Zucchini 5 ways!

Zucchini bread

Tis the season for zucchini! I purchased 3 plants earlier this spring and have just started to get zucchini from the plants. The first one I got was HUGE and the second one I had actually spotted before it got too large. So you might ask, what do you do with all that zucchini?
Here are a few of my favorite ways to prepare zucchini:

Zucchini bread - the recipe from my Cooks Illustrated New Best Recipes is excellent - my yellowish photo to the right isn't :(
Zucchini Parmesan - sooo good, seriously I could make this at least once a week. The recipe is from A Cozy Kitchen, seriously, if you like to cook and don't follow this blog you are missing out!
Tomato, zucchini and feta pasta salad - recipe from The Pioneer Woman, this is a perfect light, mayo-free summer pasta salad
Risotto Primavera - another recipe from The Pioneer Woman, I love this one because you can really use whatever vegetables you have on hand. And it's delicious!
Summer Vegetable Tostadas - this recipe is from Cooking Light, it's an awesome combination of zucchini, corn, red onion and chicken in a green salsa sauce placed on top of a crispy tortilla, top with Monterrey jack cheese. A great and fast weeknight dinner!

What about you? What's your favorite way to prepare zucchini?

Risotto

Have you made risotto before? Apparently it is one of those dishes that scares some people. They they that it's really difficult to make and don't try it at home. If you are one of those people, then you are missing out. Yes, risotto is somewhat time consuming and your arm may get tired from all of the stirring, but if you are patient with it and give it enough liquid you will not be disappointed.

The first time I made risotto was when we lived in Florida. We had our friends Kate and Carl over for dinner and instead of the same old side dishes I made risotto and it turned out great. It never occurred to me that it would be difficult to make until Kate asked me if I had made it before. I told her no, but it couldn't be that hard could it? And it wasn't, it was a simple recipe for basic risotto flavored with chicken stock and not much else if I can remember.

Fast forward a few years, while looking through Cooking Light I stumbled upon a recipe for risotto with grape tomatoes, mozzarella and a balsamic reduction. Sign me up! We all know that I love tomatoes and mozzarella and paired with risotto and a balsamic reduction, nothing could be wrong with that. I was right, it was perfect. I've shared the recipe with friends over the years and everyone loves it. And while I have had some risotto making issues over the years (under cooked rice) I have come to realize that if you just add enough liquid you can alleviate your problems (and by enough liquid I mean almost 5 cans of chicken stock!) I think it also helps to use a dutch oven. I finally got a dutch oven late last year and its been wonderful. It's a Lodge brand Dutch Oven and it has been excellent for everything from risotto to chili to frying chicken wings.

I hadn't made risotto in a while, but that all changed on Saturday. A few weeks ago I printed off a  Risotto Primavera recipe from The Pioneer Woman and I was drooling every time I looked at the picture of the creamy rice and vegetables. I used peas, asparagus, yellow squash, onion, green onion and carrots. The Pioneer Woman's recipe uses cauliflower, broccoli, yellow squash (I keep typing squarsh :) and peas along with the onions. I think any combo of the veggies would be excellent and it's nice because you can tailor it to you specific likes and dislikes. I also used mozzarella cheese instead of goat cheese. I had the mozzarella at home and didn't want to spend $5 for a few ozs of goat cheese.

Here's a photo of the risotto when it was almost done. See how creamy it is? Yummm!

Cooked vegetables ready to add to the risotto when it's finished cooking!

Finished risotto!

Chicken Gyros

I love Greek food. Unfortunatley, Knoxville does not have any Greek restaurants. :( Every Fall there is a Greek Festival at one of the Greek Orthodox Churches that we usually attend, but for some reason we didn't make it this year. We also have Ali-Babba, and while it is wonderful it's more middle eastern than Greek. I've made one of my favorites, spanakopita before, but it didn't turn out that great, I've also made tzatziki sauce/dip before and that really isn't difficult to make and always turns out. But I haven't make gyros before, until last night! I found a new (for me) blog, Seemingly Greek/My Greek Ambition via The Pioneer Woman and tweaked the Seemingly Greek recipe for Lamb gyros to chicken gyros. And they were AWESOME! Seriously, I could have eaten 10 of them, but I stopped at two (they were in 1/2 pita pockets, so really that's like 1 right?).
I marinated the chicken in garlic, evoo, lemon juice and oregano for 6 hours and for the last 2 hours light beer. Then we grilled the chicken until it was cooked through. We topped the chicken gyros with tomato, feta, grilled red onion and green peppers and homemade tzatziki sauce (adapted from my Barefoot Contessa Parties! cook book - Greek yogurt, sour cream, lemon juice, evoo, vinegar, garlic, diced and seeded cucumber, dill, salt and pepper, so easy!)
Another topping for the gyros that was in the recipe was homemade french fries! The recipe is super simple so I figured I would make the fries too. Just whip 2 egg whites (for 2 large potatoes) with salt and pepper and coat the cut potatoes in the egg whites. Lay the potatoes in a single layer on a lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for at least 40 minutes.
I did add a few of the homemade fries to the gyro and it was an excellent addition, I would highly recommend it!

Chicken Fried Steak

One of Dave's favorite foods is chicken fried steak. He doesn't eat it very often, but lately he has been talking about it pretty frequently. So when I was at the grocery store recently I saw that cube steak was on sale (Not that it's expensive in the first place, but on sale? Even better!) and picked some up. We, of course, had to have mashed potatoes and gravy to go with the chicken fried steak. It's not chicken fried steak without mashed potatoes and gravy! (Side note, Dana's favorite cafeteria food in high school was chicken fried steak! Yes, really.)

I used The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Fried Steak recipe from her cookbook. It's a pretty basic recipe that I probably could have done with out the cookbook, but the last time I made chicken fried steak (years and years ago) it didn't turn out very good. The breading is just flour, seasoning salt, pepper, Cayenne pepper and paprika, but it still yields a great flavor with the steak. It was nice to have her gravy recipe. I make gravy for Thanksgiving and a few other times a year, but it still intimidates me when I make it. I am always worried it will turn out lumpy or bland. NOTE: You must season your gravy with salt and probably lots of it or it will be super bland, that's what I have learned. You're welcome. So after adequate seasoning the gravy was perfect as were the mashed potatoes. I prefer to use Yukon Gold Potatoes for mashed potatoes, but only had Idaho on hand and they did turn out really good. I also use a potato ricer to make my potatoes, then I don't have to worry about lumps!

My only complaint about the chicken fried steak was that is was a little tough. I am blaming the meat, it was tenderized, but I should have probably beat on it some more to help it out a little.

Here's the finished product:

I was going to put a link up to the recipe for Chicken Fried Steak on her website, but I don't see it on there. UPDATE: The Pioneer Woman just put her chicken fried steak recipe online!

Cinnamon Bread!

This blog is supposed to have some cooking isn't it? :) I love to bake, I didn't do much baking over the summer except for Dylan's birthday cake and just cooking at home. Usually I forget to take photos of what I've cooked or baked, but not today! I made The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Bread and it turned out awesome! I love bread, cake, cookies, etc and decided that since I don't usually make bread other than quick breads I should try a yeast bread. I also use the excuse that since it's generally just Dylan and I around during the day it's hard to bake anything that is time consuming. And I will admit that it was difficult to get the first part of the bread done. I had to stall our morning plans for a little bit while the milk and butter cooled and the yeast did it's magic, but after that it was pretty easy to get the bread done.
And here is the result!

Huge!!! I let the bread rise as long as it was supposed to before I baked it, but it rose quite a bit more. I think next time I bake this bread I will use two pans! Here's a link to The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Bread recipe. Enjoy!