Zucchini, Pasta, & Stuff

I'd planned on stuffed zucchini for Sunday dinner, but one of my zucchini developed a horrible squishy spot and could no longer fulfill its duties as a boat for holding delicious sausage, cheese, and mushrooms. So, instead, I made pasta sauce from all the stuffed zucchini ingredients and served them over whole grain penne!

Maybe not as awesome as stuffed zucchini, but still quite tasty and filling.

Very Vegetable Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
9.6 oz pkg Jimmy Dean pre-cooked turkey sausage crumbles
1 shallot, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large carrot, diced small
2 small zucchini, diced small
1 cup sliced mushrooms, chopped
8 oz can low-sodium spaghetti sauce
14 oz can Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
1 Tbsp salt-free Italian seasoning blend
2 cups whole grain elbow macaroni, cooked as you like
½ cup grated Parmesan

Directions
Saute shallot, garlic, mushrooms, and carrot in a little olive oil until fragrant and shallot is translucent. Add zucchini, sausage crumbles, seasoning blend, fire-roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until sauce is thickened.

Stir in pasta and a quarter cup of Parmesan. Serve sprinkled with remaining Parmesan.

Serves 4.

Too Much Produce: Summer Squash Enchiladas

I bought too much produce this week -- everything looked really good, so I picked up more than I needed and ended up with a fridge packed top to bottom with vegetables. (I know, it's a terrible problem. Right up there will cancer and poverty).

The thing is, I hate waste and I was very much afraid that some of it would go to waste before we got around to eating it. My mother taught me nothing goes in the bin if it can be helped and I still live by that.

So, behold! The Enchiladas of Squash-y Goodness which used up two squash, a shallot, and an ear of corn ... thereby freeing up enough crisper space that I can kinda-sort see the bottom now. If I squint and angle my head just right.

Summer Squash Enchiladas

Ingredients
1 small zucchini, diced
1 small summer squash, diced [save cob for chowder]
1 ear of corn, shucked and kernels shaved off cob
1 shallot, minced
2 cups enchilada sauce
4 small flour tortillas
2 oz Cabot 50% Reduced Fat Sharp Light cheddar, shredded

Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F. Swirl ½ cup enchilada sauce around bottom of square baker to coat.

Heat a nonstick skillet. Add vegetables and ½ cup enchilada sauce and cook, stirring frequently, for about 3 minutes or until onion is translucent.

Spoon ½ half cup squash mixture down the middle of each tortilla. Top with 1 Tbsp shredded cheese. Roll up and place, seam down, in the baker.

Top with remaining cup of enchilada sauce and cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. If you like your enchiladas brown and bubbly, as I do, then broil for about 3 minutes. Let sit 5-10 minutes before serving (I didn't wait and mine broke when I scooped them out).

Serves 2.

These were really good and I wish I'd made more! Even The Husband liked these and I was sure he'd complain about the lack of meat.

Squash Season: Swiss Chard Bean Soup

Despite this week's to-ing and fro-ing I did manage to do a little cooking. Namely, I made soup. And such soup! I made a pot of Taste of Home's "Swiss Chard Bean Soup" with Swiss chard, crookneck squash, and herbs from my garden and it was delicious -- light, yet flavorful and filling, and so easy.

Ingredients: one pint diced cherry tomatoes (instead of drained canned diced), Swiss chard, zucchini, crookneck squash, carrots, red onion, garlic, organic low-sodium vegetable broth (instead of chicken), low-sodium cannellini beans, quick-cooking pearl barley (to thicken), fresh thyme, fresh oregano, salt, fresh ground black pepper.

Since I was using fresh tomatoes instead of canned, I cooked the tomatoes with the zucchini, crookneck squash, and onion then prepared the rest of the soup as directed and the whole thing was still ready to eat in less than thirty minutes!  While I wasn't planning on eating it the same day I made it, it was still really nice to have made a big pot of soup in a jiffy. I portioned the soup out into one-cup containers and took it to work (or ate it for breakfast) all week.  Wasn't the least bit sick of it by Friday!

While I did think the soup was a little both-y, I just threw a handful of quick-cooking barley in with the beans and it thickened up quite nicely. Next time, I might just doubled up on the beans and give half of them a bit of a mash before adding them to the pot. I might also try substituting low-sodium vegetable juice for half of the broth.

Would I make this soup again? Of course! And probably sooner rather than later as the garden is going mad producing squash and chard.

Squash Season: Easy Squash Sauté

For Sunday supper, we had Trader Joe's Cabernet Beef Pot Roast with rice, gravy, and sauteed shredded zucchini. The slow cooker instructions for the roast said to brown it, then put it in a slow cooker with half a cup of water, and cook it on low for ten hours or so. Being lazy, I did not brown the roast, but just plonked it in my slow cooker with half a cup of wine and a handful of crushed dehydrated onion slices and parsley. The roast came quite tasty despite the lack of browning and I'd quite happily purchase it again. (I'm not sure I'm becoming a better cook, so much as a lazier one, but what the hell).

The sautéed zucchini I served was based on a recipe from Marian Morash's Victory Garden Cookbook (Knopf, 1982) and was dead easy to make. I just shredded a small zucchini, squeezed it out in a tea towel, and then sautéed it in butter with salt, fresh ground pepper, and basil from my garden for about ten minutes. The zucchini had tender, buttery, almost creamy texture and I nommed it up. The Husband was not so keen -- too much pepper, not enough butter. Bah.

The Victory Garden Cookbook offers several possible variations on this recipe including one in which the sautéed zucchini is cooked with heavy cream and curry powder! I love creamed spinach so I'd really like to try this variation next, but I'd better plan an alternative vegetable for The Husband ...

I know what he'd say! He'd say "More whoopie pies, woman, and less zucchini!" Hmm. Zucchini walnut whoopie pies with cinnamon cream filling? Too weird?

Squash Season: Farmers' Market Corn Toss

Friday, I came home from work hopping mad thanks to some last minute passive-aggressive shenanigans on the part of a coworker. Oh, I was full of the angries when I arrived home. Ranted at The Husband. Ranted at The Cats. Ranted at my summer squash as I went chopchopchop ... and by the time I was done chopping, I was calm. (And, yes, I still had all of my fingers). Have I found the Zen of Zucchini?

What was all that chopped squash for? For Kraft's "Farmers' Market Corn Toss." As my summer squash were fat with seeds, I hollowed them out with a spoon before slicing them into crescents.  My parsley plant wasn't looking too good (rather the swallowtail caterpillars ate it than I did, anyway), so I used a combination of fresh basil and parsley, plus liberal amounts of salt and black pepper. I also cheated terribly and used a can of low-sodium corn instead of fresh corn. I know, I've lost all my cooking cred now. It's summer. Corn is in season. There's a farm stand five minutes from my house and yet I used canned corn. The shame!

The deliciousness! The combination of flavors and textures was extremely good and went very well with the marinaded steaks and rice we also had for dinner. Indeed, I so enjoyed the way the corn toss mixed with the rice that I could have skipped the steak entirely. I will certainly make this recipe again -- with fresh corn, of course!

Squash Season: Zucchini Meatloaf

For Sunday's supper, I made Pillsbury's "Zucchini Meat Loaf." I tweaked the recipe a little by using 85% lean organic ground beef, liquid egg whites, whole wheat salt-free seasoned bread crumbs, salt-free ketchup, and Stonewall Kitchen's blue cheese herb mustard. And, while the recipe doesn't say to, I seeded my zucchini before shredding it -- just cut the squash into four wedges and scooped the seeds out with a spoon as if I were seeding a cucumber. I also wrapped the shredded squash in a tea towel and squeezed it until I couldn't get any more moisture out. Squash contains a lot of water, you know, and I didn't want a mushy meatloaf!

Pretty colors!

Makes me want to sing "great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts ..."

Eh, a lot less pretty now.

Delicious!

While this zucchini meatloaf was very easy to make and baked up moist and filling, it was a little on the bland side. I did double the glaze recipe as it did not adequately cover my entire meatloaf, and the glaze had good flavor, but the meatloaf could have benefited from heavier seasoning. Next time I might use a teaspoon of salt-free Italian seasoning blend and a liberal sprinkle of black pepper instead of the half teaspoon of oregano called for in the recipe.

Squash Season: Easy, Cheesy Casserole

Earlier this week, I made the cheesiest and most delicious squash casserole I've ever made. Seriously, it was so good, The Husband went back for seconds and he's not all that keen on squash. I modelled my casserole on Pillsbury's recipe for Zucchini 'n Hamburger Casserole, but I used organic 94% lean ground turkey, homegrown crookneck (yellow) squash, salt-free Italian seasoning blend, and organic mozzarella. I also sliced the squash very thin (about as thick as a quarter) as I wanted everything to melt together into delicious squashy-rice-tomato-cheese goodness.

I admit I was a little worried about using a can of soup, because I thought it might make the casserole too salty or runny, but it worked out fine. Yes, the casserole was a little runny when it first came out of the oven, but I let it sit for fifteen minutes before serving it and it set up just fine. As for sodium, 680mg of salt spread across six servings does not make for a salty casserole.

Doesn't it look good? All cheesy and tomato-y? Like a square squash pizza? Who wouldn't want to eat that? And, if you're poo-pooing it because you think whole fat cheese = death fatz, you could use reduced-fat or fat-free mozzarella but I can't guarantee the cheese will melt properly under the broiler.

The recipe doesn't say to broil the casserole, but I did broil it for about five minutes at the end to make the cheese all golden and bubbly. Frankly, since I got over my fear of broiling, I now stick everything under the broiler if I possibly can!

Oh, yeah, I am making this again. Soon, very soon, my little squashes.

Squash Season: Quick Zucchini-Tomato Sauce

It's early enough in Squash Season that I'm excited about cooking with summer squash and looking forward to trying out new recipes. I predict that, by the beginning of August, summer squash will have lost much of its charm and I'll be chasing my coworkers around, pressing sacks of unwanted squash upon them. Oh, they'll love me then!

Sunday night, after a weekend of heavy-duty weeding and mulching, I was too tired to haul out a cookbook and try a new summer squash recipe. So I threw a bunch of stuff together in a pan and made a quick zucchini-tomato sauce to go over sauteed chicken cutlets. It was surprisingly good for a spur of the moment dish and I look forward to making the sauce again. I suspect it would be good with grilled pork tenderloin or, obviously, pasta.

Quick Zucchini-Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
1 lb zucchini, seeded and chopped into small (dime-sized) chunks
½ cup diced red onion
1 Tbsp olive oil
14.5 oz can Muir Glen fire roasted crushed tomatoes
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
1 Tbsp fresh basil chiffonade
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Heat oil in large skillet, add zucchini and onion and cook until onion is translucent and zucchini is crisp-tender. Add crushed tomatoes and cook until sauce is thickened. Remove from heat, stir in remaining ingredients. Serve over chicken cutlets or what have you.

Squish Squash Tomato Pie

Finally got around to making a yummy tomato and squash pie last night. My version was inspired by recipes from Gooseberry Patch: Family Favorite Recipes ("Tomato Pie"), Taste of Home's "Summer Squash Pie" and Paula Deen's "Tomato Pie."

Squash & Tomato Pie

1 baked 9-inch pie shell (I use a refrigerated crust)
2 small crookneck squash, sliced into quarter-sized pieces
1 medium zucchini, sliced into quarter-sized pieces
1 small sweet onion, diced small
1 cup cooked corn
3 medium tomatoes, seeded and sliced
1 tsp Tastefully Simple's Garlic Garlic
½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon paprika
1 cup shredded Cabots Hunter's/Seriously Sharp Cheddar
1 cup light mayonnaise
1/3 cup shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place the tomatoes in a colander. Sprinkle with salt and allow to drain for 10 minutes.

While tomatoes drain, sauté squash, corn, and onion in a non-stick skillet until onion is translucent and squash is tender (not squishy).

Sprinkle a little cheddar and Parmigiano-Reggiano on the bottom of the pie crust. Pour squash, corn, and onion into crust. Sprinkle with seasonings. Top with sliced tomatoes.

Combine mayonnaise and cheddar. Spread over top of pie. Sprinkle with Parmigiano-Reggiano. Bake for about 40 minutes or until topping is golden brown and delicious. Let sit about 15 minutes before serving.

The Husband flatly refused to have anything to do with this pie, but I thought it was quite delicious. I am perfectly happy to have the whole pie to myself!

Chicken & Posh Squash

Recently I made "Mediterranean Chicken & Vegetables" from Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks #335 (Money Saving Meals). The recipe is pretty straight forward and could easily be adapted to use many different summer vegetables.



Ingredients: chicken thighs, zucchini (courgette, if you want to be posh), bell pepper, red onion, dried rosemary, olive oil, lemon juice, S&P.

I made a few tweaks to the original recipe based on the ingredients I had on hand and the amount of energy I wished to expend. I:

• Used boneless skinless chicken thighs, instead of bone-in, skin-on ones
• Crushed the garlic rather than chopped it (smash with knife or go choppychoppy? Hulk smash!)
• Omitted the red potato, because I chopped all the veg the night before
• Also made the marinade the night before
• Baked everything all higgledy-piggledy in the pan rather than separating the chicken from the vegetables

(The recipe was all insistent the ingredients not marinade more than six hours so I went with 4.5, but I don't see why the chicken couldn't marinade overnight).

Overall, we liked this recipe. It was all garlicky and lemony and good and we will be eating it again. Next time, I might even throw in some halved cherry or plum tomatoes just before I pop the pan in the oven.

Fast & Easy Rotini-Kielbasa Skillet

"Rotini-Kielbasa Skillet" from Better Homes & Gardens Every Meal Easy (Meredith Books, 2008).

Ingredients: pasta, kielbasa (from freezer), onion, zucchini, bell pepper, and cherry tomatoes.

An easy and delicious thirty-minute meal which doesn't go weird if you double the amount of zucchini. Easily vegetarianized by substituting chunks of portobello mushroom for the kielbasa.

Farmers Market Bounty Tortellini

I made "Ravioli with Summer Vegetables" from Better Homes and Gardens Every Meal Easy (Meredith Books, 2008) for supper and it was pretty darn good and so very easy.  I wasn't sure The Husband would go for it, but he nommed it all up!

Ingredients: refrigerated tortellini, summer squash, cherry tomatoes, garlic, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), spinach.

Very easy to make! I didn't have any Roma tomatoes so I used half a pound of halved cherry tomatoes and the dish tasted just fine.

If I were to make this again, I would use more garlic (of course!) and swap the black pepper out for crushed red pepper flakes.

Squashed Salmon (Easy!)

A variation on my favorite recipe, "Italian Chicken Vegetable Bake," but using salmon and the vegetables I had on hand ...

Italian Salmon Vegetable Bake

1½ pounds boned salmon fillet of uniform thickness, skinned
3 small crookneck squash, quartered and sliced
1 small red onion, diced
1 can no-salt-added petite diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 cup low-fat Italian dressing

Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease 13x9 baker. Place salmon in baker and top with tomatoes, peppers, squash, onion, and Italian dressing. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes. Test salmon for doneness. Serve with parsley rice and green beans.

Easy Italian Chicken Vegetable Bake

This is one of my favorite dishes and so, unsurprisingly, one I make a lot in the summer when squash and tomatoes are going cheap using salmon fillet or boneless, skinless chicken pieces. Pork would probably work as well, but I have not tried it. Of course, cooking time will vary depending on the density/thawedness of your meat -- when I made this tonight, the freakishly large chicken breasts I had thawed in the fridge were still a bit frozen so I cut them in half to help with cooking, but did not reduce the time or temperature as there were plenty of vegetable juices in the pan to keep the chicken all moist and delicious.

Italian Chicken Vegetable Bake

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 medium summer squash (crookneck, zucchini, patty pan, etc), halved and sliced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, drained
6-8 oz sliced crimini mushrooms
1/2 cup low-fat Italian dressing

Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease 13x9 baker. Place chicken in baker and top with diced tomatoes, diced peppers, sliced mushrooms, and Italian dressing. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes. Add in the sliced squash and give everything a good stir. Bake, uncovered, for another 30 minutes. Test chicken for doneness. Eat.

We usually eat this over rice with salad.

Cookery Catch-Up, Picnic Edition

We had my parents up for a little picnic last weekend. We played croquet and ate cheeseburgers with ...

Marinated cucumbers & red onion

Halve 1 English/burpless cucumber and scoop the seeds out with a spoon. Thinly slice & put in a colander with salt. Let sit for 20 minutes or so. Rinse cukes and squeeze in a tea towel to remove as much moisture as possible. Put in bowl with minced red onion, dill weed, a splash of white vinegar, a few twists of pepper, and a tiny bit of sugar.

Used-to-was-Mom’s potato salad

While still warm (but not hot) toss 1 ½ pounds unpeeled whole tiny gold/yellow potatoes with dried parsley, chopped hard cooked egg and dressing made from light mayonnaise mixed with low fat milk and McCormick Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning. (This is a complete bastardization of my mother's recipe).

Mom’s pickled beets

In a bowl, layer two undrained cans low sodium sliced beets and one thinly sliced onion (white or red depending on preference or avialabilty). Pour in 1 cup white vinegar. Refridgerate overnight. The longer this sits, the better it is.

Croquet score? Visitors: 2 | Home: 0

I also managed to make dinner once this week ...

Roasted chicken thighs & summer vegetables

Place boneless skinless chicked thighs in a lubricated baking dish with chunked pattypan squash, red onion, and quartered ping pong ball-sized tomatoes. Sprinkle liberally with McCormick Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning. Spray with a little cooking spray. Roast until chicken is cooked through and squash is tender. Served with brown rice and green salad.

Cookery Catch-Up (Really, I Cooked)

Things I've cooked in the past few weeks ...

Roasted salmon & summer vegetables

Place skinned salmon fillet in a lightly lubricated baking dish with chunked yellow (crookneck) squash, red onion, and whole grape tomatoes. Drizzle with a garlicky Italian dressing. Roast until salmon is cooked to taste and squash is tender, but not squishy (squishy squash is just so wrong).

Served with rice pilaf and green salad.

Grilled ahi tuna

Brush tuna steaks with a little oil and grill 4 minutes or so on each side (we like ours somewhere between rare and very rare – bright pink with a nice line of red).

Squeezed a bit of lime over the steaks and served with green salad and my latest take on my mother's potato salad recipe.

Baked sea scallops

Rinse & pat dry scallops. Place in lightly lubricated baking dish. Splash a little white wine (whatever you’re drinking) over the scallops. Sprinkle with chopped garlic and dried parsley. Dot with butter and sprinkle with panko. Bake until the scallops are firm and just cooked through (chewy = evil).

Served with leftover potato salad and steamed green beans.

Peanut Butter & Banana Cake

From Jill Snider’s Cake Mix Magic 2: 125 More Easy Desserts ... Good as Homemade (Robert Rose, 2003). Made to use up three bananas that were just this side of mush. White cake mix combined with eggs, oil, banana flavored pudding mix, and mashed bananas. A layer of peanut butter chips and brown sugar was supposed to run through the middle, but sank right to the bottom. Not a bad cake, but not as banana-y as I had expected. Brought to work and fed to co-workers who seemed to like it more than I did. But you know what they say about librarians and free sweets …

Porkchops with Mushroom Bourbon Cream Sauce

From Simply Recipes with some moderate tweaking:

• dried basil instead of fresh

• Jack Daniels instead of bourbon (all bourbon is whisky, but not all whisky is bourbon)

• 1 cup fresh bagel crumbs instead of 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs

• ½ cup of Schmitt Söhne Blue Riesling QBA (2005) instead of a dry white

This recipe is definitely a keeper. The chops were excellent and the pan sauce was to die for. Oh my god, was that a good sauce! Must try it on steak!

Bourbon Mustard Chicken

From Recipezaar (looks a lot like a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated’s America’s Best Recipe, 1989) with some substitutions:

• spicy brown mustard for the Dijon

• 1 diced shallot for the green onions

• Jack Daniels for the bourbon

The chicken came out very well, but we weren’t keen on the sauce -- too sweet. Next time, while I would still marinade the chicken, I wouldn’t bother making the pan sauce from the leftover marinade.

Much salad:

Olivia’s Herb Salad blend with chopped carrots, cucumbers, red onion, blueberries, diced cooked beets and crumbled feta.

Olivia’s Herb Salad blend with chopped red onion, cucumbers, carrots, baby radishes, red cabbage, diced cooked beets, and tuna.

Olivia’s Herb Salad blend with chopped carrots, cucumbers, and red onion, diced cooked beets, parma ham, and crumbled feta.

&etc.

Catching Up With Cake

My draft of this post says "last weekend," but that was two weeks ago! I really need to do a round-up entry or something. I have been cooking many delicious things, but not writing about them and that's bad (as the crookneck squash and tomato fiasco has proven¹).

Anyway ... cake!

Two weeks ago, The Husband announced a craving for cake. Who was I to refuse him? Marriages have been torn asunder for less. Too impatient to wait for butter to soften, I turned to my old standby, The Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book (my mother gave it to me when I was seventeen and it hasn’t failed me yet). I flipped through, looking for cakes which did not need softened butter or shortening (I do not own shortening), and found a recipe for hot milk sponge cake. Lo, there was much rejoicing.

And deservedly so. This cake turned out pretty darned well. It took no time to throw together, baked up perfectly, and tasted quite yummy. It would, I think, would make an excellent “emergency” cake (for unexpected company, work events, tummy cravings, etc).

I followed the cake recipe pretty much exactly as written, but did stir the zest of one lime in with the milk and melted butter. The lime zest gave the cake a little summer lift and I imagine orange or lemon zest would work equally well. This cake baked up very light and had an excellent fluffy crumb. We’ve eaten it with ice cream as well as with berries and whipped cream and it has been delicious either way.

You can see the recipe here or (if you’re worried about what is and is not fair use) you can find it in many editions (and variations) of the Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book.

This recipe is found on page :

• 165 of the 12^th edition (as well as the pink-and-white checked Limited Edition)
• 141 of the 11^th edition
• 257 of the Better Homes & Gardens New Baking Book

--

¹ All last summer, I made a delicious dish of summer squash, onions, and tomatoes. I made the dish so often that I never wrote the recipe down -- presuming I would remember it the following summer. Well, I didn't. Didn't remember it. Didn't have it bookmarked. Didn't del.icio.us it. Didn't blog it.

Grr.

Took me two weeks of looking to find the recipe at Twice Bloomed Wisteria. Two weeks. And that was using all my librarian foo.

Grr.

Anyway, Mrs. Turner's Squash Skillet is the right recipe. Huzzah and pass the squash.