Amuse Bouche

Zucchini (sumer squash) Gratin

Did you know that Friday(Aug 8th) is the official "Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor's porch day"? 

I thought my zucchini were never going to make it after the hailstorm in July, but I cut off the shredded leaves, left one or two on for photosyntheses and like the never say die plants they are it has managed to rally and produce at least three gorgeous striped ones so far.  Since I only have one plant (plus one that only produces male flowers) I don't think I'll need to sneak around under the cover of darkness depositing the spare ones on my neighbor's porches, but when all those tomato plants decide to come in at once baskets may start appearing.  Funny how no one ever minds spare tomatoes.

Now if you have to share some zucchini love this recipe is the the one to use.  Who doesn't love a gratin? Anything under a nice crust sounds good to me.  You can knock this gratin up in the cool of the morning and serve it later at room temperature with a nice side salad. I love how in Mediterranean countries the cooking is done in the coolest part of the day and dishes are eaten later at room temperature.  I think it makes the flavours come out more that trying to eat it while it is still hot.  This dish also packs well for travel, and can serve as a nice vegetarian dish to bring to the family barbecue.

This recipe comes from Mediterranean Harvest by Martha Rose Shulman.  We made it at create a cook back in Summer Harvest week in late June and I have been waiting for a chance to make it at home.  A walk through the vegetable bed on Saturday yielded a lovely green striped zucchini and the fat yellow one came from the Waltham farmer's market along with the purple pepper and the two heirloom tomatoes.

Click below for recipe.

A Cool Summer Noodle Dish - Otsu

This week at create a cook the theme is vegetarian.  I spent a long time searching for recipes to use as i didn't want to fall into a rut of the usual suspects and I wanted to introduce the kids to some potential new foods.  We made a Camargue Rice Salad with Arugula and Feta, a Bulgur Salad with Chickpeas Roasted Red Pepper and a Spicy Cumin Dressing, Spinach Pasties, Asparagus and Gruyere Feuilletes and in honour of the new movie that opens today that I cannot wait to see, a Ratatouille.  All dishes went over very well with the Camargue Rice Salad receiving particularly good reviews but the dish that I think they liked the most was Otsu.

The recipe for Otsu comes from Heidi Swanson's (of 101 Coobooks.com) new book Super Natural Cooking.
I had seen the Amateur Gourmet had made it one sweltering evening to rave reviews and I had also seen it mentioned before on Heidi's blog as a recipe she made based on a dish she had in a local restaurant.  I chose to make it because I adore cold sesame peanut noodles, but so many kids today have peanut and tree nut allergies I decided to make this dish instead to see if it would satisfy my cold noodle craving just the same and satisfy it did. We all loved this dish!  In fact I liked it so much I made it again for dinner last night.  I didn't happen to have plain buckwheat soba noodles on hand so I used mugwort sobu and it was just as yummy and since I don't love plain tofu and I an indeed a carnivore I had mine with some Spanish tuna on top.  The dressing uses shoyu but you can sub out tamari or even soy if you can't find shoyu. 

This dish has everything you could want for summer.  It's quick to put together, the only stove involved is boiling water for the noodles.  It's loaded with ginger, lemon and sesame oil with a kick of cayenne so the palate gets a nice punch of flavours.  If you want the full recipe, go visit Adam over at Amateur Gourmet as Heidi let him reprint it with her permission.  As for me, I'm going to buy her book on the way to work today, I bet she has a lot more dishes up her sleeve for me to try.