Day 3: Braised Zucchini and Leeks

The summer of my senior year of college, I read Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat. I had just had to have my choir dress let out a little, and felt like emergency action was required.

What I remember from the book is the philosophy of thoughtfully eating what you like.  Guiliano doesn't frown on dessert, but she encourages eating one piece of quality bittersweet chocolate over eating a frosted Krispy Kreme doughnut or half a bag of M&Ms.  She writes about facing a craving for an apple pastry head on by eating slow roasted apples cooked in cabbage leaves.

(Who are we kidding?  Cabbage leaves instead of layer upon layer of crisp buttery pastry??  As I type this, I'm struck that she would likely support a cake that substitutes zucchini for Coca-Cola.)

But the concepts are good.  If you love the apple flavor, don't substitute a cheap, unsatisfying fiber bar - eat real apples.  Just limit yourself on the fats and sugars the majority of the time.

Guiliano also shares the diet plan that her family's doctor advised for her after she put on weight in the United States.  For the first 48 hours, she ate only what she deemed "Magical Leek Soup."  In glowing terms she describes how this was the catalyst of her life-long love for sweet, buttery leeks.  She drank the delicious and nourishing leek broth several times a day, and whenever she got hungry she would eat a boiled leek with a little olive oil and cracked pepper.  Not only were these leeks delectable, they filled her up; and she still lost some significant pounds (or kilos).

I was sold.

Day 2: Chocolate and Zucchini Cake

If obsessing over zucchini and pouring over recipes make me anything of an expert (they don't), the two most common pairings with zucchini are cheese and chocolate.  Which bodes well for my taste buds and not so well for my waistline.

Our house is a little divide on chocolate.  I prefer it to any other flavor, and Matt is indifferent.  He does enjoy high quality chocolate, but doesn't mind mixing things up once a while.

When I made that first batch of muffins, Matt looked at them and said, "What are those dark things?"

Me: Raisins.

Matt: Oh, good.  I thought they were chocolate chips.

Me: No, they're raisins.

Pause

Me: We're out of chocolate chips.

Day 1: Potato, Zucchini and Tomato Gratin

I didn't start with chocolate cake after all.  When I got home last night, I decided we needed something to go along with our leftovers, and made another on of the 366 recipes Jesse sent me: Martha Stewart's potato, zucchini and tomato gratin.  It looked good on paper, and I'm up for anything gratin.

It was everything I was looking for in a zucchini recipe.  Simple and flavorful with a rustic elegance. With only five ingredients plus the seasonings, it profiles the vegetables.  Spread olive oil and minced garlic clove in a gratin pan.  Cut the vegetables as thin as possible and layer in the pan.  Top with some salt, pepper, thyme and a little more olive oil.  Sprinkle it with finely grated cheese, bake it for about a hour and you're done.

Prelude to Zucchini

First of all, thank you so much to all of you that sent me recipes and linked me up! I am overwhelmed with recipes.  My cousin Jesse alone sent me 366 recipes.  She's the sister of the cousin who gave the recipe for the delicious sounding pie.  Obviously my cousins know their way around produce.  Congratulations, Jesse.  You win.  Please come to Gray Court to collect your prize of one golden summer squash.

And in case any of you are still processing that number - yes, it's enough that I could make one a day and still not be done in a year.  

I have recipes for zucchini pasta, zucchini pies, zucchini cupcakes, zucchini muffins, strata, quiche, casseroles, and soups.  I was even sent a recipe for a zucchini slushie.  

This, friends, is going to be exciting.

It begins tonight.  We're eating leftovers (got to clear space in that fridge for zucchini cobbler and zucchini tian) and the Helpful Neighbors are coming over to help us check out the floor of our chicken coop, so I'm thinking that we'll be serving up zucchini chocolate cake.  Also, the recipe comes from Jesse, and it seems only fair to start with one of hers.

Going to be seeing a lot more of this.

Note: Since I intend to post every day (or nearly), I won't be linking to Facebook.  If you are interested in following this to collect zucchini recipes or just to see how long it takes me to go crazy, you can subscribe to receive posts by e-mail but entering your e-mail up on the right.  It's really easy to unsubscribe if it gets to be too much.  And I don't make money or anything if you subscribe.  I just makes me feel a little more self-important.

The Great Zucchini Challenge

It has begun.  It is the middle of June, and already Matt's generous planting of zucchini and summer squash is yielding bountiful produce.

Those first several squash are always exciting.  Matt worries that I pick them too soon, but I ignore him and slice them up thin to fry in olive oil.  Less than a week later, they are coming in a pretty steady stream.  We're eating sauteed squash every other night, and I am polling people at work to find out if any of them will take zucchini.  Within days, we are eating it every night and I no longer care if people at work like squash.  They are taking it home anyway.

Yesterday, I discovered we'd missed one (nine), and I found myself dealing with enough zucchini to start a baseball team (although, as vegetables go, these are shaped more like quarterbacks).  After sauteing one (half) for dinner, I decided to try my hand at zucchini baked goods.

Zucchini baked goods confuse me.  Maybe I'm missing something here, but the zucchini bread, zucchini muffin and especially the zucchini chocolate cake all just seem like a way of dealing with excess zucchini: a coping mechanism for zealous home gardeners.  It's the human version of peanut butter on Henry's monthly heart-worm pill.  You can either make baked goods with a rich, dense crumb or you can make a sub par and equally unhealthy product with shredded zucchini in it. Yum.

As a kid, I didn't complain.  We didn't eat sweet breads or muffins very often, but zucchini bread was permitted.  Quick breads = bad.  Zucchini quick bread = have a third slice.  It was like the ice cream we were encouraged to eat the last morning of vacation.  Then I grew up and started taking my calories without the zucchini, thanks.

But last night, the behemoth zucchini scared me, and I made muffins.  The recipe came from Smitten Kitchen.  Deb gave me the brownies that have never let me down, and I confidently grated my zucchini and stirred it into the batter.  When I came in from putting up my birds, the house smelled comfortable and promising.  I spread two muffins with butter and gave one to Matt.

They were just like I remembered.  Meh.  Not bad, but not great.  The dumpy country cousin to a real muffin.

Now I'm on the hunt for real zucchini recipes.  Recipes that celebrate the zucchini.  Recipes that can't be improved by eliminating the zucchini.  I have my eye on a couple recipes like this sandwich from How Sweet It Is and this pasta from The Pioneer Woman.  My cousin Jamie sent me one for a quiche that I'm super excited about.  And I'm even wanting to try this tart from Smitten Kitchen.

If you have any recipes that you like or are curious about, send them my way.  I'll try any recipe you send me  with three exceptions:

1. Crazy expensive - if it calls for 24 karat gold dust, it's not happening.  Twenty-four carrots are ok.
2. Really weird ingredients - I'll try almost anything.  But I'm telling you now, zucchini jello is out of the question.
3. Allergies - if it has cinnamon in it, I have to substitute nutmeg or allspice.

So that's where we're at.  Some people challenge themselves to climb mountains or quit smoking.  Mark Zuckerberg (spellcheck just tried to change that to cheeseburger, haha!) challenged himself to eat only meat that he's killed himself.  I'm challenging myself to eat copious amount of zucchini.  Baby steps.

As long as I have recipes and zucchini, I will be blogging zucchini.  Stay tuned...

A Vacation from Vacation

"It's like Dillinger once told me: 'Remember, it's always the darkest just before they turn on the lights.' " - from Anything Goes

I have this theory about vacations: they are for children, resort towns and swimsuit retailers.  In fact, I suspect they were designed by swimsuit retailers exactly the same way Valentine's Day was cooked up by card companies.  The gym is probably in on it too.

It's pretty genius, actually.

Glossy posters and shiny TV ads tantalize with photoshopped beaches that are a sharp contrast to my gray cubicle walls.  Images of people carelessly flung across a padded lounge chair haunt me as I wake up at dawn to sleepily pull on work boots and feed chickens.  

I buy in, and plan a vacation.  It goes something like this:

1. Decide on time-off.
2. Hope Matt and I can get the same time-off.
3. Apply for time-off.
4. Change time off-because Matt couldn't get approved for the same time.
5. Breathe a sigh of relief because we finally got the days in sync.
6. Find a place to stay.*
7. E-mail approximately two dozen people to ask exactly "how handicapped friendly are you?"
8. Find a place for the dog to stay.
9. Find someone just crazy enough to want to take care of chickens and still be relied on to not let them become skunk bait. 
10. Convince Katie to keep four baby turkeys for a week.  "They've only flown out of their cage twice.  Very easy."  
11. Confirm beach rental.*
12. Confirm all animal keepers.  Use lots of flattery to butter them up and ensure the well-being of animals.  
13. Mulch garden in attempt to prevent jungle tendencies.
14. Use Round-Up on everything else.
15.  Do laundry.
16. Find all the pieces of all the bathing suits.  Surprisingly difficult.
17. Attempt to have the whole house clean at one time.  It's never been done, but why not try again?
18. Mow grass within an inch of its life - must be done within moments of leaving .  Obviously.
19. Cram two weeks worth of office work into one week.  But do it in a way that does not imply that I can be relied on to work at these speeds when I get back.
20.  Schedule and pay contractors working on inspection punch-sheet for the house we're selling five days after we return. 

After days weeks months of that any vacation would seem like the lap of luxury.  Seriously, to sit down anywhere right now, I would think, "Wait - I don't have to pack a suitcase today? How incredibly indulgent!  I'm done following up on a sheep-sitter?  Well, well, well, look who is going all lazy today."

At this point the ocean shines brighter, the sand feels sunnier, the beach house more charming.

It is in the preparing for a vacation that the need occurs.  This is how the resort towns guarantee they'll stay crowded, the swimsuit retailers sell ill-fitting spandex, and the gym gets money for exercise.   

I plan to go enjoy the pants off this vacation next week.  And not only because I couldn't find all the pieces of my bathing suits.   

For a more poetic, sentimental view of our annual vacation, you can read what I wrote last year.

* I actually didn't have to do those things this time around.  Thanks, Dad!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A coworker brought in the biggest box of chocolate I've ever seen.  After eating most of them, we were inspired to make some Valentines of our own.

It might be a while before we're given free reign with chocolate again.

Hope you all have a happy Valentine's Day!

Note: The expressions on the Valentines are in no way meant to reflect the feelings of the models in the photo.