They are an heirloom zucchini and although the plants produce about half the produce, they taste 10 times as good. I’ve also found I can let them get pretty big, and they are still tender and tasty.
I have been doing a ton of delicious things with these throughout the weeks, but have been short on blogging time. So although there are a bunch of things I want to share with you, I will start with a Baked Stuffed Zuke recipe after the jump.
Editors Note: Our girl Vi can now not stay away from blogging. Vi shows off her graphic design/tech/artistic side by bringing you this a-mazingly insane video.
byline: Vi
A coworker of mine sent me the link for this short film from the Home of the Twisted Films of PES. I’ve never had toys make me so hungry and I’m sure the final spaghetti dish does taste like rainbows! This film actually influenced me to add more color in my dishes and not make so many white, brown and green dishes when a little bit of tri-colored couscous can easily bring some life to my dinner.
So, my hubbie brought home a recipe from a coworker one day that was a take off on the Olive Garden‘s “Tuscan Soup”. I am not a frequenter of the Olive Garden, but had already had a recreation of this soup at a friend’s house and enjoyed it thoroughly. We started making it more or less from the recipe and have loved it for over a year now. Sometime in the last couple of months we lost the recipe. So now that I am making it from out of my head, and have tweaked a little here and there, and this last time we made it, the soup came out the best ever, I’m pretending it’s my recipe version.
I will share the deliciousness with you post jump, and you can help me come up with my own name for it and answer the question, “Is it a chowder?”
From the top clockwise, TexMex black bean salad, Indian kidney bean salad, Italian cannelini bean salad.
So I’m a bit behind on this post, as I promised it back during MemDay weekend.
Anyway, this is a tale of vegetarianism, lactose intolerance and side dishes that spreads across three continents. For the first BBQ (I’m using the term as a party featuring grilled food, as meant in Jersey) of the season, I decided to make something that Maidelitala (veggie/lactard) could actually eat since she was the one who invited me to the birthday party.
The first thing I could think of to cook was a bean dish. I knew she loved beans and although I’m new to liking the genre, I thought this would be a great way to experiment. I spied this cannelini bean recipe over at Cookthink. As it’s well documented that I can’t follow instructions, I messed up a bit on the adding water part (put in way to much) and then I forgot the vinegar and added it after I took it off the pan. To make it my own, I mixed in asparagus and diced red onion and served it at room temperature. My bean salad was surely a hit, especially smashed on a baguette.
But clearly, this is not the end of the story. As you can see pictured above, there were two other competing bean salads. And I shit you not, these three bean salads were the only non-grilled side dishes. It was super embarrassing. Luckily, all of the bean salads were different and delicious. Mine had a more Italian theme. The host’s mom made a TexMex black bean salad and Maidelitala created a stunningly tasty Indian bean salad. Her recipe post jump.
Miranda ruled the roost in last week’s SatC-themed Who Cooked It Better, taking home a winning 36 percent of the vote for her pomatini. We promise not to mention this over-saturated media event any further, and this week have returned to a much manlier theme.
As pre-summertime kicks into full gear, everyone is taking it to the grills, so we weren’t surprised to see two of our favorite MSM food sources cover the same topic this week: grilled pizza. As an added bonus, both of ’em went interactive, offering up a video and slideshow, so we couldn’t resist giving this to you as a Who Cooked It Better?
Over at WaPo, Tony Rosenfeld put together this handy slide show, with audio instructions on how to grill that perfect pie. Tony gives a great explanation about how to make a perfectly crispy dough that won’t fall apart on the grill (hint: restraint with the toppings, while difficult, is crucial). He tops it up with crumbled fontina, chicken, asparagus and red peppers over a pesto base. Certainly a little healthier than us NYCers are used to seeing our pizza come out, but hey, this is grilling, so it’s a whole new ballgame.
Over on NBC’s Today Show, Elizabeth Karmel brings us the below video, which really is worth a watch.
Elizabeth starts out in the minus zone with her decision to use a gas(p!) grill and suggestion to cheat your way through the crust process, because “grilling the dough makes all dough taste great.” She quickly wins me back with her polenta and olive oil base, and then it gets interesting. Elizabeth tops her pizza “whimsically,” and this is not an understatement. Among her suggested combinations: ‘cheeseburger pizza’ with ground beef and american cheese, a dessert pizza with ricotta and berries, even a cream cheese, lox and chives pizza. Holy crap!
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and cook an entire meal without pork or pine nuts.
The problem with this whole food blog thing is that every time I cook a meal, I feel like I have to do something really original and different – or at least put a new bloggable spin on it – so that I can share the results with you guys. It’s a lot to live up to. Every time I make a plain old quesadilla or just boil up some noodles, I can’t help but think that I’m wasting valuable cooking time on something that isn’t good enough to blog. It’s kind of stressful actually. See what you people are doing to me?
I recently realized that because I’m always trying to do something new, I never even think to make everyone else’s great recipes that appear on this site, which really was the whole point of this thing in the first place. So when I had a half-empty fridge and no original ideas goin on recently, I decided I should try out one of gansie’s more delicious looking creations, Eggplant and Chickpea Lasagna.
Before Gansie says wait, wait, wait, that pansy little slice looks nothing like my beautiful hearty lasagna, I did make a few modifications, just so I would have something to write about. Details after the j.
I know you all spent your weekend banging your heads on the table trying to guess mystery meal. Some of you got pretty close on the outside layer. Unfortunately, no one got remotely close what is on the inside. But now your long wait is over, after the jump…
