A River of Zucchini, And An Ocean of Squash

There's lots of squash in your not-too-distant future.  During summer and early fall, we'll see at least some in almost every crop share box.  And, that's a good thing.

What's the most common thing we do with it?  Cut it up, steam, sauté it or grill it, and serve.  Ta da!  Dinner.  I do it too.  As a matter of fact, it's what's on the menu for tonight.  Over the next few months, I'll be doing that a lot.  So will you, probably.  But around late-July, most of us will begin yearning for something else.  It's bound to happen.  I'm a big fan of the old TV show M*A*S*H, and one of my favorite episodes illustrates this beautifully:  After weeks of liver or fish, there's mutiny.

I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to see my family coming into the kitchen with pitchforks and torches like that.  Time to get creative.  One really cool thing to do with zucchini and squash is to pretend they're noodles.  Get yourself a really, really good peeler, and peel them all the way down until you see the seeds.  Now, you have "pasta."

Start easy.  Take your favorite lasagna recipe and sub the noodles with either the shaved squash or planks made with a mandoline.  (You're not going to touch that mandoline without a safety glove, are you?)  Not only did you just use some of that squash, you made your lasagna considerably healthier – and gluten free.  Now how hard was that, really?

Photo via oprah.com

After a couple of lasagnas with leftovers, we're back to our mutiny condition.  Time to get a little more creative.  Last week, I made zucchini french fries (baked ones).  They turned out to be a big hit, especially with the little guy.  Shave your squash, or plank them.  You can pretend they're noodles again, but this time don't hide them in the tomato sauce.  Use them as a salad.  Or just take your favorite primavera recipe, and replace half the noodles with thinly shaved squash (raw).

Photo via foodandwine.com

See?  Lots of options!

Stuffed Full of Zucchini

Here come the squash!  Yellow squash and zucchini are staples in our crop share boxes throughout summer and fall.  As one of the most commonly available veggies, I'm always looking for new recipes to use in order to keep my family's interest.  Don't get me wrong, simply sautéed is awesome too.  If you can get the tiny baby ones, those are phenomenal for sautéing.  Just slice the squash in quarter-inch disks, melt some butter/margarine in some olive oil, and put them in.  Salt, pepper, and let them sit undisturbed until the bottom side is beautifully brown.  Flip and let the other side brown, and remove briefly to a paper towel to get rid of any excess oil.  These can be dressed up thousands of different ways.  My personal favorite:  Add just a little minced garlic to the butter and oil, sauté the disks as above, and just before they finish squeeze a lemon over the pan.  Add a little fresh dill and fresh oregano (how's your herb planting coming, by the way?) after you drain them on the paper towel, and finally sprinkle with some Parmesan or feta.  mmmm...

That's not the real thing we're here to talk about, though.  We're here to talk about stuffed squash.  This is an entirely different level.  In general, you slice the zucchini lengthwise, then take the tip of a spoon and scrape out the seed area in the center.  Save what you scoop out, as lots of recipes add this in with the fillings.  Some sort of filling of herbs, breadcrumbs, cheese, other veggies, or even ground meat or seafood is pulled together and spooned back into the hollowed-out zucchini canoes.  Bake it, and you have stuffed zucchini!  This recipe, though, is my dead-on favorite for stuffed zucchini.  The combination of sun-dried tomato and canned artichoke hearts works so well.  This recipe is really good too.  Everything's better with bacon, right?

Another delicacy is stuffed zucchini flowers.  Yes, you can eat the flowers!  These dishes come from Italian, French and Mexican cuisines.  Essentially, some sort of stuffing, frequently cheese based, is put in between the petals of a closed flower.  The flower is then dipped in a batter (tempura batter is good) and then they're fried.  Italian variations frequently use ricotta as the stuffing, with some sort of addition (black pepper, herbs...).  French variations do too.  I'll admit that I haven't really tried any Mexican recipes for squash blossoms, but this one for crab-stuffed blossoms looks promising.  And, for the adventurous souls among us, there's Aztec squash blossom pudding.  Hmmm...

On an unrelated note, I was wandering around Nall's on Friday and there is an incredible collection of hanging baskets full of flowers and plants.  The one below (with coleus) I thought was really gorgeous.  Stop by and take a look!

Southwest Stuffed Peppers

I actually whipped up these stuffed peppers last week as my even lighter and more veggie-tacular version of the Cream Cheese Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Peppers, but failed miserably at actually getting this to the blog.  But we got onions and there's onions in this recipe, so hey it's still relevant!  Especially as we head into summer with all the squash and corn, this will be a great way to use it all up.

Southwest Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:
2 tsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, sliced
5 green peppers, 1 sliced, 4 hollowed and lids removed to prepare for stuffing
2 cups corn (or 1 can)
1 yellow squash or zucchini, sliced (if you have a zoodler or a julienne peeler, use that!)
1 1/2 Tbsp cumin
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 chicken breast, cooked and shredded (great for leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken)
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
8 Tbsp salsa (be fancy and make your own Homemade Salsa)
1 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 cup, plus extra, shredded cheese of your choice (we use Daiya cheddar for dairy-free)
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
Salt & pepper, to taste
Hot sauce, to taste -- optional


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

You'll want to prep all of your veggies first, that way this recipe goes at light-speed.  It makes a TON of filling, so you can easily freeze any extra that won't fit in your peppers and use later for enchilada stuffing or bring it up to a boil with some stock and diced canned tomatoes for a filling soup.

Prep them veggies!

In a large skillet, and I mean large, heat olive oil over medium high heat.  Add in garlic and saute for about 1 minute or until fragrant.  Add in onion and pepper and saute for about 3 minutes.  Add corn, yellow squash and cumin and saute for an additional 3 minutes.  Next, pour in beans, shredded chicken, broth, salsa and lime juice.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until no liquid remains.

Stir in cheese, cilantro, and any hot sauce if you'd like a kick.  Then season with salt & pepper, to taste.  Remove from heat.

Take your 4 hollow peppers and stuff each with generous portions of the filling and top each with a sprinkle of cheese.  Place upright into a baking dish and bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes, until skin on peppers starts to shrivel at top and look wrinkly and the cheese on top is nice & bubbly.

Sweet Day In The Morning, It's Sweet Potato Season!

So, unfortunately, my brain hates freedom tonight and no amount of Advil or Tylenol is touching it.  I am actually blogging in sunglasses at the moment.  Classy.  Thus, for now at least, this week's posts will be rather short and sweet.  In the Spoiler e-mail we linked you to our favorite, simple preparation for Sauteed Swiss Chard, which doesn't exactly scream Labor Day picnic food, but thankfully with this week's bounty of fruit you'll be able to throw together a wonderful fruit salad, fruit crisp, or even go all-American with some apple pie (or tart it up a bit!).  But I've got two preparations for those sweet potatoes for you.  One (an oldie but a goodie from our Crop Share vault) that will be a healthy, yet filling game day recipe now that football season is upon us (I might as well draw ire where I can...Go Colts!) and then another to take you from the gridiron to the grill and have you set for this weekend's picnic circuit.  Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!  Now where's a nice, dark and quiet room for me to hide?

Veggie & Chicken Sausage Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Scallions via Martha Stewart

Herbed Curry Chicken Kebabs

So we've gone a bit overboard loading you up with veggies in the past two weeks of Crop Share.  What can I say, we just can't help ourselves.  But if you're like me, that means you've likely got a fridge full of peppers and squash from this week and last and you're wondering how on earth you're going to use it all up.  Well, when you've got a bounty of veggies and no grand ideas, then it's time to harpoon those suckers.  Okay, not with a real harpoon -- with kebab skewers!  So yesterday I whipped up this tasty dish and in the end still had way more veggies than chicken, so this will easily leave you with enough to make at least 4-5 vegetable-only kebabs.  Get ready to fire up the grill, or in my case, the grill pan!

Herbed Curry Chicken Kebabs

Ingredients:

1 onion, sliced

4 squash, cubed (yellow, zucchini or pattypan)

1 green bell pepper

3 sweet banana peppers, sliced

4 plum tomatoes, halved and quartered

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed

For marinade:

1 cup olive oil

1 cup white balsamic vinegar

1 tsp dried tarragon

1 tsp dried parsley

1 tsp dried rosemary

1 tsp pineapple sage

2 tsp Dizzy Pig Bombay Curry-Ish (now in store!)

Combine all marinade ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Assemble kebabs on wooden skewers alternating between vegetables and chicken.  You'll have lots of leftover vegetables, so go ahead and make some vegetarian kebabs out of them.  They'll make great ready-made side dishes for the rest of the week.  Layer skewers in a baking dish and pour marinade over top.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, more is always better.

Pre-heat your stove top grill pan over medium high heat.  Lay out kebabs and grill for 20 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked, turning the kebabs regularly to sear all sides.

Serve with jasmine rice.

Grilled Vegetable Skewers via Proud Italian Cook

Pardon my lack of original content this week, I'm out of town for a wedding and my lonely share is waiting for me back at Nalls.  :(  So for all you Crop Share newbies, don't worry, cooking does actually happen in Nalls' Kitchen!

In the meantime we can all drool together with some gems I discovered thanks to Pinterest, like this Grilled Vegetable Skewers from Proud Italian Cook.  A great way to use up the corn, bell peppers, broccoli and even slice up the tomatoes into wedges to skewer.  I hear grilled cantaloupe is fantastic!  Though probably hold off on grilling the spinach, something tells me that's a bad idea.

So follow the link below to view this recipe that has me ready to fire up the grill at 9am!

Grilled Vegetable Skewers

Baked Spicy Brown Sugar Salmon with Roasted Vegetables

Salmon is a go-to protein around here, as the Mister isn't a huge poultry fan and I don't eat very much red meat or pork.  So I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting preparations for this tasty piece of fish, and one of my current favorites is this baked salmon with a spicy brown sugar rub.  We made it for some friends for Easter dinner this year, and it had everyone ooo'ing and ahh'ing.  And there's really nothing better to serve with this dish than a simple medley of roasted vegetables.  We all know yellow squash is divine when roasted up, but certainly don't miss out on roasting this week's yellow squash along with the tomatoes, as the flavor just explodes.  For those of us without access to a proper grill, it's the closest we can get to some lovely charred tomatoes.

Baked Spicy Brown Sugar Salmon with Roasted Vegetables

Ingredients:

4 salmon fillets
olive oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 crushed red pepper flakes
3 yellow squash, halved and sliced into half-rounds
2 tomatoes, halved and sliced into wedges
1 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed
2 broccoli crowns, chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced
salt, pepper & garlic powder, to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.  Drizzle salmon fillets with olive oil and then evenly distribute brown sugar rub onto fillets, gently massaging the rub onto all sides of salmon.  Place in a baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes.  If you want a bit of a crispy crust, reduce cook time by a few minutes and place under the broiler on high and allow sugar to begin to bubble and caramelize.

Spread veggies out on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with lemon juice and season to taste with salt, pepper & garlic powder.  Or for an added zing, reserve some of the salmon rub to sprinkle over veggies.  Bake also at 425 for 20-25 minutes, turning half-way through, until veggies begin to brown.

Veggie & Chicken Sausage Stuffed Potatoes

During my time in Ireland I became obsessed with stuffed potatoes.  No, not just the broccoli & cheese or "loaded" baked potatoes we have here, these were stuffed potatoes on a whole other level.  The Irish call them jacket potatoes, and think huge puffy winter jacket kind of jacket, because they are stuffed to the gills and then some with all sorts of yumminess.  Basically what we'd normally reserve for an elaborate salad bar, they will shove into a fresh baked potato.  So when I stumbled upon this recipe in the fall, it was love at first sight.  A stuffed potato that would make the biggest jacket potato blush!  Being chock full of veggies, this will be a great recipe to come back to through all seasons, and the perfect way to use the zucchini we're giving you this week.  I've even made it with baked sweet potatoes, so if you still have some leftover from last week, stuff them up!

Veggie & Chicken Sausage Stuffed Potatoes

Ingredients:

4 baking potatoes or sweet potatoes
2 Tbsp olive oil, plus 1 tsp, divided use
4 links of apple chicken sausage, sliced into 1/4 rounds
1/2 sweet onion, sliced thin
1 cup crimini or baby bella mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, sliced thin
1 zucchini, sliced thin
1 yellow squash, sliced thin
1 14oz can diced tomatoes, some juice drained off but not all
1/2 tsp dried dill or 1 Tbsp fresh chopped dill
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Rub potatoes with olive oil, stab a few times with a fork to allow for ventilation when baking, and place in middle rack of oven to bake for 50-60 minutes.  While potatoes bake, prepare all the sausage and veggies.

In a large skillet, heat 2 Tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add chicken sausage and onions, gently tossing and cook until the sausage begins to brown.  Then add the mushrooms and garlic, and allow for mushrooms to begin to brown.  Add in red pepper, zucchini and yellow squash, and cook for about 2 minutes.  Then add in the tomatoes with a little bit of the juice from the can, the dill and your seasoning.  Cook for an additional 2 minutes and then remove from heat while you wait for the potatoes to finish baking.

Once potatoes are done, carefully remove them from the oven (wooo hot potato!!) and allow them to cool slightly.  Then slice lengthwise down the potato and fluff the the inside with a fork to loosen everything from the skin.  Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and season with a dash of salt & pepper.  Then generously top with the sausage and veggies.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream if you so desire.


Recipe adapted from The Cozy Apron (http://thecozyapron.com/reminiscing-a-little-over-vegetable-stuffed-potatoes/)

Yellow Squash with Tomatoes & Parmesan

Where most people tire of yellow squash, I can't seem to get enough of it.  And once squash season is going full tilt, I will find new and interesting ways to fit it in to pretty much every meal of the day.  One of my go-to dishes over the past few years has been to slice yellow squash in half, place it into a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and cardamom, and then bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes.

But when I saw this recipe for Yellow Squash with Tomatoes & Parmesan, over at Kayln's Kitchen, I knew I'd found a new love!  Such a quick and simple weeknight side dish to throw together.  Or, if you're a squash fiend like me, an entire meal to try and hoard all to yourself.  With the Vidalia onion also in this week's share, you'll already have 2 of 7 ingredients going home with you!

Hop on over to Kayln's Kitchen to view the recipe for Yellow Squash with Tomatoes & Parmesan!

Puff Pastry Veggie Pizza

I love using puff pastry for desserts and savory dishes. The buttery flakiness goes well with just about anything. This veggie pizza can be cut up into small squares and used for appetizers or you can cut them in larger pieces and serve with a salad for a simple, weeknight dinner.

Ingredients:
1/2 of a 17.3-ounce packagePepperidge Farm® Puff Pastry Sheets (1 sheet), thawed
2 tsp. vegetable oil
1 cup chopped zucchini
1 cup chopped yellow squash
1 small green or red pepper, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 small onion, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
3/4 cup Prego® Pizzeria Style Pizza Sauce
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

To view the rest of this recipe, please visit: http://www.puffpastry.com/recipe/24082/puff-pastry-vegetable-pizza

Roasted Corn & Zucchini Salad

Now is the time to take advantage of all the fresh and local corn. Around Nalls, we like to eat it raw. We just shuck it back and go to town. If you want to start freezing your corn, here are 3 quick and easy steps to do it:      

       

1. Put your corn in boiling water for 30 seconds to partially cook it.

2. Rinse with cold water to cool corn for safe handling.
3. Cut corn off cobb and store in freezer safe zip lock bag.

This recipe can be altered by adding additional summer veggies or using your favorite salad dressing to change up the flavor.

Ingredients:

2 ½ – 3 cups fresh corn kernels, about 3 medium ears
1 ½ cup fresh zucchini or yellow squash, medium diced
1/3 cup red onion, small diced
1 Tbl. Italian seasoning
2 Tbl. olive oil
2 Tbl. balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Click through to view the rest of this great recipe from Culinary Cory:  http://culinarycory.com/2010/08/01/roasted-corn-zucchini-salad/

Baked Zucchini Chips

Here's another great way to trick your kids into eating their veggies ::insert devilish laugh:: You won't feel guilty about reaching into the bowl repeatedly either. These chips are crisp and airy. You can use whatever seasoning you'd like on them, we used the Whistle Stop 4 Blends Seasoning! 

Ingredients:
1 Zucchini
Canola cooking spray
Seasoned Salt (or seasoning of your choice)







To view the rest of this recipe, please visit: http://vittlesandbits.blogspot.com/2012/03/baked-zucchini-chips.html

Zucchini Pesto Tarts

We love this recipe for its simplicity and because there's plenty of room to make it your own. We like to add caramelized onions and goat cheese. You can cut them smaller to make them an appetizer and sprinkle a little prosciutto on top!

Ingredients: 

Puff Pastry Sheets

Pesto 

Feta Cheese

Zucchini

Yellow Squash

To view the rest of this recipe, please visit: http://downtownromantic.com/2012/02/28/zucchini-pesto-tarts/