It was at Christmas 1997, at ripe old age of 19, that i bought my first food magazine. i still have that magazine, and many many, others sitting on my bookshelf alongside the dozens of cookbooks i own. There was a time in my life when i wanted to be a chef, i still have little dreams of having a funky cafe or super cool restaurant and most of my 'dream' jobs are centred around food. Food is my thing and i feel pretty lucky about that.
Understanding food, how to cook it and being confident about putting meals together put me at a huge advantage when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Through eat.move.explore I want to empower those of you who are less comfortable with food to be confident in the kitchen.
Vegetables are core to maintaining a healthy diet, 5 serves is the minimum we should be eating every day. To help you out with that I will regularly feature different vegetables here at eat.move.explore, sticking with what's in season at the time. I will talk about seasonal produce and why you should try and cook with what's in season in a future post.
Today is the first instalment of the eat.move.explore A-Z of Veg and, where better to start than at the end of the alphabet with the humble zucchini. Zucchinis are a good source of folate, potassium and vitamin A and they have become a staple for me in the kitchen through spring and summer.
For the vast majority of my childhood and teen years a serving of zucchini on my plate was something I feared. If you have ever been served soft, squidgy, bitter, boiled-to-buggery zucchini then I am sure you know where I am coming from. At some stage, early in my married life, I started cooking zucchini for myself. For a long time I used it simply, diced and added to my meat sauce for spaghetti bolognese or as a filler vegetable in a roasted ratatouille, where tomato, garlic and herbs are the star attraction.
With four growing kidlets zucchini slice became a regular for lunch, starting out with a classic womens weekly recipe that i have adapted over the years to something that is now very much my own. Zucchini, corn and feta fritters are another lunchtime favourite.
In the last 12 months raw zucchini has become something of a revelation for me to the point of bordering on obsession. I am already feeling a little panicked about what I will do when the current abundance of zucchini dwindles as we move into the colder months, but let’s not dwell on that now.
As for any vegetable, eating zucchini raw retains 100% of the nutrients.
Here are a few ideas of how to use it raw:
Use your veggie peeler to make zucchini ribbons, pile into serving bowls alongside saucy meatballs, and finish with a crumble of feta and maybe a sprinkle of pinenuts
Pile zucchini ribbons into a salad bowl, add a punnet of cherry tomatoes, 100g crumbled feta, squeeze over a lemon and finish with a tablespoon or so of evoo or flaxseed oil + plenty of freshly ground pepper
Use zucchini ribbons anywhere you might use baby spinach, I’m thinking on sandwiches, on salads and even with your bacon & eggs
Take those zucchini ribbons one step further and get yourself a 'noodler' to make zucchini spaghetti. I started doing this when my belly started struggling with organic dried pasta (wholemeal pasta and I have never been friends, I just don’t like it) now I honestly can't see myself switching back to dried pasta now. It's not because I have a self-imposed ban on wheat it’s more because I’m greedy and one zucchini is 50 calories compared 200-300 calories for a serve of pasta so I can happily indulge in plenty of sauce. Also, with its porous internal texture the zucchini does a great job of soaking up flavour.
It is especially terrific with pesto.
Add grated raw zucchini to cooked brown rice, currants and toasted almonds for a satisfying salad to accompany a piece of grilled meat.
Now let’s look at cooking zucchinis. Whatever you do you don’t want to boil or steam the bejeezers out of them, one bad boiled zucchini experience can be enough to turn anyone off for life. Where cooking zucchinis are concerned less is usually more, here are a few ideas to try:
Cut your zucchinis along their length into strips about 1/2 cm thick. Toss with a drizzle of evoo, lemon juice and freshly ground pepper then grill on the bbq or a grill plate on the stove.
Add to salads or sandwiches or serve as part of a platter. I always do more than I need and store some in the fridge so I can add them quickly to my lunch
Dice zucchini and add it to bolognese. I am not a fan of the 'hidden' vegetables approach to making sure my kids get plenty of serves each day and nobody questions the array of vegetables I add to my Bolognese sauce.
It's also perfect to throw in to minestrone and other vegetable soups.
My favourite homemade pizza has zucchini on it.
Zucchini can be grated and cooked in this slice or those fritters. It is also an excellent addition to frittata, be it diced, grated or grilled.
There really are so many different and yummy ways you can get zucchini on your plate, you should never have to suffer that horrible, bitter squidgy mess ever again. This is a vegetable you will grow to love. I promise.
Have you found a particularly fabulous zucchini recipe in your travels around the interwebs? Pop it in the comments and I can add links to this post!
Tatum xx
