Zucchini Noodles Recipe

My love of pasta is no secret, but I’m cutting back. An  article in the New York Times  covering the latest research about the benefit of low carbohydrate diets has me rethinking my noodle consumption. I won’t give them up completely but now and again I can see trying something different. Something like zucchini noodles.  For a long time I’ve wanted one of those spiralizer type tools. But they are rather expensive and I just wasn’t sure how much use I’d get out of them. There is actually an easy way to make “noodles” out of zucchini or other vegetables using a box grater. You just lay the grater on its side like a mandoline ! But I’ve just recently tried out the Microplane spiral cutter and it’s an even better option. At $14.95 it’s a lot less expensive than some of the other tools and takes up very little space. It also has two sizes so you can shred larger or smaller vegetables.  The downside to using this gadget is that it takes some time to get used t......

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Julia Child's Ratatouille Recipe

Next month will be the celebration of Julia Child's 100th birthday. Her publisher is marking the occasion with Julia Child Restaurant Week , weekly recipe reprints and a charming new book called Bon Appetit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child .  It's sometimes hard to imagine that Julia Child has been gone for almost eight years. Her statuesque frame, her distinctive high pitched voice and sense of humor are impossible to forget. Keeping the memory alive and introducing Julia Child to a whole new audience is  Bon Appetit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child . It's one of those illustrated children's books that adults will adore. It's filled with joyful images, funny anecdotes and a range of recipes from easy and accessible like Mayonnaise to more advanced like a Gallantine and Bouillabaisse. The colorful images and cheery text manage to entertain and educate in equal measure. I've just seen some sample pages, but I was thoroughly charmed. If you have ......

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Sausage & Vegetable Kebabs

I love kebabs! I don't know why eating food on a stick is so much fun, but it is. The best kebabs I ever had were in Istanbul, the meat sizzled on the outside but was juicy on the inside. Luckily kebabs are easy to make at home even for those like me, without an outdoor grill. I'm amazed at how versatile kebabs are and how they always manage to stretch whatever I'm cooking. It must have something to do with surface area and spacial relations. When food is served on a stick, it just seems like there is more of it. Two slices of eggplant, two small zucchini and just under two Italian sausages somehow made a huge dinner for two. It also gave me the feeling of Summer, even though it was cooked and eaten indoors. When it comes to kebabs, skip the bamboo. The best kind of skewers are metal--I have two sets, flat metal which are particularly good for meat and vegetables and double pronged which are perfect for seafood. With either one you choose, the food won't slip an......

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Grilled Summer Vegetable Salad Recipe

Today is National Salad Day. Would I make that up? Actually I got several emails reminding me about it. I was going to post a vegetable salad when I realized, it was also an all local dish which fits nicely with the One Local Summer event where participants make one meal a week with local ingredients. It's an early version of a recipe I made for my recipe development client. The vegetables--zucchini, corn, peppers and eggplant all came from Capay Organic , the lemon from Los Gatos and the olive oil from Napa. Voila! One local Summer Vegetable Salad. I served it with Sonoma lamb chops. While the idea is to eat at least one local meal a week, I actually had another meal that was primarily local this week. Ok, the rice and spices weren't but the Spicy Eggplant and Tomatoes dish had Capay Organic eggplant and Greenbrae backyard-grown tomatoes. Delicious stuff and so fresh tasting. I got the recipe from 5 Spices, 50 Dishes , a terrific book written by local food writer and cooki......

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Zucchini Mint Soup Recipe & meme

I've been tagged to participate in the latest meme by Gastronomie . This one instructs bloggers to do the following: 1. Delve into your blog archive. 2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to). 3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to). 4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. 5. Tag five people to do the same. "Or laziness." That was the 5th line of the 23rd post of this blog. The post had to do with not cooking. Not cooking is something I can relate to right now because I am nursing a cold. My energy and appetite are below normal. Soup seems like a lazy food to me, especially when cooking is a bother. Of course soup takes some effort to make but after that it is easily reheated. Lucky for me I like soup for breakfast, lunch or dinner. So here is a recipe that uses something I have too much of at the moment, zucchini. This is my absolute favorite recipe using zucchini and is closely adapted from a recipe by Peter Gordon fro......

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Potato Zucchini Pancakes Recipe

Zucchini is a lovely green color. It is low in calories. It is relatively inexpensive and easy, perhaps too easy, to grow. Large ones are good for stuffing. Their flowers are beautiful and delicate and also good for stuffing. That is the sum of nice things I can say about zucchini. Apologies to Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini , but I don't much care for zucchini. Zucchini has hardly any nutritional value in part because it is over 95% water. The texture is dull and flavor is bland. Summer squash in general is watery but this can be an asset when cooking something that needs extra moisture, like a cake. Shredding zucchini also gives you pretty flecks of color. You can use it in both sweet and savory recipes to add color and moisture. My favorite ways to eat zucchini are in a sweet zucchini bread or added to potato pancakes. It softens up the texture and makes them colorful. Which is about all you can ask from zucchini. My recipe for Potato Zucchini Pancakes is unusual in t......

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