I’m on a culinary roll

Tags

custard, farm stand, postaday2014, zucchini

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.

The juxtaposition of the commonality and singularity of comfort food

Tags

bacon, comfort food, postaday2014, tomato sauce, zucchini

We often hear of comfort food and how when the weather gets cool or times are difficult or just when you need a pick me up, there is nothing like comfort food to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. However for every person who craves comfort food, there is always a specific food that is craved even when on the whole it is something from your childhood, hot and soothing with some type of carb and fat attached to it.

In our house the classic pasta carbonara is a favorite comfort food for our children and my husband; whereas for me it is sautéed zucchini and onions with tomato sauce and grated parmesan cheese, just the way my mother made it for my sister and myself when we were little. It reminds me of our kitchen back on 24th Street, yellow and white where we ate dinner every night together, just the three of us while my father worked nights at the restaurant. Happy memories.

Now when it comes to the pasta carbonara; it’s easy to figure out why it is considered as comfort food, it’s the bacon, because quite simply, bacon makes everything better. 😀

Write like a music critic

Tags

blog, food, mushrooms, music, postaday2012, writing, zucchini

• Write about the subject you usually blog about as if you were a music critic.

• Music Critic
• Zucchini Saute

  I decided to shake things up a bit in my zucchini saute with onions, garlic and parmesan cheese.The base is a classic, the slow caramelization of the onions provide a rich backdrop to the mild flavors of the zucchini and the sharp notes of the barely sauteed garlic gives the taste buds something to relish as the smooth tomato sauce and tangy parmesan cheese arrive to coat the different flavors and meld them together into a balanced dish. To this symphony of flavor, my introduction of a new player was the mellow flavor of the button mushroom, its earthy, low notes added even more depth to the foundational elements of flavors in the dish. I have to say that this sophomore effort deserves an encore.