The Main Characters

The Man (of the House): The love of my life. Severely addicted to books (that take up WAYYYY too much space in our house) and raw garlic. We've been married 15 years, but involved for many more. Long story....

Our Kids:
SC: Age 14. Book addicted like both her parents. Serious, but with a nice sense of humor. Well mannered in the eyes of the world, but at home,it can be another story--she's a teenager(!)

JR: Age 10 I think of her as a Disney Princess's evil twin. All the eccentricity of both sides of the family wrapped up in a sweet little body and an adorable smile. People find her a darling. I do too, but I also find her exhausting!

The Beasts: Our 2 cats, both adopted from animal rescue. "Bart" is a big, solid black, total teddy bear of a cat. Our brown tabby queeen "Bella" is in love with The Man, though she seems to like me too!

Me: Children's librarian by day, tired keeper of all of the above by night. When I think of my life, I think of Nicole Hollander (Sylvia)'s immortal line about things that are easier than combining a family and a career. Like swimming the Amazon covered in peanut butter....

Thursday Thirteen #33: How Do I Adore Thee,Zucchini? Let Me Count The Ways

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posted Wed, 07/23/08

Thursday Thirteen

People dread zucchini. There are jokes about how fast it grows, how people sneak baskets of it onto their neighbors doorsteps in the dead of the night. Jokes about horrible zucchini concoctions. Songs about hating zucchini.

Well, a few years back I wrote a post here called
I LIKE Zucchini. And I still do.

I've harvested 3 beauties so far. One of my plants is showing signs of some sort of wilt, but I have a second plant in a different bed of my community garden plot, so I have hopes for more. So,here are recipes and a weird but real idea for how to use zucchini!

THIRTEEN WAYS TO USE ZUCCHINI

1 Zucchini/tomato pie As soon as those tomatoes finally ripen in my garden (oh, the agony of waiting!) I will be making this recipe, based on one in Marion Morash's Victory Garden Cookbook. And I will post it here.

2 Ratatouille Not the movie, the dish, but it's a favorite of my big girl.The link will lead you to my post about the crock pot versio

3 Zucchini casserole My version of a dish I've enjoyed in Penn Dutch Country. I posted it as part of the I LOVE Zucchini post.

4 Zucchini latkes See the blog post below this one.I've already been passing on the recipe at work.

5 Mixed Veg Salad with Zucchini A long time favorite around here that uses corn and tomatoes too--plus pesto!

6 Fried Zucchini Very bad for you. Very yummy. I am still trying to find a baked version instead.

7 Steamed Zucchini with lemon, butter and oregano I have a version somewhere that calls this
"a la Greque"

8 Zucchini with ricotta and pasta Sliced zucchini is tossed with ricotta cheese and basil. Some of the pasta cooking water is used to thin the sauce. Search the NY Times archives for this--Mark Bittman has a recipe. I am going to try this again with high fiber pasta one of the nights.

9 Zucchini picadillo Picadillo is sort a Cubandish--usually beef with spices, tomatoes, olives and raisins, served over rice. We love the "Desperation Dinners" recipe for this, so I am eager to try this version I found recently in the Washington Post--though I am going to have to do back to the original recipe to find the right spices. Trader Joe's carries a picadillo cooking sauce, BTW.

10 Zucchini gratin Zucchini and cheese, baked with a crumb topping. This version from "The Barefoot Contessa" is similiar to one I've made.

11 Grilled zucchini Nigella Lawson, one of my favorite TV chefs, recommends this. We've now got a George Foreman grill, so I may try this some evening.

12 Zucchini bread With so many ways to cook zucchini, I've yet to do this, but if you've got a good version, contact me and I'll try it and post the results!

13 Fish Food Now, I wouldn't do this to my beautiful, nice sized, zucchini, but as I reported in that other post about zucchini, I used to work with someone who raised Oscar fish and took my oversize zukes home as their treat. And I've looked this up and found it's a common practice among folks who raise that sort of fish!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!