The Gastronomic

We’re still working our way through a big pile of zucchini and squash here at the Gastrono-kitchen.  Gastronomike and I have been talking lately about how we just don’t seem to have a store of zucchini recipes to draw on, which is odd, because everyone with a garden grows, and is innundated with, zucchini and summer squash.  So why is it that we don’t seem to have a big cultural cache of zucchini and summer squash recipes?

Anyway, tonight’s zucchini dish is total comfort food, and was pretty delicious.  Served alongside grilled chicken and steamed yellow wax beans.

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It’s been so cool and rainy out that a nice hot bowl of soup and chunk of homemade bread sounded perfect.

I’d say that both of these recipes were pretty big successes, though there are definitely tweaks Gastronomike and I want to make for next time.

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This “pizza” has a crust that is made out of grated zucchini.  It was really unusual and kind of interesting to eat.  It’s not a favorite meal for either one of us by any means, but it was a totally solid meal and an unusual way to use up the many, many, many zucchini that are sitting around our kitchen right now.

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No meal, just some garden photos here.  Gastronomike and I are tending to a small garden in the back yard this summer.  It’s been so gray and wet that I’m surprised anything has grown at all, but we’re starting to harvest just a few small things that we are inordinately proud of.

Behold, our harvest so far (minus one cherry tomato which I popped into my mouth before Gastronomike could snap a photo):

You can see a few little tooth-marks on one of the cucumbers.  At the beginning of the season I built a cage to fit over the top of the garden to keep nibblers away.  Two days ago we took the cage off.  And tooth-marks appeared.  So after we harvested this little crop the cage went back over the garden.

We usually take our food photos with Mike’s camera, so I was surprised to find a bunch of meal photos on my camera when I plugged it into the computer a few minutes ago.  I wish I had documented these meals when we ate them, but as I neglected to do so, we’ll all have to be content with a quick overview of what the posts would have been.

First, here is an oddly focused photo of Mujadarrah made from a recipe Gastronomike’s friend sent us.

We really like this dish and make it every so often.  It’s warm, and yet feels like a cool meal on a hot summer evening.

Speed Recipe: boil a cup of lentils and 2/3 cup rice with a tbsp of cumin, and spread on lipped baking sheet.  Saute an onion (throw in some pine nuts at the end, too) and spread on lentil/rice mixture along with some chopped tomatoes.  Use pitas to scoop up bites, and eat with cucumber-yogurt sauce (chop a cucumber, a pinch of salt, and a few cloves garlic into plain yogurt and squeeze a lemon over it).

Next, here’s a photo of a steak/potato/salad meal I had while Mike was travelling with his grandmother earlier in the summer.

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