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Yesterday I went to our neighborhood vegetable stand on Sunset Rock Road; I love it, it is one of the highlights of summer for me. Barbara, who keeps it so well stocked, works tirelessly all summer long, working her vegetable farm to provide this amazing farm stand.
I came back home with five zucchinis, a bag full of fava beans and curly Kale. It feels so nice to walk down the road and shop for vegetables just picked that morning.
I don’t remember how my idea of trying a make a zucchini gratin/flan came about, but I did flash onto my mother’s way of zucchini with grated cheese, eggs and milk; I would call that my inspirational flashpoint if you will.
I went online, looking at French recipes, there is a great site called 750grammes.com, they have a link that translates the page, so you can read the recipes in English, I don’t need it because I can read French. The only issues I have are the conversions between metric and our measurements and Celsius and Fahrenheit.
The recipe that I found was uncomplicated: sauté an onion, slice the zucchini into thin rounds and sauté them with the onions until everything is nice and golden in color. I ladled the sautéed zucchini and onion mixture in a strainer to drain off any excess liquid because I didn’t want the zucchinis to give off liquid in the flan/gratin while it was baking.
I prepared the gratin baking dish by drizzling a little oil on the bottom and then sprinkled grated Asiago cheese over that, the recipe called for parmesan, but I used asiago instead. I then spread the zucchini/onion mixture out in the dish over the cheese and oil. In a mixing bowl, I cracked three eggs and put 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of cream, salt, pepper, grated nutmeg and shredded asiago all together and beat it all until it was frothy and poured it on top of the zucchini. I then grated Jarlsberg cheese all over and put it into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.
We haven’t tasted it yet, but it sure smells good. I love custard and I love flan, be it of the savory or the sweet kind, I don’t care; there is something about the texture and the flavor of eggs and dairy together that does it for me and my taste buds. I hope that my son and husband like it.
laurieanichols 