This is a quick and easy dinner that does well for kids who like carrots, zucchini, one or the other, or neither. The ribbons are barely cooked, which is a plus for most kids, and they are easily removed by picky eaters.
A few minutes of prep and nearly an hour in the oven makes one of the most creative uses of zucchini I've found. Not exactly quick, but it sure tastes good!
The chicken is already made, it joined some swordfish on the grill while I was making dinner Sunday. Cooking two meals at once, both from the new Canal House Cooking Volume 8, was motivation enough for me to fire up the charcoal grill out in the yard. Lighting an actual fire is always more satisfying than pushing the button on our gas grill, even though it takes more time and effort. Plus, the food always tastes better.
This is another dinner made with vegetables I roasted earlier this week using Tamar Adler's method. On Friday I loaded the oven with a tray of eggplant and peppers, a tray of acorn squash, a glass baking dish of cherry tomatoes and another glass dish of zucchini. Most of it turned out pretty well.
The really special part of this is the yogurt sauce recipe that came in last week's newsletter. I tried out Tamar Adler's instructions for roasting cherry tomatoes, zucchini, turnips, eggplant and peppers last friday. They were pretty delicious just on their own or mixed into bulgar, but now we'll have them with sauce!
Same cookbook, different dish. This one will use up the rest of last week's zucchini and feature tofu, if I make it to the store to buy some. I'm debating making it with chicken stock instead of water, since we have no vegetable broth and I'd rather not make (or buy) any.
This is an easy and delicious way to eat up the squash that just keep coming this time of year. All you really need are a few summer squash, an onion and a little crème fraiche or sour cream to dollop on top. You can use whatever type of broth you happen to have on hand - chicken stock, vegetable stock or just plain water with salt.
Late this summer, my family and I pitched a tent at Eatwell Farm, where most of the produce we eat is grown. Farmer Nigel Walker and his partner, Lorraine, had invited CSA members out to the farm for an event called "Do Nothing Weekend". We spent our days swimming and canoeing in the pond, drinking lots of house-made soda, counting feral cats and generally lounging around.
As I've mentioned before, I don't love eggplant. But this is their season, so mixed with some good tomatoes, peppers, an onion and whatever zucchini you have cluttering up your counter (or fridge or garden), they're really not so bad. Especially when served over saffron rice. With lots of butter and salt. The rice is my favorite part of this dinner.
We came home late from school, again today. I started Sesame Street at 5:00, hoping to have dinner on the table by 6:00 and finished by 6:15, which seems easy enough, since the kids either gobble it down or don't eat at all. Today's scheduled recipe was eggplant curry, using leftover chicken from tuesday's paella. But, I hadn't salted the eggplant beforehand, and now twenty minutes of letting salty eggplant sit and drain into the sink seems like an awful waste of time.