. Butter a 8-9″ baking dish

Mix all of the ingredients together and pour into baking dish.

Top with approximately 1 1/4 cup crisp topping.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until the zucchini are soft and the top is a crispy golden brown.

Zucchini Crisp ala Mode

Serve warm plain or ala mode with some home made frozen yogurt or ice cream.

The taste? It’s…squashy – kind of like pumpkin. The flavor does throw you off a bit because you expect…fruit.

Hmmm, I do have some first of the season Gravenstein apples in the crisper…

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Look! It’s our first ripe watermelon

Our little watermelon was finally ripe. I quickly cut it off the vine and brought it in the house for fear it get nibbled on.

Just how can you tell when to harvest a watermelon?
Well after a bit of research along with trial and error from last season, I found the best 3 clues are:

• when you rub your hand over the watermelon you can feel the ridges and bumps
• the closest curly tendril on the vine to the watermelon turns brown
• when you thump the watermelon it sounds hollow – similar to thumping your chest (be sure to test this out multiple times with gusto – comparing the sound of thumping your chest to the sound of thumping the watermelon…especially if your watermelon patch is in the front of your house)
• ok, there’s one more…the light color patch on the watermelon where it sits on the ground will turn from cream to yellow color

Cut the watermelon off the vine – and you know you’ve got a ripe one when the cut stem starts to ooze out a pinkish red ’syrup’…welll unless you planted a yellow or orange watermelon variety.

On other fronts…

Alas, the cucumber plants are nearing their last legs so I expect a few more until I pull them out. Those vines have some sort of disease so we won’t put them into our compost bin. I don’t want to infect the compost with whatever disease is ailing the cucumbers – this would have the potential to spread the disease when I use the compost to ‘enrich’ the soil in the future.

Despite the vermin eating a lot of our kale and lettuce we should have some to harvest next week. The vermin proofing has had mixed results. The vermin seem to mostly go after the amaranth flowers and are leaving the green leafies alone…for the moment.

I did, I think, stumble upon a great natural aphid spray. The vermin vinaigrette I sprayed on all the kale seemed to get rid of all the aphids! The kale is looking as beautiful and green as ever since the spray Well, as well as now growing in totally rehabilitated enriched soil!

We have a big weekend ahead getting some of our mobile pots planted.

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Truth be told, wild squashes tended to be void of edible material and were very bitter, bleck. But, some industrious farmer saw potential and cultivated these wild barely edible gourds to the point that when Chris Columbus landed in the ‘New’ world he had to bring this delectable Native American food back to the Queen.

Zucchini is considered a summer squash and cousin to melons and cucumbers. They come in many varieties with each type sporting distinct shapes, color and flavor. Since these vegetables are in the same family, you can plant these in rotation together. Rotating as in not planting the veggies of the same family in the same bed for at least three years.

In the Territorial Seed Company catalog there are 16 varieties from the more common green zucchini to yellow crook necks to varigated ridged zuc’s to disk shaped saucers in hues of white, yellow and many shades of green to round globe shaped squash. All are tasty, tender and creamy in texture.

Creamy you say?

Why yes. In the case of summer squash, size does matter and the smaller the better – say 4″ in diameter for the round or saucers and no more than 6″ for the elongated varieties. As summer squash grow they fill up with water so when you cook them the flavor and texture – are, well… watery. Most of the time these overgrown watery squash are pre-ordained for zucchini bread – who could complain about that?

Well, its nice to have variety so chefs long ago devised ways to use up these bronto-zucchinis. When I end up with bronto squash – which, well, honestly hasn’t happened this year due to my poor soil – everything is growing slowly and staying tiny…

…Nonetheless, this zucchini lasagna is a favorite among my low-carb cooking clients. For this particular lasagna, I actually had to run out and buy large zuc’s!

Here is the recipe for a 9″ x 9″ lasagna using zucchini in place of the pasta.

One way to reduce the water in any vegetable is to salt it – through the magic of osmosis the water is drawn out.

The ideal size of zucchini for this is about 12″. Take a 10 or 12″ chef’s knife and slice the zucchini lengthwise into approximately 3/8″ slices. Lay these out on clean kitchen towels and lightly salt with a few pinches for each side. Cover with another kitchen towel and weigh down with a sheet pan or cutting board.

Now onto preparing the rest of the ingredients. You can use whatever you traditionally use for your lasagna. One version of mine uses a layer of ground turkey, a mixture of spinach and ricotta, marinara, parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

The turkey mixture is a take on bolognese -

Brown 3/4 pound of ground free range dark meat turkey with 1/2 a diced onion, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 diced carrot and celery stalk, 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning, 1 bay leaf and a big pinch of sea salt.

When the turkey is cooked through and the liquid is evaporated add 1 1/2 cups (or more) of red wine. Now about that red wine…don’t go using that two buck swill – though you don’t need to break the bank either…just use something you could actually drink and enjoy.

Simmer until it is almost all evaporated. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream and simmer until it is almost evaporated.

Now add about 1 1/2 cups of your favorite marinara.

Simmer until it is very thick. Season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

For the spinach ricotta mixture: defrost 1 bag of chopped organic spinach – squeeze out as much excess water as possible and mix with 1 egg, a 15 oz tub of whole milk ricotta, salt and pepper to taste.

Then you want to have about 2 cups of marinara or other favorite pasta sauce, 1 1/2 to 2 cups of grated mozzarella and 1/3 cup grated parmesan ready for the next step.

By now your zucchini should have a good amount of water pressed out. You can see in the picture the zucchini strips laid out on the towels.

Before assembly preheat your oven to 350F.

Assembly: oil a 9″ x 9″ pan with extra virgin olive oil

Layer 1: pour in about 1/2 cup of marinara then lay down enough zucchini strips to cover the bottom – overlapping is fine.

Layer 2: spread the turkey ‘bolognese’ over the zucchini and sprinkle over the turkey half of the parmesan. Lay down another layer of zucchini.

Layer 3: spread the spinach ricotta over the zucchini and lay another layer of zucchini over that.

Layer 4: pour a nice layer of marinara over the top and spread to the edges. Pop into the oven.

Bake for about 1 hour.

Remove from oven and top with the grated mozzarella and remaining parmesan. Return to oven and bake another 30 minutes or until the mozzarella has melted and turned a nice golden brown.

Low-Carb, Wheat-Free Zucchini Lasagna

Let rest for 15 to 20 minutes then serve. Enjoy!

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By the end of August (if not sooner) comes the question:

We hear ya.

So, every August Friday – starting tomorrow – we’ll feature a post about the wonderful zucchini. And every August Tuesday, we’ll blog about tomatoes.

Should be fun.
What are your favorite zucchini and tomato recipes?

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