I love all the things I'm currently seeing at the farmer's markets around town. The wonderfully communal culture in Portland also brings with it some generous friends and co-workers who share fresh produce from their fruitful gardens. This is so welcome, as our garden has been unfortunately neglected this summer, so I'll take all the help I can get.
Last week, I uncovered some amazingly supersized zucchini in my office kitchen, which got me thinking about zucchini recipes. My mini happens to love zucchini, which is a blessing on its own and she seems to like anything in quiche form, which gave me the idea for this zucchini quiche. Hope you like it and are able to adapt it to your own tastes and preferences:
Fooditka's Zucchini Quiche (serves 3)
Ingredients:
1 - 1 1/2 cups of diced zucchini
1 small red onion, diced
4 eggs
3 tbs of milk
1/4 cup of shredded smoked gouda cheese
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place round casserole dish into the oven to heat it up.
In the meantime, sautee the zucchini and onion until golden brown and add salt and pepper. Whisk the eggs until light and fluffy and add the milk. Whisk for another few seconds.
Take the hot casserole dish out of the oven and add the sauteed zucchini/onion mixture. Then add the egg/milk mixture and distribute evenly. Add the cheese at the end.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown and puffed up.
Enjoy with a crusty piece of bread or simply on its own!
Since last week was a little aggressive on the calories at SXSW, I thought to tone it down a bit by cooking up something healthy and wholesome. Looking through my Healthy Eating Pinterest board, I picked out this awesome looking recipe for spicy turkey and zucchini burgers, reminding me of my mom's fasirky, which are essentially just that minus the spice and the zucchini.
If you fancy a good meatloaf, you'll love this dish, as it's essentially made in the same way - by mashing all the ingredients together and enjoying their individual uniqueness. The zucchini really added something special and made each bite moist and vibrant. The lemon zest, which went into this as well as the yogurt sauce injected a bit of freshness and zing - and eliminated the need for extra salt. You can very well have this dish on its own or pair it with a nice, wholesome quinoa like we did. Enjoy!
Spicy Turkey & Zucchini Burgers, recipe courtesy of Simply Recipes
With the big blizzard coming our way tomorrow, we'll no doubt be inside, keeping warm and cozy. And it's a perfect opportunity to cook up something hearty and delicious, such as this different take on chicken parm. I made this a few weeks ago when I had a huge amount of leftover zucchini, and decided to add it to this simple chicken dish. It worked out well and provided something earthier but still low carb. Coupling it with a simple arugula salad with slivers of grapefruit, it filled up our bellies but still left us feeling light and energized.
Fooditka's Non-Traditional Chicken Parm (serves 2)
Ingredients:
2 large zucchini (green or yellow), cut into large circles, 1/4 inch thick
2-3 medium tomatoes, sliced into circles
2-3 pieces of chicken cutlets
Pre-made marinara sauce
1 cup, shredded mozzarella cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
2 large handfuls of arugula
1 large grapefruit, cut into segments
Olive oil or vinegar
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Season chicken with salt and pepper and then grill on an oiled grill pan until cooked through (4-5 minutes on each side). In the meantime, prepare a square casserole dish and layer it with tomato sauce, zucchini, and then the grilled chicken. Top with a little bit of cheese and then continue layering with the zucchini and the chicken. Top with cheese and sliced tomatoes. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. If you need to turn up the heat in the oven, don't be afraid to do so.
Make salad by topping the arugula with the grapefruit wedges and then season with olive oil, vinegar and a bit of salt and pepper.
Enjoy with a nice, big glass of vino.
With a lot of leftover zucchini in my fridge, which was a gift from my parents before they left for Slovakia, I had to get inventive about what to do with it. The zucchini was on the large side, which meant it had a lot of yummy flesh and plenty of surface area to stuff it, which is exactly what I decided to do with it.
Using a melon baller to take the inside flesh out, I then chopped it up and mixed it with other healthful ingredients such as as tomatoes, celery and onion, and then restuffed it back into the zucchini. The end result was a gorgeously vibrant gourd stuffed with lots of flavorful ingredients, which we enjoyed as the main part of our dinner. Even Dan who's not a huge fan of zucchini enjoyed this one.
Fooditka's Stuffed Zucchini
Ingredients (serves 2)
2 large zucchinis, cut in half and the flesh scooped out with a spoon or a mellon baller
1 medium tomato, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
2-3 large pieces of sopressata, chopped
2-3 tbs of breadcrumbs (you can eyeball it)
2 tbs of fontina cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
Directions:
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Line baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Combine the zucchini, tomatoes, onion, celery, sopressata and breadcrumbs in a medium sized bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Stuffed inside the zucchini and drizzle with olive oil and then top with cheese.
Bake for about 25-30 mins or until the top gets brown and the cheese melts. Let cool for 5 minutes and then enjoy!
Since summer is officially upon us, I've been trying to cook light, healthy foods that fill me up but don't leave me feeling weighed down. Fish is great for this, as it's easy to digest and when prepared on a grill it's super fresh and has that lovely charred flavor. The dish you see here took me about a half hour to prepare and cook, which is really convenient, especially on a weeknight. Here's what I did:
Grilled Swordfish Steaks (serves 2)
Ingredients:
2 medium sized fresh swordfish steaks (or frozen)
1 green zucchini, sliced into circles
1 yellow zucchini, sliced into circles
1/2 red onion sliced the same width as the zucchini
Olive oil
Coarse salt and pepper
Lemon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees for the zucchini and also preheat the grill or grillpan for the fish. Make sure to oil the grill or grillpan lightly with olive oil.
Toss the zucchini and onions in olive oil (2 generous glugs) and season with salt and pepper. Place on a lined baking sheet and cook for about 25 minutes, or until the zucchini gets nice and brown. Turn them over halfway into the cooking process, so both sides get well done.
Season fish with salt and pepper. Place swordfish steaks on the grill/grillpan and cook for about 5 minutes on each side. Rotate 45 degrees halfway into the cooking process to get nice crosshatch grill marks. Remove from grill, and spritz with lemon. Serve with the warm zucchini, and enjoy with a cold glass of chardonnay.
Zucchini and lemons? You must be thinking to yourself, "what a weird combination?" I thought so too but was inpired to make these cookies from the September issue of Everyday Food magazine. It's an interesting and unusual mix of flavors that I was eager to try, and lo and behold, they turned out yummy and were super easy to make.
I loved how the zucchini provided great color to the cookies but it was very mild, offering only a slight hint of earthiness. The lemon was definitely more pronounced and I loved biting into this cookie, savoring its chewy consistency and bright, refreshing flavors. I call it a summery, grown-up cookie. Sharing them with friends, Dan and Crystal, they were impressed and surprised by how much they loved this unusual treat. Here's how you make it:
Lemon-Zucchini Cornmeal Cookies (Makes 25 cookies)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup of confectioners' sugar1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract1 teaspoon packed finely grated lemon zest1 teaspoon coarse salt1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled1/2 cup of fine cornmeal1 medium zucchini, grated on small holes of a box grater (about 1 cup)
Directions:Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until pale and fluffy. Stir in vanilla, lemon zest and salt. Add flour and cornmeal and mix until mixture is crumbly. Add zucchini and stir until thick dough forms.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoons, 2 inches apart onto two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until cookies are light golden brown at edges, 25-30 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cool completely on wire racks.
