Those ubiquitous summer squashes

Stuffed half zucchini
That was one big squash!

My family was out of town most of last week, so of course I planned to cook the things they won’t eat. And high on that list are summer squash and zucchini. Personally, I think they haven’t explored the many possibilities of this summer bounty. They say it’s a texture matter, and if all they’ve ever tasted is steamed squash, I’m with them. (I don’t really think they’ve tasted at all—they’re just assuming they won’t like them; winter squash gets the same scorn, so I pass up all those good recipe for butternut and acorn squash.)

I had found a recipe online for zucchini stuffed with a tuna mixture. Since I had recently ordered a case of tuna—yep, twenty-four cans—I saw this as a win/win situation and included one large zucchini on my grocery order.

When I started to work with the recipe, I realized amounts were given in the metric system, mostly grams. I didn’t feel like spending an hour or more translating grams into cups and spoons, etc. So I scrapped the recipe and stuffed the zucchini the way I have always done it, but added tuna for more protein. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 large zucchini

1 stalk celery, diced

3 green onions, diced

1 Tbsp butter

One 6 oz. can tuna in water

2 or 3 anchovy filets, (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

½ tsp. thyme (optional)

One egg, beaten

1/4 cup grated sharp cheddar, plus more for topping

Panko

Ritz cracker crumbs

Parboil the zucchini. The one I had was so large, I used a deep skillet with a lid, because it wouldn’t fit whole in a saucepan. Do not trim the ends—keep all those good vitamins by cooking it whole. Leave it a bit firm as it will soften more during baking. Remove from water with tongs and let cool.

Meanwhile, sauté celery and onion in butter until soft. Remove from heat and stir in anchovy, mashing it into a paté. Add to tuna.

When zucchini is cool enough to handle, cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the meat in the center. This is easiest done by running a knife along the edge of the meat and then scooping it up with either a flat knife or a teaspoon. Dice the meat and add to tuna mixture.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and thyme, if using. Stir into tuna. Add egg and cheese. Stir to mix thoroughly and then add enough panko to hold the mixture together and give it body. Stuff into zucchini shells and top with more grated cheese and cracker crumbs. I prefer Ritz because they crumble so easily in a baggie, and they are so rich and good. Watching calories? You might prefer crushed saltines or more breadcrumbs.

Two hints: The zucchini halves will be overflowing with stuffing, and you’ll have to press the cheese and crumbs on to get them to stay. And you’ll have filling—just put it in a ramekin. It’s delicious, even outside the zucchini shells.

This will make a generous entrée for two with that ramekin left over for lunch.

If you’re a gardener and growing zucchini, this is the time of year when you leave anonymous bags of the vegetable on the neighbors’ porch or in their unlocked car. You’re probably tired of zucchini bread and zucchini fritters may not appeal. Try sautéing it, either sliced or grated, in butter with a good glug of soy sauce. Or look on the internet for zucchini bites or crisps—they’re a bit labor intensive but so good.

Those happy summer days of eating from the garden—or the farmers’ market—are almost over. Enjoy them while you can!

What are we having with that?

Summer Zucchini Bake
sorry, but I took a serving out before I remembered to take a picture

Choosing a side dish goes way beyond, “You want fries with that?” At my house, we plan meals ahead (not that we always stick to the plan) by making a list of main dishes—stir-fry, steak fingers, chicken casserole, fish, what have you. But too often we come right up on time to cook, and Jordan and I look at each other and ask, “What are we having with that?” The simple answer, for us, is almost always, “Salad.” But sometimes that’s not enough, and we want a real side dish.

Here are two that I find quick and easy yet light enough for summer. One is an old stand-by; the other something I just happened across.

The old stand-by is Louella’s Rice. This came from my oldest friend, Barbara Bucknell Ashcraft. (not her age that makes her old but the length of our friendship—we have probably known each other since sixth grade). Her stepmother was Louella, and she made this rice dish. Note that it is uses Minute Rice—I never use instant products if I can avoid it, but  it works best in this case. The recipe also calls for a prepared can of soup—again, I prefer to make my own, but the canned version works well here.

Louella’s Rice

1 cup Minute Rice, uncooked       

1 can cream of celery soup

1 cup sour cream

1 cup grated sharp cheddar

1 4 oz. can  chopped green chilies

Mix it all together and bake it at 350 for 20-30 minutes, until rice is cooked. Serves four nicely. Sorry, usually not any leftovers.

The other recipe makes use of summer’s abundant zucchini crop. Have you ever had a zucchini vine in your garden? If so, you know the desperation of what to do with all that harvest. Some have been known to leave bags of zucchini anonymously on the doorsteps of friends and neighbors. Next time, tuck this recipe with the bounty.

Summer zucchini bake

One medium zucchini, washed and slice in ¼” rounds

For the sauce:

1 Tbsp. butter

¼ cup sour cream

1 Tbsp. grated Parmesan or Pecorino

¼ tsp. salt

A good pinch of paprika

1 egg yolk

1 Tbsp. chopped chives (optional)

For the topping:

2 Tbsp. breadcrumbs

3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan or Pecorino

1 Tbsp. butter

Lay zucchini slices in an oven dish in a single layer as much as possible. In a separate skillet, melt butter. Add sour cream, grated cheese, salt, and paprika, and cook over low eat until it is a smooth sauce (two minutes or so). Remove from heat and stir in egg yolk and chives if using. Spread over zucchini. It will look like there’s not enough sauce, but it really works out.

Mix breadcrumbs and additional cheese and distribute evenly over zucchini and sauce. Dot with remaining butter. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

And that’s what’s for supper!

Kitchen Disasters and Meat Pasties

We all have disasters—the cake that doesn’t rise, the pizza that burns, something that tastes off and you don’t know why. I once made a casserole of lima beans and blue cheese—awful, but I was young and green and didn’t know any better.

The other day I made stuffed zucchini. I usually cook the zucchini, hollow it out, sauté celery and onions in butter, add the insides of the zucchini (never much), and bread crumbs. Pile it back into the zucchini shells, top with grated cheese and bake. Always good.

This time I decided to use a favorite tuna recipe.

 1 7-oz. can albacore tuna in water, drained

1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar

¼ c. chopped celery

1 Tbsp. chopped parsley

1/3 c. sour cream

 To make matters worse (or, I thought, better) I mixed in the zucchini insides that I had hollowed out. Baked the whole thing—maybe I should have salt and peppered the zucchini, drained it, done something—but it was bland and watery and even the cheese mixture didn’t taste as good as usual.

 Here’s what you should do:

 Use 1 pkg. refrigerated biscuits

1 Tbsp. butter or margarine

 Roll each biscuit into 4 in. oval and pus about 1/3 c. tuna mix on each of six biscuits. Top with remaining biscuits, pinch the edges together, and brush melted butter on the top.  Let sit a few minutes; bake 15-18 minutes @ 400. Makes six. They freeze well.

I like meat pasties, although when I posted earlier about my disaster, someone asked, “What’s a pasty?” It’s a dish we get from Wales and amounts to putting unbaked filling into circles of dough and baking—great for lunch boxes, etc. Sometime I’ll post the recipe I inherited for Nachitoches meat pies from Louisiana—spicy and good.

 But I have another almost pasty recipe I borrowed from Mystery Lovers Kitchen when Riley Adams was posting there. Riley had teen-age sons to feed and her recipes were always outstanding and filling. This is for chicken crescent rolls.

 6 oz. cooked, chopped chicken

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

½ c. chopped mushrooms

2 Tbsp. sliced green onions

1 pkg. 8 crescent rolls

1 Tbsp. melted butter

 Mix together chicken, cream cheese, mushrooms and onions. Roll out crescent rolls into rectangles and pinch perforations together to end with 4 rectangles. Put ½ of chicken mixture in the center of each of the four. Pull the dough up and over and pinch closed. Drizzle with melted butter and sprinkle with crushed croutons. Bake 12-15 minutes in a preheated 375 oven. If they start to get too brown, cover loosely with foil the last five minutes. (My mother always cut up a brown paper sack to do this—even with Thanksgiving turkey; she claimed the heat killed any germs!). With four rectangles, you won’t feed many teenagers and many have to double the recipe.

 Thanks to Riley Adams, and if you haven’t checked out Mystery Lovers Kitchen, you really should. These days they do lots more desserts than main dishes, but I used to get some great entrees from the site.

The ubiquitous zucchini

One year, in another house, we had a bumper crop of zucchini and I despaired over finding new things to do with them--you can only sauté in soy sauce so often or broil with olive oil, salt and pepper, and Parmesan. I did occasionally stuff scraped-out halves with a mixture of sautéed scallions, chopped celery, the zucchini's insides, bread crumbs, and salt and pepper, topping them with grated cheddar or Parmesan. I still do that often, and a half a zucchini makes a good dinner for me.
But lately I've been reading recipes for a variety of stuffed zucchini--Italian style with capicola, lemon, ricotta topped with marinara; a Tex-Mex with garlic, jalapeno, chipotle chili powder, Muenster, a chopped tomato, scallions and cilantro. A lemon-pasta version sounds good--tiny ditalini pasta, a shallot, cream, chicken broth, Havarti, Parmesan, an egg yolk, parsley, lemon zest and breadcrumbs.
But the recipe that caught my fancy was for crab-stuffed zucchini with crabmeat, mayonnaise, Creole mustard, Worcestersire, and cayenne with cayenne pepper and scallions for topping. If you've read much of Potluck with Judy, you know I'm a big tuna fan, and it occurred to me that I could stuff one of those zucchini in my fridge with a tuna and cheddar mixture I really like. Usually I put it into pasties, using refrigerator biscuits, putting the tuna between two halves, sealing the edges and brushing with butter before baking. But I bet it would be good with zucchini and maybe a bit more healthy.

Tuna stuffing

1 7 oz. can tuna
1 cup shredded cheddar
1/4 c. chopped celery
1 Tbsp. chopped parsley (about the extent of my current parsley crop)
1/3 c. sour cream

I haven't tried this yet, but I guess I'd put some extra cheddar on the top and bake. More cheese never hurt anything.

Two recipes--one okay, one really good

I've been cooking lately and enjoying it. Never did worry about the oven heating up the kitchen in the summer. Last night, after eating at Jordan's house two nights, I volunteered to bring supper. I followed a recipe that I used to fix when the kids were young, especially with leftover turkey after the holidays. This time I used chicken tenders.

Chicken/wine casserole

Chicken breast or tenders, about a pound, cooked and diced
Rice or noodles, pre-cooked
1 can mushroom soup
Vegetables - I usually use frozen green peas but neither Jordan nor Christian will eat them, so I diced celery and red onion, sautéed them in butter
white wine--about a cup
assorted herbs
potato chips
grated cheddar

Salt and pepper the chicken, put a few slices of onion on it, cover and bake till done.
Put the wine in a small saucepan, throw in herbs as you want--I used 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. each of oregano, salt, pepper, thyme, basil. Boil hard until wine is reduced and herbs turn black.
Throw it all together and stir to mix. Mix crumbled potato chips and cheese and use as topping.
Bake 30 minutes or so at 350.
I usually use noodles but used rice last night--I'm not a big fan of rice, and I thought the whole thing was kind of bland but Christian ate two helpings. The potato chip/cheese combination makes a wonderful topping for all kinds of things. And this has the virtue of being quick and easy and made with ingredients you usually have on hand.

Tonight I had a real success. I've been boiling zucchini before stuffing it, but I saw a recipe that called for baking a raw zucchini.

Stuffed zucchini

one zucchini (serves two)
celery, diced
red onion, diced
a spoonful of sour cream
grated cheddar
grated Parmesan, fresh or frozen, please, not from the green shaker

Halve the zucchini lengthwise, and scoop out the center part. Dice scooped out squash and mix with celery, red onion, sour cream and grated cheddar. Top with Parmesan and bake 45 minutes at 350 or a bit less. I used the toaster oven, and it worked great. Delicious! Should have taken a picture because it came out golden brown--lovely.
The recipe I saw online had crumbled meat and bacon in it, but I went vegetarian. Also kind of made this up, omitting the curry and tomato, though adding a tomato might be good.