The Zucchini Challenge

            Leaving the garden unmonitored for four days in August is bound to cause trouble and it did!  The cucumbers I had been saving for making my dill pickles had gotten rather large and one was easily the size of my fist. But my lovely ridged Italian zucchini, which we have enjoyed in tasty stir-fries, or very young – just sliced with a dab of blue cheese as an appetizer had way exceeded my bounds in size for picking zucchini. They were as long as my forearm!  What was worse, there were several of them!

            This called for some determined action and I gave myself  the  “Zucchini Challenge” to come up with a dinner where every course included zucchini in some form, without being too obvious about it and yet being varied and delicious, rather than a monotonous one flavor deal. It is fortunate that zucchini is so malleable to flavors and can easily be disguised in texture.

So, setting Joe’s restaurant near Lancaster Pennsylvania as my ideal, where everything in the menu contained mushrooms as an ingredient, I set out to design my menu.  Starters: young zucchini slices with a dab of Roquefort and savory Madeleines made with shredded zucchini, Parmesan cheese, flour and eggs. Soup: Creamy zucchini ‘shape-up” soup with zucchini-rosemary-multi seed bread. Main course: zucchini-almond gratin. Salad: bib lettuce-orange sections-thin sliced zucchini with lemony peanut vinaigrette. Desert: hearty cinnamon-raisin-pecan cupcakes, with shredded zucchini substituting for the original shredded apple in my recipe. For anyone feeling that they really missed meat, I would serve sliced ham garnished with thin slices of zucchini twists.

An extra benefit in all these dishes is that zucchini has almost no calories by itself and whenever it substitutes for something else, you save some of those carbohydrate calories.  A wonderful example is the soup mentioned above, which can be served cold or warm, tastes like a more flavorful vichyssoise, but has only a fraction of the calories.

                        Creamy zucchini ‘shape up’ soup

In a 3 quart pot sauté 1 large onion and 1 stalk of celery with leaves,  coarsely chopped in 1 Tblp. olive oil for 5 minutes.  Stir in 1 tsp. thyme, then add 1 unpeeled large pickling cucumber (or seeded regular cucumber) and 1 pound zucchini, all coarsely chopped.  If zucchini has seriously matured, remove the seeds. Add 2 cups buillion and enough water to cover. Bring to boil and cook for 20 minutes until vegetables are soft. Remove from heat and add ¼ cup chopped parsley.  When cooled, add 4 chopped scallions with green part, 1/8 tsp. Tabasco, 3 Tblsp. rice vinegar and process in blender in batches with 2 cups non-fat yoghurt. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste. Serve garnished with chopped red pepper and/or Caesar croutons.

                                    Almond-zucchini gratin.

            This is another recipe that uses a lot of the vegetable.  In a large bowl mix 4 cups coarsely grated zucchini or yellow summer squash with 1 ¼ cups Italian bread crumbs, 2/3 cups grated cheddar cheese and ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese. In 2 Tblsp. butter sauté 1 large chopped onion with ¼ tsp. garlic powder and 1 tsp. thyme for 5 minutes, add in 1 tsp. salt, ¼ tsp. pepper and ½ cup slivered almonds to heat and stir into the zucchini mixture. Turn all in a buttered 8x8 inch casserole. In a small bowl beat together 2 large eggs and ½ cup milk. Pour over the zucchini mixture in the casserole, making sure that it is evenly moistened. Sprinkle with grated sharp cheddar cheese or cover with thin slices of Provolone and bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes until top is browned and the filling is set. This dish freezes well and can be reheated.

            Benjamin Franklin is purported to have said: “’Waste not, want not” and I tend to agree if the results can all be delicious.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)