Marinated Herbed Zucchini
Craving something fresh, Paul picked up a basket of summer squash at the market on the way home from work yesterday. Marinated Herbed Zucchini is a beautiful and flavorful summer starter that transforms summer's bounteous zucchini and squash into something unexpected and delicious. Whether you're looking for a creative new salad...or just searching for something other than zucchini bread to make with the summer squashes piling up in your kitchen, this is a winner!
Yield: Serves 4-6 as a starter or side
Ingredients:
- 1 medium zucchini
- 1 medium yellow summer squash
- juice of 2 lemons
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 2 tablespoons combined herbs (chives, basil, tarragon, parsley) thinly sliced.
- 1/4 cup grated fresh Parmesan
Steps:
- Slice or mandolin zucchini and squash into thin coins.
- Mix together the vinaigrette ingredients: lemon, salt, pepper and garlic until combined.
- Add the vinaigrette to the sliced squashed and toss carefully to combine.
- Lay the slices in layers in a shallow dish with a lip. Pour over additional vinaigrette.
- Cover and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to meld together.
- Immediately prior to serve sprinkle over herbs and parmesan.
Black Pepper & Lime Caesar Salad
My mother and sister flew to Haiti last week, the final visit in an amazing month of family guests. First Madeline's uncle arrived on a spur of the moment 48-hour trip to cuddle his new niece. Next to arrive was her grandpa and grandma, traveling to Haiti from Indiana, narrowly avoiding a political protest near the airport on the day of their arrival. Madeline's omi and opi from Canada made it in time to see her first smiles, and last week she met her aunt from Pittsburgh for the first time. It has been an incredible expression of love and support from both of our families as they trekked to Haiti, schlepping our many bags along with them. Each time, as I passed our little daughter over to her newly arrived family member, it was a moving experience. Perhaps it's the postpartum hormones... but there was just something about the contrast of having moved to a new place without family, and then watching the faces of our parents and siblings as they held our daughter for the first time that put a lump in my throat. So how does this all relate to this most excellent black pepper lime caesar salad recipe you might ask? My family is nuts for caesar salad. So as I paced the house waiting for my mother and sisters' delayed flight last week, I made my new favorite variation with black pepper and lime. I perfected this version over the last few months while pregnant and unable to eat the classic caesar dressing with raw eggs. I discovered mayonnaise to be a creamy and delicious substitute and swapped out the traditional lemon in favor of local key limes. This is an addictive dressing, so I recommend just going ahead and doubling it the first time.
Zucchini Falafel Burgers with Green Tahini Sauce
It's burger time, and not just for meat lovers. We're combining the summer's bounty of zucchini with loads of herbs for a burger riff on the falafel. While these patties are delicious on their own, we went a little nuts with the toppings, including a tangy herb scented green tahini sauce, and an addictive tomato, cucumber and feta salsa. Zucchini Falafel Burgers with Green Tahini Sauce are a vibrant celebration of summer flavors. Happy 4th and Canada Day to our American and Canadian readers!
For more burger inspiration check out smokey ancho cheddar burgers, bacon bison burgers, turkey feta burgers with yogurt curry sauce & portobello burgers with green olive tapenade.
Marinated Tomato Mozzarella Salad
It has been a bit of a blur since Gideon's arrival, as we remember what it's like to go weeks without a full nights sleep. Little Gideon and Mom are both doing well, and so we are on track to returning to Haiti in early August. As we wrap up our last weeks here, stateside, we are relishing the tastes of North American summer: impossibly good sweet corn, tart local blueberries with a dash of cream, and fresh peak-of-summer tomatoes and herbs. This Marinated Tomato and Mozzarella Salad has been a frequent highlight on our table these last few weeks. It is ready in minutes, bursting with summer flavor, a balance of bright sweet tomatoes and creamy fresh mozzarella.
Zucchini Soba Noodles with Grilled Vegetables
I hate leftovers. To me, there is nothing worse than a soggy day-old salad or a mealy reheated potato. Ok, fine, maybe not ALL leftovers are terrible. In fact, Paul and I eat them almost everyday as frozen workday lunches. Out of necessity, I've created a number of go-to dishes that are not only delicious the first time around, but real leftover wins. Soba noodles, a buckwheat pasta (often gluten free), have a number of things going for them in the leftover department: they cook in 4 minutes, have a great nutty taste, are good for you, and they freeze like champions.
Zucchini Soba Noodles with Grilled Vegetables is one of our summer staples. This lightning-fast vegetarian main helpfully works through some of our zucchini back-log, by incorporating zucchini ribbons with unusual vinaigrette of mustard, soy sauce and lemon juice. Add some grilled summer squash and red onions and this dish is done in 10 minutes.
Grilled Vegetable Soba Noodles with Rosemary Garlic Sauce
Cooking delicious food for guests with dietary preferences calls for creative use of the season's bounty. Our goal for a weeknight dinner with friends was a vegetarian, gluten-free main dish, using seasonal vegetables, ready in 30 minutes. After a visit to our local famers’ market, we set to work creating a vegetable based pasta dish with flavor and texture that would appeal to a wide range of eaters. To make Grilled Vegetable Soba Noodles with Rosemary Garlic Sauce, we grilled up fresh broccoli, cauliflower, green beans and zucchini. With a roasted garlic sauce in mind, we added whole garlic cloves to the grill, to see if we couldn’t achieve a roasted garlic flavor without turning on the oven. It worked brilliantly. While the vegetables and garlic grilled, we cooked up a quick batch of buckwheat soba noodles, a toothsome noodle that is also gluten free and cooks in 4 minutes. For a subtle sauce that would accompany the dish without overpowering the fresh flavors, we clipped some rosemary from our garden, added our grill-roasted garlic, a flurry of nutty parmesan cheese, and bright lemon for contrast. Enjoy summer vegetables and homespun food shared with the ones you love.
