Stacked Veggie Enchiladas

I have been trying to come up with a really good recipe to break my blogging fast, but we haven't been cooking much recently.  I've been busy with work and we have been a little lazy of late - when we do cook, we tend to stick with easy riffs on dishes we have made in the past.  I just don't have the energy to make elaborate meals when I am this busy.  Alex has also been pretty busy with school so he hasn't had the time to cook either so the blog has just been kind of hanging out there all alone.  Sorry blog - I just don't have time for you like I used to.  And I can't see that changing anytime in the near future.  I salute anyone who works full time and still manages to post several times a week, but I don't think I can do it anymore.  Anyway, I kept trying to come up with something really amazing for the blog (rather than the random salads and such we have been making recently), but I finally decided that I needed to just post the next thing I made that was new.

I'm not sure why or how I started thinking about making enchiladas, but this dish has been a few weeks in the making.  It's the end of the summer and a lot of my favorite vegetables (like corn) are about to disappear from the farmers' market so I wanted to take advantage of them while I can for this dish.  I was originally going to make chicken and zucchini enchiladas with salsa verde, but I changed my mind once I saw fresh corn at the market.  I also abandoned the idea of salsa verde once I realized that I had everything I needed at the apartment to make a quasi-traditional red enchilada sauce.  I used a recipe from Homesick Texan for the sauce and then started playing around.  I threw onions, zucchini (also from the farmers' market) and corn in the enchilada filling.  I also added some cilantro stems, which is a recent thing that I secretly love doing.  It's my new little thing.  I didn't feel like going through the process of rolling my enchiladas so I stacked them instead (kind of like a Mexican lasagna with corn tortillas instead of noodles).  And then I threw it all in the oven and baked it.

All things considered, I think this was pretty successful.  We have only made enchiladas once or twice before (and never stacked enchiladas) and I'm always pretty happy with myself when we are winging it on something this new and it turns out.  I would probably play with the recipe a bit in the future to make it perfect, but it was pretty good.  The sauce had good flavor - nice and smoky, with some heat without being bitter or gritty.  The vegetables had good flavor too (although you could swap out the veggies we used for whatever was in season).  I had originally worried that the vegetable filling wouldn't be filling enough without some black beans or another zucchini, but I think we ended up with just the right amount (and it was plenty filling).  One thing we did mess up on - we forgot to cover the enchiladas with tin foil for the first 20 minutes, which would have helped the enchiladas stay moister/saucier.  Oops.  That was both Alex's and my chief complaint - that the enchiladas dried out a bit.  I would definitely cover them in the future. 

Recipe after the jump!

Charred Corn and Zucchini Tacos

Hurray tacos!  I love tacos.  And I love fresh corn.  So I knew this recipe was going to be good.  There are actually a ton of corn taco recipes out there so before fresh corn season ends I hope I have the chance to try out a few more.  This recipe was one of the easier ones out there and didn't require an additional trip to the grocery store.  It also included a number of ingredients that I love (corn, zucchini and cotija cheese) and that are at the peak of their season right now.  I thought these tacos were nice (and very summery), but I'm positive that the perfect corn taco is out there.  I just know it.  I tried the tacos with two different salsas and I thought the salsas added another level of flavor that I really appreciated.  I might try the corn-zucchini filling for quesadillas, enchiladas or tostadas.  And I wonder if some blackbeans would make a good addition?  So many thoughts, so little time left before fresh corn goes out of season...

Recipe after the jump!

Zucchini with Lentils and Roasted Garlic

Ok so first things first.  I know exactly what this looks like.  And it doesn't look appetizing.  When we first mixed the dish together I had some interesting thoughts - and few of them were good.  The one exception was that the smell of the spices (particularly the cumin and the coriander) was very nice.  But once you get over the texture, which is similar to baby food, it's not bad.  I would love to say that it's amazing, but it wasn't there for me.  Maybe it was the texture or maybe it was something else.  I just don't know.  I wish our dish had looked anything like the original on Steamy Kitchen, but clearly we messed something up there.  But let's be honest, even if the texture had been perfect it still would not have made it to my list of dishes that I love and can't wait to make again.  Oh well.  At least we tried!

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Ratatouille

 Are you ever surprised by a dish?  We thought this grilled ratatouille (which we served with Alex's Roast Chicken Breasts) would be good since we had wonderful produce, but neither of us expected to like it quite as much as we did because it was so very simple.  I don't know what the French traditionally serve with ratatouille, but this worked so brilliantly with the roast chicken breasts that I am not sure I would serve it with anything else.  It was easy to make and very tasty.  We have a ton of leftovers, but I am excited to try the ratatouille ladled over a bed of pasta or couscous or as a topping for some good crusty bread.  I wonder what else I should do with my leftover ratatouille?  Before summer wraps up I plan on making this at least once more.  This ratatouille might become my new go-to side dish for our roast chicken breasts.  The go-to side dish used to be a simple arugula salad, but so long as the fresh basil, tomatoes and zucchini remain available at the farmers' market, I am going to make ratatouille!

Recipe after the jump!

Quasi-Moroccan Corn Succotash

This dish came about as an effort to use up some of the copious amounts of fresh produce I picked up at the farmers' market before we were out of town for the weekend.  I have a bad habit of picking up tons of food and realizing that, crap, we only have 3 nights to cook that week and then we either have dinner plans the next few nights in a row or we have travel plans.  So we came up with this recipe as a way to use the parsley, zucchini, tomato, and fresh corn I picked up.  We were making some Moroccan scallops (which I promise to post about later because they were delicious), so I wanted something summery with a vaguely Moroccan feel.  As a brief side note, I just realized that I seem to use the word "quasi" when describing Moroccan dishes.  I guess it's because I'm not altogether that familiar with Moroccan cuisine and spices, so I just don't really know if what I am making is Moroccan or not, but I feel like it is Moroccan-ish enough to be labeled as "Quasi Moroccan."  Moving on.  I decided I wanted to use the corn and we came up with this dish!  Alex stumbled across a few raw corn salad recipes but I wanted something more along the lines of a succotash because I'm not sure that the fresh corn is quite at the peak of its sweetness yet and we had other ingredients (like the zucchini and the sweet onion) that I think often fare better when cooked.  And in the end, I am glad we went this route because I thought the corn salad was very tasty and was the perfect side for our scallops.  The dish was bright and summery, but the flavors were harmonious and light enough that they nicely complimented the scallops and would easily compliment a variety of other entrees - Moroccan or not.

Recipe after the jump!

Veggie Ciabatta Pizza with Spicy Basil-Mint Pesto

This dish came about as a way to use up some of the large bunch of basil that I picked up at the farmers' market.  But we wanted to do something a little different.  So I decided to throw in some mint.  And then I saw a Mario Batali pesto recipe online that used a serrano chili, so I threw that in as well.  We also got the idea to throw in fennel seeds from the Batali recipe.  We were out of pine nuts and I wasn't feeling like pistachios or walnuts, so we used blanched almonds instead.  Alex wanted to use the pesto for sandwiches, but I thought that pizza sounded like a better idea.  I just wasn't feeling sandwich-y.  And then I started thinking that if we were going to make a pizza, we should make it a vegetable pizza with lots of produce from the farmer's market.  I love the farmers' market.  So we defrosted a ball of pizza dough.  And then I started thinking that a ciabatta pizza would be even better than a typical pizza.  So we picked up a loaf of ciabatta at the farmers' market.  And we will use that ball of pizza dough to make another pizza later in the week - I'm thinking pizza with zucchini and speck.  When I told Alex my idea for the zucchini and speck pizza his response was "don't you ever eat normal pizza?!?!"  Whatever.  I have tried that combination at a restaurant near my office called Pizzarte (where the zucchini and speck pizza is their signature pizza) and it's delicious.

The thing I loved about this pizza is how easy it was to put together and how tasty it was.  The veggies were fresh and flavorful and made me feel virtuous, even though I was eating pizza.  And I really liked how the ciabatta got nice and crusty and crispy.  The dish was also mildly nostalgic - it reminded me of the french bread pizzas I used to eat.  Alex's favorite thing about the pizza was the pesto.  It was very flavorful - a little spicy, a little salty, and nicely herbaceous.  I think the pesto worked wonderfully here, but it would work really nicely on sandwiches and on pasta too.  I always find pasta with just pesto to be a little boring, but this pesto is a little kickier than most, so it might work. 

Recipe after the jump!

Zucchini Keftedes with Feta and Dill

The inspiration for these keftedes (Greek zucchini pancakes) came from a meal I ate at the office recently.  My office has been insanely busy of late and last week we made a few massive delivery orders for everyone on our floor.  I think there were like 10-12 of us here each night.  One night we ordered Chinese and the next night we ordered Greek.  As part of our Greek food fest (we ordered just about the entire menu - it was insane), we ordered two batches of keftedes and they were amazing.  So I wanted to see if we could make equally delicious keftedes at home.  Unfortunately, the delivery keftedes were better than ours - with a crispier texture and a more flavorful interior (and sauce).  The texture was so crispy that it makes me wonder if they deep fried theirs...  The feta that we used didn't have as much salty bite as I thought it would so that led to the keftedes themselves being a little underseasoned.  You could still taste all of the fresh herbs, but the flavors just came off a little muted.  I guess I should have tasted the feta before deciding that it would be salty enough to forgo adding any salt to the zucchini mixture...  Oops.  I actually threw a tiny pinch in (even though the recipe didn't call for it) but I wish I had thrown in at least a 1/2 tsp.  Another thing I wish I had done is make a sauce out of the Greek yogurt, rather than just serving the keftedes with dollops of plain Greek yogurt and a sprig of dill.  Alex and I actually discussed grating in a little garlic and maybe a pinch of lemon zest, but we decided it wasn't necessary.  Maybe next time?

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Zucchini with Burrata

This post includes a few things I never thought I would say.  First, I thought the recipe might have been better without the burrata.  That never happens because I love burrata.  Maybe fresh mozzarella would have worked better?  I don't know but the burrata just didn't seem to really work here.  It was lovely and creamy, but the flavor didn't really seem to work with the acidity of the white wine flavor and the flavors of the marinated zucchini.  And as much as I liked the flavor of the zucchini, it got a little old after awhile.  Maybe in the future I should mix it up and serve several different types of grilled vegetables in the same marinade (but perhaps cut down on the amount of vinegar just a touch) and leave out the cheese as a grilled vegetable platter.  That might work.  Second, the garlic and vinegar here were good in the first bite and then it got to be a bit much.  So I might cut back on those as well.  Otherwise...  Well that might be all I had to say because I can't think of anything else.  If I were to give the dish a grade it would be a B-.  We didn't hate it, but it certainly wouldn't make my list of dishes that we need to make again in the future.  I thought about not bothering to post it at all, but I figured I should own up to my recipe failures (and this wasn't exactly a failure) as well as my successes.  This one fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

Recipe after the jump!

Squash Blossom and Zucchini Frittata

After the world's LONGEST absence from home-cooked meals, Alex and I finally had the opportunity to sit down and make a meal together.  Well, I made the meal while Alex tried to talk to Time Warner about our lousy internet speeds.  But that's really beside the point.  The point is, after a few weddings (one in Connecticut and one in Kentucky) and a bunch of really late nights at work, I finally got to cook something and eat it.  Yay!  So I did what I always do and wandered around the farmers' market picking up things willy-nilly until I decided on something to make.  This time I picked up some zucchini, fresh sweet corn, green beans, sun gold tomatoes (greenhouse tomatoes, but still delicious), fresh basil and parsley, cherries, peaches...  I'm really bummed that I ended up missing sugar snap peas, pea shoots and the end of fresh asparagus season due to work, but I can't be too upset that more amazing tomatoes and corn are just around the corner. 

Anyway, this frittata accomplished something that most restaurant frittatas don't - it was moist, tasty and fluffy, not dry and tasteless.  The last restaurant frittata I had was at a place on the UWS called Tarallucci E Vino.  It was one of the driest, most disappointing frittatas I have had in a long time.  It made me remember why ordering a frittata at a restaurant can be a recipe for failure.  I can only think of one frittata I have ever had that was truly satisfying and that was at Spotted Pig, where everything you order could possibly order is delicious.  The one thing that made my experience at Tarallucci e Vino one to remember was the scenery.  And by scenery I mean Matt Damon.  He's just as cute in person as he is in the movies.  To be honest I almost missed him entirely because I was too busy oogling his wife's black asymmetrical tank top.  I didn't realize it was him until I heard his voice.  And for the record, Alex's PLT (pancetta, lettuce, tomato and sunny-side egg) sandwich was pretty tasty.  While we were sitting on the couch and eating this frittata I told Alex that I would be perfectly happy to be served this frittata at any restaurant.  And I stand by that statement.  It was great.  It also made me sad about how much I miss eating at home, but I am hoping that work will slow down a little bit and I will once again be able to eat dinner at home...  Until then, I have the memories of this frittata to keep me happy.

Recipe after the jump!

Zucchini Carpaccio with Ricotta

I really love cooked zucchini (or squash), but somehow raw zucchini never quite does it for me.  I stil like raw zucchini, but when it comes down to it I would prefer it cooked.  This is the third raw zucchini dish that we have tried in the past few years.  Last summer we tried a Zucchini Crudo and a Shaved Zucchini Salad with Parmesan Pine Nuts.  All three of the raw zucchini salads were good - light, fresh and summery, but I think that I prefer Red Cat's Quick Saute of Zucchini, Whole Wheat Penne Rigate with Summer Squash and Ricotta, Disappearing Zucchini Orzo and Ad Hoc's Summer Vegetable Gratin.  This carpaccio was no exception.  It was good, but I really wanted there to be something more to it.  The fresh ricotta was lovely, and the basil was too, but it lacked anything to make it really stand out.  I told Alex that in the future I would make this dish as a side if I were to have say an Easter dinner with baked ham and a bunch of sides because it's easy to make (bonus points since it doesn't require any cooking) and it's beautiful to look at.  Don't get me wrong, the dish is far from bad, it's just that it's not amazing either.  I have been waiting to post the recipe since last Sunday because I just didn't know what to say.  I still don't but I figured at this point I might as well go ahead and say what little there is to be said and call it a day.

Recipe after the jump!

Summertime Lasagna

Lasagna is not something that I make very often.  It is just far too time consuming.  I think I have only made two lasagnas in all of the years that I have been cooking - a Wild Mushroom Lasagna from Gourmet that I made for Thanksgiving a few years back (it was totally fabulous btw so I highly recommend making it) and this "summertime lasagna," which was only a lasagna in that lasagna noodles were layered with veggies and ricotta.  It makes a great summertime version of lasagna because you don't have to bake it in the oven and heat up the whole house.  Plus it just feels so much lighter.  The traditional balance of noodle to filling is turned upside down and this becomes a celebration of fresh ricotta, tomatoes and zucchini than a gooey, cheesy lasagna.  I really liked it and Alex did too.  In the future I might try drizzling the burst cherry tomatoes with a little aged balsamic for a little more acidity and sweetness.  If you are going to make this dish I would recommend picking up some local fresh ricotta (or making your own) because it's so much richer and more flavorful than the ricotta you pick up from the grocery store.  I also recommend using fresh cherry tomatoes (we used a mix of sun golds and traditional red cherry tomatoes) and zucchinis (we used Italian striped zucchini) from the farmers' market.  Since this dish is so simple and lacks the cheese and tomato sauce or bechamel of a baked lasagna, you really need to make sure your individual ingredients are as fresh and delicious as possible.  If you do that you will end up with a really nice dish.  If you use out of season cherry tomatoes and a tub of ricotta from the grocery store, it might end up being a little blah.  So I guess it's a summertime dish in more than name.

Recipe after the jump!

Avocado Squash Stir-Fried With Garlic

Home for dinner two nights in a row?  Unheard of (at least this month)!  Yet somehow I made it home for dinner again.  Did I mention that we are on track for the lamest month ever in terms of cooking and blogging about it?  I think with this post we will only have 10 for the entire month of August.  And I am out of town next weekend, plus I am going to be busy at work this week (but hopefully not too busy to make it home for dinner at least once or twice).  Anyway, since Alex wasn't planning on my being home for dinner (and neither was I to be perfectly honest) we didn't really have anything planned.  He had defrosted the rest of the Panfried Pork and Scallion Mini Buns for his own dinner and it was pouring outside by the time we were ready to think about what to make, so we ended up just making those.  But seeing as I have been dining solely on restaurant food (with the exception of last night) for the past two weeks, I really wanted some sort of simple, homemade, vegetable side dish to go with our buns.  The only veggies we had in the fridge were two little avocado squash (pictured above) that I picked up at the farmer's market last week.  I had never seen or heard of avocado squash before stumbling across them at the farmer's market, but they were interesting enough to pique my interest.  So I bought them.  The description the farmer provided was that they were similar to zucchini only more tender, buttery and a little sweeter.  I was going to cut them in thin slices and grill them in the grill pan before drizzling them with evoo, crushed red pepper flakes, a little lemon juice and some fresh mint.  But when we were trying to come up with an Asian-ish squash side dish to go with our mini buns, I thought of a simple Chinese zucchini recipe that I had seen some time ago in a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. 

So this recipe is one that you could probably use with any type of firm-fleshed squash and it would yield similar results.  It was fine, but not amazing.  With that said, Alex and I ate an entire plateful so it couldn't have been that bad.  I really just wanted a recipe that wouldn't obscure the flavor of this particular squash so I went with the simplest recipe I could find.  I'm not sure that this recipe highlighted the squash exactly, but I thought that it was simple enough that I could really taste and appreciate the buttery flavor and silky texture of the avocado squash.  I'm definitely going to try to head to the farmer's market again this week to see if I can find more squash because it is really nice.  It lacks the firmness of a zucchini so I think you have to be fairly careful (and gentle) with how you cook it.  I'm very interested in trying this recipe from the NY Times for Cumin-Scented Summer Squash Salad with a mix of zucchini and avocado squash, just to see and taste the two kinds of squash together.

Recipe after the jump!

Zucchini Cornbread

I was looking back through the blog and I think we have by far the most posts about zucchini (or summer squash) of any vegetable.  We make zucchini quite often as a side dish, but we have also incorporated it into various zucchini breads and cakes, pastas, and other dishes.  We just love zucchini.  Or maybe I just love zucchini - Alex informs me that it is mostly my fault that we make so much of it.  Whatever.  So I love it.  It's delicious.  But when I saw this Zucchini Cornbread recipe in the July 2011 issue of Bon Appetit I was immediately hooked.  I had to make it.  And now, thanks to my CSA, I finally have.  As a side note, the July and August 2011 issues of Bon Appetit were both really good!  I have a ton of recipes picked out from July especially that I can't wait to make.  But back to the cornbread.  Things I really enjoyed about it - the cornbread is really moist (I love how zucchini and buttermilk leave baked goods nice and moist), with a subtle tang from the buttermilk, and a richness and depth of flavor from the browned butter.  And by using sea salt instead of kosher salt you get these little explosions of salt flavor spread throughout the cornbread.  There's also a really nice crust on top and texture from the cornmeal.  I think the proportions of flour to cornmeal were perfect to give you a really nice fluffy loaf without sacrificing the integrity of the cornbread.  I think in the future I will make the cornbread in a 9x9 inch pan, rather than a loaf pan because it would bake faster that way (maybe 35 minutes instead of 55-65) and you will end up with more of that wonderful crust on top of the cornbread (which is always my favorite part).  And I might even through in a few handfuls of fresh corn to just have a little fun with it.  But two huge thumbs up for yet another delicious way to use zucchini.

Recipe after the jump!

Minced Lamb with Mint Stuffed Zucchini and Rice

I would rank this both as one of the most interesting and the most satisfying meals we have cooked recently.  I have never made stuffed zucchini (or any sort of stuffed vegetable with the exception of these Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms we made last month).  And I have never tried either of these recipes from Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey.  Madhur Jaffrey suggested stuffing her Minced Lamb with Mint into tomatoes before roasting the tomatoes in the oven, but I have a longstanding prejudice against stuffed tomatoes.  I really don't enjoy them.  Alex and I both really enjoy zucchini and Google turned up all sorts of stuffed zucchini recipes when I searched.  Plus stuffed tomatoes are all gross and mushy.  So I decided that stuffed zucchini sounded like a better option.  And I decided that we should make some fancy rice rather than plain basmati rice.  I really prefer plain basmati rice, but I know that Alex really enjoys spiced rice so every once in awhile a try to throw him a bone.  And this rice was really nice.  The sweetness and floral quality of the spices was a nice counterpoint to the spicy lamb mixture.  As for the lamb, it was just delicious.  It had some serious heat, but the spice wasn't  overpowering.  You could still taste the aromatics and the spices in every bite.  The zucchini really soaked up some of those intense flavors, but still provided a nice textural counterpoint to the ground lamb mixture.  It was just a really really nice dish.  Both the lamb and the rice take some time and effort, but they are more than worth it.  The best endorsement that I can give for this meal?  I would make it again and I wouldn't change a single thing.  It really was that good.

Recipes after the jump!

Zucchini Souffle

 

I was feeling particularly ambitious today and decided to make a zucchini souffle for lunch.  I have no idea what inspired me to make a souffle.  It's one of the few things that I have stayed away from in the kitchen.  I don't want to say that souffles intimidate me, but that's definitely part of it.  In all honestly, the main reason that I stay away from souffles is that I'm just not certain that they are really worth the effort.  It takes a lot of work (and a lot of mixing bowls) to make this dish.  But every once in awhile you have to really push yourself.  This is probably the last souffle I will be making for awhile.  Don't get me wrong, it was delicious.  But man we used up nearly every utensil and bowl in the kitchen to prepare this dish.  And it took awhile to put it together.  If I were to make the dish again, I would probably mince the onion because I thought in some ways the chopped pieces of onion detracted a teensy bit from the light and fluffy souffle.  While the zucchini and cheese melted into the souffle, the onions didn't.  I might also consider adding a touch of fresh thyme because I think that zucchini and thyme pair very well together.  I thought that the flat-leaf parsley was a nice addition, but I think that a touch of thyme would be even nicer.

Recipe after the jump!

Shrimp with Zucchinis

This is one of those recipes that I have proposed making several times and yet, for whatever reason, we never got around to it.  But last night I decided enough was enough and we made the shrimp tonight.  Part of the reason I found the recipe so appealing was that it came together so quickly, and used a lot of pantry and refrigerator staples.  We always have shrimp in the freezer and during the summer we tend to have lots of zucchini in the apartment.  I know it's not summer yet (actually it was pretty freezing in NYC today so I could almost swear that it's actually still winter), but zucchini is one of those ingredients that you can get at any grocery store, anytime.

I really enjoyed this recipe.  It was a great fresh and flavorful Indian dish.  Actually, when I took my first bite, the first thing that I thought was that the flavor profile didn't really strike me as Indian.  All of the spices and ingredients are fairly typical of Indian food, but somehow the combination didn't scream Indian food to me.  That's merely an observation and not a complaint.  And I guess it really shows how little I know about Indian food.  There are so many types of Indian food outside of the tandoori chicken and curries that show up all over the country (including the freezer section of most grocery stores).  I guess that means Alex and I need to start cooking a lot more Indian food...  Anyway, back to tonight's dish.  The shrimp and zucchini pick up a ton of tomato and lemon flavor, tempered with a hit of of cilantro and chilis.  I really liked the heat from the combination of the green chili (serrano in this case) and the cayenne.  If you don't like spicy food you should remove the seeds from your green chili and just use 1/4 tsp cayenne.

Recipe after the jump!

Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Recently I had the opportunity to go to a business lunch at Marea in NYC.  Everything I ate there was amazing, but one of the things that stuck out the most to me was from the little silver tray of cookies and other mini-treats that they served after the meal.  It was perhaps the most delicious zucchini cake I have ever tasted, topped with a little dollop of cream cheese frosting.  It was so moist and unbelievably delicious.  So I figured I would try to make my own.  Now I know better than to expect that my zucchini cake could ever compare with something I try at a restaurant like Marea.  I am good in the kitchen, but I am not 2 star Michelin Guide good.  And to be honest, neither are most professional chefs.  So it's all good.

I love the spices in this cake.  And then I love the combination of the cake with the slightly citrusy cream cheese frosting.  Then again, I think I would love cream cheese frosting on any type of cake.  My cupcake choices are often dictated by which cupcakes are topped with cream cheese frosting and I firmly believe that Magnolia's red velvet cupcakes would be immensely better if they had cream cheese frosting, rather than buttercream frosting (which I often find to be too sweet and too buttery).  This was my first experiment substituting apple sauce for vegetable oil and it turned out really nicely.  In the past I have always been worried that the flavor of the apple sauce would interfere with the flavor of the cake itself, but in this instance it worked marvelously (although I did think that a few days after being baked the texture of the cake turned a little gummy, which I attributed to the apple sauce).  The cake was very moist and very flavorful.  You can't really taste the zucchini, but the zucchini isn't really the point, is it?  The zucchini is there to fool you into believing that you're being healthy, while inhaling large quantities of delicious cream cheese frosting!  Then again, the zucchini does help to keep the cake moist, plus it makes the cake look so pretty with all of the vibrant green flecks (if you look closely in the picture above you can see some) so it definintely does have its uses.

Recipe after the jump!

Ad Hoc's Summer Vegetable Gratin

A vegetable gratin might just be the lamest sounding dish ever.  Usually gratins are used to drench veggies and starches in loads of cream and cheese so that unsuspecting kids will chow down.  Don't get me wrong - a well-made potato gratin can be delicious, if a little heavy.  And let's be honest, if it weren't for this recipe being created by Thomas Keller, I wouldn't have given it a second look.  But seeing as it is a Thomas Keller recipe and I just bought his Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, how could I fail to give it a try?  You will have to excuse me for being a little late to the party as it's now early October, and not summer.  But better late than never, especially seeing as the farmer's markets are still full of eggplant, thyme and tomatoes.

I think this was the first time that I have ever heard Alex get excited about a vegetarian recipe and well he should.  Like all Keller recipes, this one was very precise and required a number of individual steps and a long prep/cooking time.  I adapted the recipe a little to suit myself (although I didn't really do anything to simplify it), including alternating the veggies in layers around the gratin dish, rather than having individual rows of eggplant, then zucchini, then tomato and then squash.  I guess I took more of a Ratatouille approach with the alternating rounds of tomato, zucchini, eggplant and squash.  I figured that way you would or at least could get all of the vegetables layered together in a single bite.  And isn't that better than having one row of the gratin that is only tomato or only squash?  I thought so.  In the future I probably won't bother broiling the gratin at the end to brown the bread crumbs because our gas oven has a broiler that is permanently set to kill.  We barely put the gratin in there for 2 minutes 6-inches away from the heat source and it was verging on burnt.  Bad broiler.  Anyway, after about 70 minutes the vegetables were cooked perfectly - fork tender, but not so tender that they were falling apart.  The lemon thyme and Parmigiano-Reggiano gave the vegetables serious flavor, and the panko mixture gave the dish a wonderful texture.  The dish isn't exactly a quick and easy supper, but it is a lovely vegetarian meal that doesn't leave you wanting meat (or carbs), which I consider to be a huge success.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Zucchini with Red Wine Vinaigrette

I have been sitting on this recipe for a few days now.  Not because it wasn't good (it was) or even because I was so busy that I didn't have time to post it (I did have time).  I just got lazy.  And then I forgot all about it.  Oops.  Luckily it occurred to me this afternoon that I hadn't posted this recipe yet.  So here I am.  Grilled zucchini is always a wonderful side dish.  I love when grilled zucchini and squash are lightly tossed with some sort of olive oil-based vinaigrette and served on the side.  Unfortunately, we don't a grill in NYC.  So I have to make do with my grill pan, which actually works pretty well (smoky apartment notwithstanding), although you miss out on that nice smoky grilled flavor that the grill imparts.  Oh well.

This salad was a last minute addition to our dinner.  I had meant to make an heirloom tomato salad, but it turned out that my tomatoes were bad.  Actually, if we are being truly honest, I dropped the gorgeous heirloom tomatoes on the ground on my way home from the farmer's market.  And they exploded.  Ka-boom.  No more heirloom tomato salad for me.  So I rummaged through the fridge and came up with some zucchini that I had originally bought to make another batch of zucchini bread.  And after a few seconds of staring aimlessly at the zucchini, this salad was born.  This is a rather acidic vinaigrette, so if you like your vinaigrettes a little smoother, you are going to want to cut down on the amount of red wine vinegar and adjust the ratio of evoo to vinegar.  The dish we were eating this with was rather rich, so I wanted something bright and acidic to cut through that richness.  I think this salad would have benefitted from the addition of some crumbled goat cheese, or something to give the salad a little creaminess, and to provide a little textural contrast.  Perhaps a ricotta salata would have worked.  Unfortunately, I was out of both.  I also would have loved a hint of fresh basil, oregano or chives to give the dish a little something extra.  But we didn't have any of those either.  Also, if I had more time I would have made a marinade that was less acidic and allowed the zucchini to marinate for an hour to gently soak up more flavor.  But we were only 10 minutes away from eating when I conceived of this dish.  Considering our fridge was fairly empty and I had to pull this salad out of nowhere in 10 minutes, I think I did pretty well!

Recipe after the jump!

Zucchini Pancakes

This summer I am trying harder than ever to make sure that Alex and I have at least one vegetarian meal a week.  We just have so many veggies in the fridge from our CSA, it is impossible to use them all without having at least one vegetarian evening per week.  The problem with our vegetarian nights is that they often involve a ton of carbs - pasta, bread, etc.  But tonight we decided to make zucchini pancakes from a recipe I found on the NY Times website, and serve it with some caprese salad.  Lots of vegetables (and cheese), but no carbs!  Good for us.

These pancakes were really good.  They had nice flavor and I really liked the yogurt sauce with them.  I also thought they were a novel way to use up more zucchini.  After all, you can only eat so much pasta with zucchini and/or zucchini bread.  But Alex and I both agreed that we would prefer the Thai Corn Fritters we made a few weeks ago to these pancakes, mostly due to the texture.  These pancakes had a nice crispy exterior, but they got soggy fast and the interiors had little to no texture.  The Thai Corn Fritters retained their texture better - mostly due to the profusion of sweet corn kernels, and they had more explosive and fresh flavors.  They just tasted so much brighter, probably due to the sweet chili dipping sauce and the amount of cilantro.  But since these zucchini pancakes were so different, it's hard to compare them to the Thai Corn Fritters.  If I were to make these pancakes again, I would tweak them to give them more texture and more fresh, herbal flavor.

Recipe after the jump!