Another weekend away, another empty fridge on Monday after work, and another zucchini from our plant in the backyard.
"How can you tell when a man has no friends? You see him buying zucchini at the supermarket."
How true, how true.
So I browsed through my "Simply In Season" cookbook, which is a great resource for recipes for foods that are in season or wild. The cookbook is separated into different sections for spring, summer, fall, and winter, and there are tons of recipes for the most common foods that are in season at any given time. I found a great recipe using marinated tofu and grilled veggies, but once I got the marinade made, I realized it would have to sit overnight. Damn. Back to the drawing board, at least for tonight's dinner!
Frittatas are so versatile. You can eat them for any meal, and you can mix just about anything in with them and they still taste good. My carton had three eggs left. Time to stretch! I pulled out an onion, frozen corn, and the zucchini, threw a pat of butter in a 6" cast iron skillet, chopped and added the veggies to the pan, and went back for the milk. Double Damn!! No Milk!! No Cheddar!! Not even a dried up old piece of parmesan!!! ... Cottage cheese? ... ???
Actually, it was DELICIOUS!!! I never would have believed it. The cottage cheese made the eggs creamy and custard-like, and its delicate flavor didn't overwhelm the vegetables. Yes, I could even taste the zucchini.
The most important thing about cooking this frittata was that once I added the egg/cheese mixture to the sauteed vegetables, I stirred it a few times, let it sit on the flame for just about a minute, and then stuck it under the broiler for about 5 minutes, give or take. In the past, I have let the eggs sit on the flame for longer, resulting in a dry texture and a burned, crusty bottom. I HATE burned eggs. When I took the skillet off the flame sooner, the bottom was not burned, and the eggs had a much creamier texture. It wasn't a hit with the kids though...usually they both love eggs, but they turned up their noses at this one. There's half a pan left - we'll see if they eat it for lunch today!
I'll get back to you about the tofu and eggplant (and zucchini, I'm sure!). I have had little to no success with cooking tofu. I usually hate it. But this is the first time I've marinated it, so here's hoping!
So normally, if I grow zucchini, I pick them REALLY early; no more than 2.5 inches and about .5 inch diameter, but I'm not doing much this year so I got some at the farmer's market. Ugh, too big! But I tried to make a go of it and, wait for it...EPIC FAIL! I love to saute zucchini in good olive oil with tasty sea salt and not much more, but I thought that I would jazz it up a bit and add chili powder and cumin. Not even those saved it. I had some purple beans that turned green when they were cooked in with the zucchini too and served it over rice. Blah and boring. I wound up putting cheese on the whole thing. A lot. That made it more interesting, but for the rest of the zucchini, I'm going to make muffins and bread. Then I don't really have to think much about breakfast for the kid:) Tomorrow, I'm going to use the left over zucchini and beans for fried rice. Not the healthiest, but it's better than throwing it away! Lucia
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