What to do with All that Zucchini

I have not yet become an official member of the CSA from Mano Farm, Steve's Alter ego. There are too many vegetables that Eric does not like to be willing to blindly accept the bountiful harvest.

But this week a box got left behind and I was the lucky winner. And man, does Steve grow beautiful vegetables. The box teamed with sweet fat carrots, succulent white turnips, spicy radishes, giant bok choy, massive beets, vibrant green spinach, spring mix, red leaf lettuce and too much zucchini and lots of squash.

So, today at class I asked Sims what to do with all my zucchini. He suggested a lasagna, using the zucchini as the noodles. I knew this would work cuz Eric does not like Zucchini, but like lasagna and I figured that I could mask the flavor. If I wanted to highlight the Zucchini, I would have made this differently (like make a white lasagna).

I am eating it now, and it tastes delicious, but it needs work. Here is what I did this first go:

1. Start a large pot of water boiling.

2. Finely chop up 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery and 1/2 a yellow onion.

3. In a thick and heavy pot, heat the olive oil. When hot, add the carrots, celery and onion. Stirring occasionally. While these are cooking, mince one clove of garlic. Chop up one 28oz can and one 14oz can of Muir Fire Roasted Tomatoes. Mince about 5 sun dried tomatoes.

4. After about 10 minutes, add the garlic and stir. Cook for about a minute or so. Add the chopped tomatoes and juices, the sun dried tomatoes, and lots of fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer.

5. When water is boiling, place the whole zucchinis in the boiling water. Sims had said to blanche them, but I was not sure for how long. I let them boil for about 5 minutes and then removed them. This seemed right. (I cooked about 12 zucchini ranging in size and had to do this part in batches).

6. I allowed the zucchini to cool a bit before attempting to slice them. This was hard to do and there must be a technique, but I thinly sliced the zucchini as best I could and set aside.

7. I chopped up all the fresh herbs I had. Tarragon, Dill and Basil.

8. After the sauce had cooked for about 20 minutes, I began to assemble the dish. In a 9x12 Pyrex dish, layer a bit of sauce. Lay one layer of zucchini on top. Plop large pieces of goat cheese all over the top. Ladle sauce over the goat cheese. Repeat for one more round, sprinkling the fresh herbs on top of the second round of zucchini. (If Eric liked Zucchini, I would have put another layer on top).

At this point, I had to go teach, so I put some tin foil on top and put the assemblage into the fridge. After class, I worried about Eric not liking it, so I bought some sausage and bread at Rainbow to have as backup.

9. When I got home, I set the oven to 400. I poured a little olive oil on the top, sprinkled salt and lots of pepper and put the dish in immediately and set the timer to 30 minutes.

10. The first serving was great, but Eric wanted meat. So i ended up frying up a little hot sausage and adding it to his second helping. I am delighted. Zucchini was eaten in this house. This is not a dish to show off the zucchini, but rather a dish that will use of a lot of it.

xo
k