My old standby that is quite popular with the younger crowd are chocolate zucchini muffins (thanks to Jill Levien).
This year, I branched out and went for Sue LoVerso's chocolate zucchini bread. I did this one both for home and for a potluck; it was popular.
I also signed up to feed a film crew worth of 15-year-olds one weekend. Not knowing if all present were carnivoes, I opted for one vegetarian zucchini pasta casserole in addition to the very meaty version I usually make.
There were many dinners that included stir fried zucchini (or summer squash) with garlic.
But I was still feeling overwhelmed, so I went for a variant of the lindentree casserole, which I'll call How to use up a ton of squash in something vaguely reminescent of lasagna.
Next I went to some of my favorite cookbooks and found a fabulous recipe for zucchini pizza crust from Moosewood's original cookbook. I put cheese and sauce and onions and other goodies on it and thought it was fabulous!
I may try some zucchini noodles this weekend (use a vegetable peeler to turn a zucchini into noodles; blanch them and then serve with pesto or tomato sauce or any pasta sauce you'd like).
Last year, I had a couple of other recipes I used, but didn't seem to write down:
- Squash fritters: basically take some shredded squash, an egg or two, some parmesan cheese and enough flour to give you something you can shape into patties. Then fry them or bake them. I love these as a late night, post-soccer game snack.
- Stuffed Squash: scoop out the gust of the squash and saute with onion, garlic, olive oil, maybe tomato, whatever spices you got from the farm and then enough bread crumbs to dry it out. Put it in the squashes and bake until the shells are soft. Tomato sauce is nice on these.
- Squashed Slaw: Make something like cole slaw, but use shredded zucchini instead of cabbage.
- And finally, this amazingly fudgey chocolate zucchini cake is shocking.
Don't forget old standbys such as ratatouille, sauted squash with garlic and basil, lasagna with sliced squash instead of pasta/noodles.
Enjoy!
One of my favorites is zucchini and brie soup. I prefer a simple version--shredded zucchini in chicken stock, a bit of thickener, a little butter and cream, and then melt some brie in at the end. The flavors go together surprisingly well.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds pretty amazing ... I've never really cooked with brie. Good thing I'm dashing to the store today!
DeleteYou just have to be gentle with it. I cooked it too hot once, and ended up with little chewy chunks of cheese that wouldn't melt. The recipe I use is here:
Deletehttp://www.russandnancy.com/recipes/zucchini_and_brie_soup
You can pick how rich you want it to be by using milk, half-and-half, or cream. It's nice because the whole thing comes together pretty quickly. You can make it from scratch in the time it takes for a loaf of bread to bake.
Our new favorite this year is grilled squash as a veggie side dish (would likely work roasted as well). I find we eat more when prepared this way, usually 1 squash per person. Heat grill on high and then reduce to medium. Cut ends off the squash, slice lengthwise into quarters (or more if large). Rub all 3 sides with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder (or our favorite, Penzey's Ruth Ann's Muskego Ave Seasoning). Grill about 2.5 minutes per side.
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