Friday, July 3, 2009

first Zucchini

Today a neighbor gave me a nice zucchini.

I am not the Zucchini's best friend, but I accepted. Somewhere I had read recently about a lady who roasted her Zucchini and her kids just loved it, as in: “is there more?”

It seemed that roasted potatoes would be a good compliment. (Remember we are life long vegetarians).

So I went on line and looked for recipes. The potato one said to cube the potatoes, put on some olive oil, seasoning and put them in the 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. It said then to turn them all and put them back in for another 30 minutes.


Sometimes I do as I am told.

The Zucchini, on the other hand was to be “roasted” in 5 minutes, so I worked planning when to start these things cooking so they would come out even.

Well, an hour at 425 is way too long for cubed potatoes, it turned out. The potatoes were very tasty, but just a "bit" overcooked. The Zucchini, on the other hand, cooked for about 15 minutes, and was barely cooked at that.

While at it I roasted half a red pepper, and put some chopped garlic and sliced onions with the Zucchini.

While this was cooking I made a garden salad. To make the meal even more vegetarian, I washed the earwigs out of the lettuce.

Now this is what I should have done, I think!

When the potatoes looked done at the end of 30 minutes I was afraid they would get cold before I was ready to serve them. I should have taken them out of the oven and put them back in the oven a few minutes before serving.

The Zucchini might have been broiled a bit to get them roasted a bit more. My bride gets upset when I “burn” anything, so I might get to eat the toasted ones, which is OK. They taste the best!

All of this is the joy of being a beginning cook at 72!

There will be no shortage of Zucchini this summer, and I’ll do that meal again. Any suggestions?

3 comments:

Creatrix Dea said...

truly trial and error is the best teacher. By the 3rd time, you'll have it down pat and look forward to fresh zucchini next year!
As far as new recipes go, yes, always check and check; done run away for 30 minutes.
Sometimes I like to make tinfoil packets. Put all the veggies other than potatoes together and the flavors meld into a steamed yummy.

arutherford said...

Dave, my all-time favorite place for great recipies is allrecipies.com. I just went there and typed in zucchini and got hundreds of recipies. You can type in zucchini even select a category, like vegetarian. I especially like the comments in the reviews-actual simple cooks like you and me who have tried the recipe as is and offer suggestions of improvement. Enjoy!

dave said...

Thanks Ann and Dea.
I have used Cooks.com a lot, and I have gone to allrecipes.com as well.
Miriam told me that she has lots of cook books and I laughed.
I do have a small book that I made where I put recipes that I really like.