I can't believe I have to eat the whole thing

If you read my last blog, you pretty much had to figure that there would be another zucchini recipe this week.  I harvested over 10 pounds of the stuff from my little shared garden last week, and that massive sumo wrestler of a zucchini is still enthroned on the counter like some kind of vegetative version of Jabba-the-Hutt.    He mocks me--practically screaming out every day "Hey, you wanna piece of me.?"  Yeah right--like I haven't had a piece of him every day for the past week.  So far this week we've had zucchini fritatta, sauteed zucchini, and zucchini bread.  I've shared zucchini with friends and neighbors.  No one tells you that when you eat local seasonal produce (and what's more local than a garden just down the street?) that you'll be eating the same freaking thing every day in a row.  Compound this by the fact that the only green thing that my children will eat are Jolly Ranchers, and you can a pretty good idea of the dimension of the problem.  Instead of the ubiquitous refrain of "what do you want for dinner tonight?" in my house, it's "how do you want me to fix the zucchini tonight"?  Ugh.   It's no easy feat getting all of it into recipes, and then getting it all down your throat. 

Tonight, however, I prevailed.  My zucchini piece de resistance--zucchini fries.  These are good.   Really good.  Not good enough for the kids to eat them, but whatever.  More for me.


Zucchini Fries
Another shamelessly plagiarized recipe.  This one from Health.com.

1.  Cut off a hunk of zucchini from the monster, and cut it into long skinny strips.  We're making something called "zucchini fries" so let McDonald's be your guide here.


2.  Mix together 1/4 cup of milk and 1 egg white.  Feel free to use 1/4 cup of egg beaters; it worked fine.


3.  In another bowl mix together 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs and 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese.  A note here on the Parmesan cheese.  I religiously keep two kinds on hand at all times:  the cheap stuff that comes in a green can and the hunk of outrageously expensive imported Parmesan-Reggiano.  The cheap stuff is great to throw on some popcorn or toss into a meat loaf, and the expensive stuff has the perfect flavor to season a risotto or grate onto pasta.  The shredded stuff that comes in the clear plastic container?  All the expense of the imported hunk with about as much flavor as the stuff that comes in the green can.  Don't buy it.  Except for this recipe.  For some reason the little shreds of cheese crisp up beautifully in the oven and give these "fries" their crisp without all the evils of real frying.  The fake stuff won't work, and the real stuff is a pain to properly shred.  


4. Coat the zucchini strips into the egg mixture, and then toss them in the bread crumb mixture.  Lay them out on a well-sprayed cookie sheet.


5.  Bake at 425 degrees for about 20-30 minutes until golden brown and crisp.  Look at the remaining 3 pounds of zucchini and wonder what you're going to do with it tomorrow.

My Garlic Shame

I recently asked a fellow foodie for ideas on how to spruce up chicken thighs.  I typically just smother them with barbecue sauce and throw them on the grill.  But when it's dark, raining, and 40 degrees outside, there's no way I'm firing up the old Smokey Joe.  I also don't want to wait until Spring to cook the Costco-sized package of thighs that is lurking in my freezer.  Chicken thighs, however, just stump me.  I never know how to make them, which begs the question of why I buy them, but this is a cooking blog not psychoanalysis.  In any event, this guy shoots me about 3 recipes in 30 seconds flat like he's a contestant on Iron Chef or something.   Lightly breaded with rosemary and garlic, sauteed with mushrooms, garlic, and tomatoes, and the one that really got my attention:  lemon juice, garlic, and  olive oil.  And then the words that made my mouth water:  make sure you use lots of garlic.  That was it.  Nothing but lemon juice, olive oil, and lots of garlic; lots and lots of garlic.  Perfect and frightfully simple for a working mom desperate to save some chicken thighs from freezer burn, and with all that garlic, destined to pack a flavor punch.

Except for one thing.  I didn't have any garlic.  For God's sake, I'm ITALIAN.  I NEVER run out of garlic.  My people weren't known as "garlic eaters" for nothing.  How was this possible?  I have 8 different kinds of pasta in my pantry, olives, anchovies, capers, and cans of tomatoes that would rival a food pantry for the homeless, but no garlic.  I felt my poor dead Italian grandmother spin in her grave.  This was bad.  No garlic in the house, except (shudder) for some garlic powder.  I felt like a fallen foodie.   I wound up making the thighs with bread crumbs, Parmesan, and rosemary.  They were actually really good, and I'm sharing the recipe here, but I'm haunted by chicken thighs with lemon juice and garlic.  As soon as I get some garlic, I'll let you know how they turn out.

Parmesan Breaded Chicken Thighs

1.   Remove the skin from 8 chicken thighs.  Chicken thighs are fatty enough.  Dredge in thigh in a little olive oil and set aside.

2.   Finely chop about 4 pieces of old bread in a food processor.  OK, you got me--pull out the store bought canister of prepared bread crumbs.  They work just as well.

3.  Add 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese--the stuff in the green jar is  fine.   Save the good stuff for salads, risotto, or pasta.

4.  Add 2 Tbsp dried parsley.  Mix the dried ingredients together thoroughly.

5.  Coat each thigh with the bread crumb mixture and put in a roasting pan.   Bake for 1 hours at 350 degrees.

Check, please.

Special occasions are meant to be just that:  special.  So when your husband, who has the audacity to schedule his birthday the same week as Easter (you know, the very Easter in which you pretty much cooked and cleaned for four straight days), asks that you celebrate his birthday by "making a nice dinner," it takes every ounce of self-control to smile sweetly and say "I'd be happy to."  A nice dinner, fortunately, doesn't mean you have to kill yourself.  If I can't make dinner reservations for his birthday, I'll do the next best thing:  I'll make dinner very, very easy.

My real strategy is to do what I can to elicit some assistance from the birthday boy himself.  This will not be an easy feat, although my husband is a man of many talents.  He can, for example, pick a wine to pair with both both roasted chicken and salmon (pinot noir, in case you're wondering). An avid Red Sox fan, he can  tell you the score at the end of each inning of every game of the 1986 World Series and who played what position (although, I would highly advise against any mention of Game 6 and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named at First Base).  He's also a mean painter and can paint all day with nary a drop on the floor or his clothes.  Notwithstanding these skills, cooking, alas, is not among them.

Grilling, however, is not cooking.  In the suburban male lexicon, grilling has its own exalted place.  Just like getting out the power saw and taking down bushes and trees is not yard work, grilling is not cooking.  It is a task that men relish because it channels their inner cave-man.  An open fire upon which they place slabs of raw meat lets them hearken back to the days when they ran around in nothing but animal skins killing mastodons.  Good times, good times.  Of course, ever in touch with my inner cave-woman, all I had to do was put on a tight, low-cut shirt, lean in and breathlessly suggest that "we" (snicker) grill some steaks.  No surprise there when he simply nodded vapidly and concurred.

Main course? Check. 

And because "we" are now grilling steaks, one side dish is already preordained--baked potatoes.  Next to steak (which hubby will cook) baked potatoes are the easiest thing in the world to make.  Scrub a couple of potatoes.  Wrap in foil.  Pierce a few times with a fork.  Toss into a 375 degree oven for about an hour. Serve with sour cream, butter, and chives if you have to be fancy about it.

Side Dish?  Check.

Salad--OK we might have to exert a little energy here, because the best thing to pair with steak and potatoes is a good chopped salad finished with blue cheese dressing.  Toss together the following--bite-sized romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, crumbled bacon, finely chopped scallions or chives, and thinly sliced mushrooms.  Toss with blue cheese dressing, which you make as follows--blend together: 1/3 cup light or fat free sour cream (believe it or not, but fat free sour cream is not only edible, but it tastes halfway decent; when mixed with a strong stinky cheese like a blue cheese, you won't notice that it's not the high-testosterone stuff), 1/2 cup light mayonnaise, 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese, one clove of garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Salad?  Check.

Vegetables.  We had asparagus for Easter, but they're amazing this time of year, they pair beautifully with steak, and they're frightfully easy to make, so let's do it again.  Of course, my arm is still stiff from making the hollandaise sauce, so instead we'll roast them with Parmesan.   Wash asparagus and trim off the course ends.  Place in a roasting pan and toss with 1 Tbsp olive oil.  Cover the middle third generously with thin slices of good Parmesan-reggiano cheese.  Roast for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Vegetables?  Check.

And since we have out our slab of Parmesan cheese, we might as well make an easy appetizer.  Grate about 1/2 cup Parmesan into a shallow bowl of about 1/2 cup olive oil.  You can now dip a really good crusty fresh bread into the olive oil, but--oh shoot, but we don't have any bread.  HEY HONEY--can you do me a FAVOR?  (More snickering).

Appetizer?  Check.

What a bizarre coincidence.  The only item left on our menu is dessert and hubby just happens to be on his way to a really good bakery buying that crusty bread.  Have him purchase one Boston Cream Pie because, you know, he loves his Red Sox. 

Dessert?  Check.

Nice, easy, birthday dinner?  Check.