{"id":2085,"date":"2010-08-25T15:56:35","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T22:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/?p=2085"},"modified":"2012-11-19T16:07:22","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T23:07:22","slug":"zucchini-primavera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/?p=2085","title":{"rendered":"Zucchini Primavera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My mother&#8217;s handwriting has become spidery in the old note I find in the recipe scrapbook.\u00c2\u00a0 It is dated &#8220;7 September,&#8221; but what year?\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps in the early eighties, about 25 years ago now.\u00c2\u00a0 As usual, she writes simply and elegantly:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have had some lovely rain.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of my flowers perished in the heat, but I have a row of baby zinnias in the garden, and they are joyous.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mother&#8217;s note has landed in my recipe scrapbook because it contains the ingredients and proportions for a simple zucchini casserole that is pale green in color, and somehow both delicate and intense in flavor. Simple and elegant.<\/p>\n<p>The color and intensity make you think of spring, though zucchini is an old mainstay of a summer vegetable, ever and always.\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind.\u00c2\u00a0 Any dish this green, this delicate, and this intense needs to be called &#8220;primavera.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>How simple is it?\u00c2\u00a0 For every main-dish serving you will need one medium-large zucchini, enough for a cup of drained, grated zucchini; three tablespoons of flour, one well-beaten egg, a pinch of salt, a little bit of cheese, and perhaps a couple of cherry tomatoes or ripe olives.<\/p>\n<p>Mother seems to have made the casserole in amounts sufficient to serve four, but I&#8217;ve cut the recipe to a one-serving size as a main dish.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>one cup grated zucchini, squeezed and drained<\/li>\n<li>one well-beaten egg<\/li>\n<li>three tablespoons flour<\/li>\n<li>a pinch of salt<\/li>\n<li>optional toppings, such as grated cheese, drained, sliced ripe olives, sliced cherry tomatoes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To prepare the zucchini, select a medium-large unpeeled zucchini and grate it.\u00c2\u00a0 Squeeze the grated pulp by hand until it is nearly dry, saving the juice and any leftover pulp for soup.\u00c2\u00a0 Drain the pulp further by leaving it in a sieve for a few minutes, if you wish.\u00c2\u00a0 Mix the ingredients together and bake in a small,\u00c2\u00a0 greased souffle dish for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.\u00c2\u00a0 Reduce the heat to 325 and sprinkle the top with less than an ounce of grated cheese, and a few olive or tomato slices.\u00c2\u00a0 Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 If you are using the casserole as a side dish, omit the toppings.\u00c2\u00a0 The casserole should be slightly puffy and vividly green, with slight browning around the edge.\u00c2\u00a0 Serves one as a main, two as a side.<\/p>\n<p>You will probably have enough juice and pulp left to make a delicious bowl of soup.\u00c2\u00a0 In a small saucepan over low heat melt a tablespoon of butter and whisk in a tablespoon of flour.\u00c2\u00a0 Add your left-over zucchini pulp and juice and half a chicken bullion cube.\u00c2\u00a0 Keep stirring as you add about a half-cup of half and half.\u00c2\u00a0 Heat to piping, but do not allow to boil.\u00c2\u00a0 Add salt to taste.\u00c2\u00a0 Or make a healthier version of the soup, without the butter, flour and half and half.\u00c2\u00a0 Merely thicken your pulp and juice mixture with some mashed potatoes, add the half bullion cube, and heat while stirring briskly.\u00c2\u00a0 Add salt to taste.<\/p>\n<p>The critical question may be: what is a medium-large zucchini?\u00c2\u00a0 More on that later.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My mother&#8217;s handwriting has become spidery in the old note I find in the recipe scrapbook.\u00c2\u00a0 It is dated &#8220;7 September,&#8221; but what year?\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps in the early eighties, about 25 years ago now.\u00c2\u00a0 As usual, she writes simply and elegantly: &#8220;We have had some lovely rain.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of my flowers perished in the heat, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2095,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomad.yosemite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}