Saturday, March 31, 2012

March 31, 2012

Whoops! I woke up this morning and the first think I thought was "Oh man, I forgot to publish the blog!" It has been spring break around here, and while we didn't go anywhere, we did have a lot of fun and I guess I was distracted last night. This break we didn't try out quite as many recipes as we did during last year's school vacation, but we did try about 4 new dishes. Unfortunately, only one was voted a keeper. Sauteed zucchini with garlic and lemon was a huge hit...all the kids had at least 2 helpings, and Liam just loved it!!! Any time I can find a new vegetable, or a new preparation for a vegetable, that the kids devour I am sold! We will be making this again soon for sure!

The week coming up looks a bit busy again, so I don't know how many new recipes I will be trying out, but keep your fingers crossed that we will find at least one keeper. And I hope to get the blog published on time!

Happy Cooking!

New Recipes

Zucchini with Garlic and Lemon

Zucchini with Garlic and Lemon


Ingredients
* 2 slices white sandwich bread , torn into quarters
* 2 tbs unsalted butter
* 5 zucchini, halved lengthwise, seeded and shredded
* salt and pepper
* 1 small clove garlic , minced(about 1/2 tsp)
* 1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil , plus 1 teaspoon
* 1 - 2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Directions
1. Make the bread crumbs: Pulse bread in food processor until coarsely ground.
2. Heat butter in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Add bread crumbs and cook, stirring frequently with heatproof rubber
spatula, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and set aside.
3. Toss shredded zucchini with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and place in colander set in medium bowl; let drain 5 to 10 minutes. Wrap zucchini in kitchen towel, in batches if necessary, and wring out excess moisture.
4. Place zucchini in medium bowl and break up any large clumps.
5. Combine garlic with 2 teaspoons oil in small bowl; add mixture to zucchini and toss to combine thoroughly.
6. Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat just until smoking. Add zucchini and spread evenly in pan with tongs; cook without stirring until bottom layer browns, about 2 minutes; stir well, breaking up any clumps with tongs, then cook until "new" bottom layer browns, about additional 2 minutes. Off heat, stir in lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with bread crumb topping and serve immediately.

Notes
We all really enjoyed this! I forgot the seed the zucchini before running it through my food processor, and we still enjoyed it. So, seeding it is optional, but it definitely had more moisture than it probably should have because I didn't seed the zucchini first. I will seed them next time. Also, I only used 3 zucchini, but forgot to cut the breadcrumb topping down. The picture looks like there were a lot of breadcrumbs, and there were. If you use only 2 or 3 zucchini, make sure you do divide the breadcrumb ingredients as well! But overall, we all loved this, even with my couple of goofs, and we will definitely make this again!