They’re out there and they’re coming – those overzealous gardeners who plant way too much zucchini. You can hear the pleading in their voices – “You want some zucchini? We have lots!”
Or maybe you ARE the overzealous gardener. Either way, zucchini abounds and it needs to be dealt with. Yes, you can stir-fry, stuff, and spiralize it, but one can only eat so much zucchini.
My suggestion is to make a healthier ZUCCHINI BREAD and freeze the loaves so you can enjoy your bounty months from now.
This recipe is packed with zucchini, but let’s not get crazy – I said “healthier”, not “healthy”. Even though I swapped the vegetable oil for olive oil and the whole eggs for egg whites, there’s still sugar in the bread so bear that in mind when slicing out the portions.
Note: This recipe makes 20 muffins. While it’s a little more work to grease, fill, and remove the muffins from a muffin pan, the benefits are portion control, ease of grabbing however many you want from the freezer, and the whole muffin is basically an end piece (my favorite part of quick breads).
2nd note: I noted both weight and cup measurements. Weighing dry ingredients is a far more accurate way of measuring than using measuring cups, but I included cup measurements for those of you who don’t have a scale. (Put digital kitchen scale on your wish-list!)
HEALTHIER ZUCCHINI BREAD – make 1 loaf or 20 muffins
- 7½ oz (1½ cups) all-purpose flour
- 2¾ oz (1/2 cup) whole wheat flour
- 1 T ground cinnamon
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1½ pounds zucchini
- 4 egg whites
- 8¾ oz (1 + 1/3 cup) dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 T distilled vinegar
- optional: 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped & lightly toasted
Preheat oven to 375º Fahrenheit.
In a medium sized bowl, blend the flours, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and walnuts, if using. Set aside. 
Using the large holes of your grater, shred the zucchini. (You can use your food processor or do it by hand.) You’ll have about 5 cups of zucchini. Take a handful of the zucchini and place it in the center of a clean tea towel. Gather the edges together and twist the ball firmly to extract as much liquid as you can. Do this with all the zucchini. (It’s better not to put too much zucchini in the towel at one time.) Discard the liquid, unless you can think of a use for it.
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites, sugar, oil, vanilla, and vinegar by hand.
Stir in zucchini.
Pour in the dry ingredients and gently blend until the flour is incorporated – there can be some flour showing. (Over mixing quick breads can lead to a tough loaf.) 
Pour batter into an oiled metal (or glass, if you don’t have metal) loaf pan and smooth top. 
Bake 60-70 minutes (mine took 65 minutes), until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let sit in the pan for 20 minutes before removing to a wire rack. 
The loaf needs to cool at least 1½ hours to firm up before slicing. Honestly, try and restrain yourself – you’ll get nicer slices if you wait.
Summer is the time when vine ripened tomatoes are plentiful. If you’re lucky, these red beauties are growing in your own garden. (I’m so jealous!)
Purée tomatoes. Place a large sieve over a bowl and pour in the tomatoes. 
Using a spatula or large spoon, slowly stir the purée until all that remains in the sieve is a pulpy mash – this can take 5-10 minutes. Discard mash into your compost pile or down the drain.
Put about 4 cups of the bread into the empty blender. Pour the strained tomatoes back into the blender. Let set for about 15-20 minutes to wet and soften the bread.
Add in the garlic, salt, olive oil, and vinegar. Blend until puréed. Add in more bread to thicken, as needed.
Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve either chilled or at room temperature, topped with chopped hard boiled eggs.
Pasta Carbonara is a delicious meal, but is often overlooked by vegetarians since it generally contains pancetta or bacon. Also, it contains raw eggs, which can cause salmonella fear.
After 5 minutes, begin stirring now and then until liquid has evaporated and mushrooms have browned – about 5 minutes. 
Add in shallots and garlic, cooking another few minutes – just before shallots begin to brown. 
Stir in the 1 tsp kosher salt, cooked pasta, and 1 cup of the reserved pasta water. Remove pot from heat source and let cool about 5 minutes.
Separate the yolks from 5 of the eggs and beat these yolks together with the whole egg. As you’re beating the eggs, slowly drizzle in 1/2 cup of the pasta water, stirring constantly – this will temper the eggs. 
Then slowly pour the eggs into the pasta mixture, stirring constantly. 
Stir in the pepper, Pecorino-Romano, and the parsley. 
Turn burner to very low and continue to stir in order to heat pasta for serving, taking care not to scramble the eggs. If mixture is too thick for your liking, loosen it up with remaining pasta water.
Heat saucepan until water reaches 140º Fahrenheit. Maintain 140º for 3 minutes for large eggs and 5 minutes for extra large eggs. (You’ll probably have to turn off burner all-together to maintain the temperature.) 
Remove pan from heat source and immediately remove eggs to the ice bath for about 5 minutes. This will stop the cooking process.
Remove eggs from ice water and refrigerate until needed. Make sure you mark them somehow so they don’t get confused with unpasteurized eggs.
It’s summer party time and that, of course, means food – particularly finger foods to snack on. Yes, we all love our onion dip, guacamole, salsa, and bean dip. But isn’t there room for something new?
Pulse until blended, but not pureed – you want some chunkiness to the dip. Scrap down sides of bowl, as needed when you pulse.
You can serve dip as it, or heat it in the microwave for a total of 2 minutes, stopping every 30 seconds to stir. Serve with a substantial chip such as bagel or tortilla chips.
My mother used to love to buy lady’s club cookbooks. You know the ones – they’re made up of the members favorite recipes. Once I left home, she would buy them for me, too. This was years before the internet. Back then, we had to rely on cookbooks, magazines, and recipes passed on from friends and family.
Using a pastry brush, paint flour/butter thoroughly on bundt pan – getting into all the crevices. 
In an electric mixer, cream together 1/2 cup butter and granulated sugar for 3 minutes (don’t cut this time short).
Beat in eggs and vanilla. 
In a separate bowl, combine the 2 cups of flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
On low speed of mixer, beat in 1/2 of sour cream (don’t worry about being exact). 
Beat in 1/2 of flour mixture, then beat in remaining sour cream, followed by remaining flour. Stir in chocolate chips. (The picture below shows vanilla being added now – I forgot to add it earlier with the eggs.)
In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, powdered sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon. 
Spoon half of batter on bottom of bundt pan, gently spreading it out evenly. I find it easiest to scoop the batter into the bundt pan using a 3 T ice cream scoop, then gently spread the batter evenly around. 
Sprinkle on half of brown sugar mixture, then spoon on remaining batter, spreading it evenly. Finally, sprinkle on remaining brown sugar mixture. 
Bake at 350º F for 45-60 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean (it’s okay for there to be chocolate from the chips).
When done, remove from oven and let cake sit in pan for 20 minutes before removing to a wire rack to completely cool. 
Sprinkle on powdered sugar, if desired.
Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Cover and cook over low heat for a total of 30 minutes. At first, stir now and then – until it’s been cooking for about 20 minutes. At this point most of the liquid will have been absorbed into the rice. Stir more often now to prevent burning. If all the liquid has been incorporated before the 30 minutes is up, turn off the heat and let the covered pot sit on the hot burner. This is to make sure the rice is completely cooked. 
Eat as is, or do something crazy (like I do) and serve as an open faced sandwich on a homemade 
Avocado Sauce is a quick and easy topping for tacos, salads, quesadillas, or anything else you want. As opposed to guacamole, which is usually chunkier, it’s meant to pour – thus covering more territory.
Pulse until creamy – scraping down sides as needed.
Adjust seasoning to your preference.
One, generally, associates ‘gazpacho’ with the red, tomato based chilled soup. But there are other types, including ajoblanco – an almond based gazpacho.
While the bread is soaking, grind 1¼ cups almonds in a blender until they become a fine powder – about 30 seconds. 
Gently squeeze water out of bread back into the bowl (you’re going to use this water). 
Place the bread into the blender with the almonds. Set aside 1½ cups of the bread water for later. Into the blender, add the remaining water in bowl (NOT the 1½ cups you set aside), the vinegar, garlic, salt, and cayenne. Blend for 30 seconds. 
With blender running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil.
Pour in the 1½ cups bread water and run blender to mix.
Strain soup into a serving bowl. 
Into a small bowl combine 1 T of the strained soup with the almond extract. Then pour 1/2 tsp of this mixture into the soup (it enhances the almond flavor) and discard the rest (a little goes a long way). 
Correct for seasoning, if needed (I usually need more salt). Chill, at least, 3 hours – more is better. Toast remaining 3 T almonds in a dry skillet or toaster-oven.
One of my favorite flavor combinations is lemon and garlic, so it’s no surprise that Greek Potatoes are a go-to side dish in our house. Not only is it delicious, but it’s super fast and easy to prepare. (It does take about 40 minutes to bake, but that’s hands-off.)
Place in 475º F oven 
Remove from oven and sprinkle on parsley. Serve while hot.
Remove from heat and stir in vinegar, mustard, and dried tomatoes. 
In a Dutch oven, bring 2 quarts of water and 1 T salt to a boil. Remove 1/2 cup of this water and stir into shallot mixture. 
To the pot of boiling water add the broccoli and cauliflower. 
When the water resumes boiling, cook veggies 1 minute only, just to blanch them, then scoop them out and add to the shallot mixture (which is still off-heat).
Add the pasta and lemon zest to the boiling water, cooking until the pasta is done. 
Save a cup of the pasta water in case you need it, then drain pasta. Into the empty Dutch oven combine the shallot mixture and pasta.
Adjust seasoning, if needed. Add saved pasta water if you feel it needs to be looser.
Chop leaves with knife, then place in food processor and pulse until leaves are very finely chopped. 
Add egg and oil, and pulse a few times to blend. 
Pasta making is all about having the right ratio of liquid to dry ingredients. The spinach, egg, and oil are the wet, and the flour is the dry. You’ll have to go by feel since the water in the spinach and the size of the egg are variable. Don’t worry, there’s wiggle room!
When dough reaches the proper consistency, form 2 balls and place them back in food processor with lid to rest for about 1/2 hour or so. 
Attach pasta machine to a table or countertop with plenty of room to lay out dough. You’ll also need something to hang the dry pasta over, such as a dowel. Pour about 1/4 cup of flour on the work surface. Work as quickly as you can so the dough doesn’t dry out.
Brush off extra flour the run dough through machine at the lowest number setting (this will be either ‘0’ or ‘1’). Fold dough like an envelope and run it through again. 
Lay dough flat and rub a little flour over both sides of dough. 
Fold in half and run it through machine at same setting. Repeat this last step 3 more times. You will have run the dough 6 times through the machine on the lowest setting. Repeat with second dough ball.
Run these pieces through the cutter before doing the other strip, so the cut edges don’t dry out.
Vegetarian Cooking For Carnivores BLOG 