Zucchini herb yogurt cake

I have been suffering from a surfeit of zucchini lately. Not from eating too much zucchini, just from having too many zucchini and not knowing what to do with them!


Ever since the zucchini started appearing at the markets, I can't keep my hands off them. I've been buying 2 or 3 a week, which may not seem like a lot, but for one person who already has plenty of other food at home, it certainly adds up.

And of course, I can't make the same zucchini dish over and over again, so I've had to keep coming up with new ways of using the little guys! I've made zucchini fritters, zucchini sautéed with pasta, zucchini baked with pasta, zucchini stuffed with feta, zucchini stuffed with lamb - just about the only thing I haven't made is zucchini ice cream. An interesting idea actually, but that will be for another day...

This cake started out in my mind as a set of zucchini herb muffins. Upon realizing I didn't have any muffin tins, I had to change course. After mulling over various possibilities, I decided that a savory cake - a sort of cross between zucchini bread and a zucchini quiche - would be a nice thing to try and a good way to use up both some zucchini and some of my fresh herbs, of which I also buy wayyyy too many (the bottom shelf of my refrigerator is currently stuffed full of basil, mint, dill, sage, and thyme which I'm sure will all dry out before I can ever use them up).

Considering the number of things I make that don't turn out at all the way I had envisioned them, this cake came shockingly close to what I had planned. Light, fresh, and very herby, it's a great summertime snack or appetizer.

Ingredients:
2 small zucchini or 1 very large one
2 or 3 scallions (green onions)
A large bunch of fresh dill
A large bunch of fresh mint
125 g. all-purpose flour
A small spoonful of baking soda
A smaller spoonful of salt
125 g. yogurt
50 g. kasseri cheese (a Greek/Turkish cheese made from unpasteurized sheep's milk. If you can't find any, substitute with a semi-hard cheese of your choosing, but I think the flavor of kasseri is perfect for this cake - a stronger cheese would be overwhelming)
A few spoonfuls of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 160º C / 355º F. Wash the zucchini, trim the ends, and chop them into thin rondelles. Wash the scallions and chop them finely. Heat a large sauté pan, add olive oil, and then add the zucchini and the scallions. Let cook on medium heat about 10 minutes, until zucchini are tender. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.


Wash the mint and dill and chop them up very finely. In a large bowl, sift together the flour with the baking soda and salt.

Grease a cake pan with olive oil. You could also use a loaf pan, to make the cake appear more bread-like - whatever you have available should be fine.

Lightly beat the eggs, and grate the cheese into the eggs. Working rather quickly, add the zucchini & scallions, the yogurt, the herbs, the eggs, the cheese, and the olive oil into the flour mixture. Mix together with a spoon just until the ingredients are combined. Immediately pour into the cake pan and place in the oven.

Let bake about 15 minutes, until a fork inserted in the cake comes out clean. Let cool and serve at room temperature, or refrigerate until serving later.

Zucchini leek tart

I like tarts. A lot. And I make tarts a lot. Perhaps because I've only had an oven since I moved into this apartment in July, I've filled up the months since then eagerly making anything that involves baking, roasting, etc. And now that it's practically Winter and the world is cold cold cold, baking is a cheap way to heat the house with the bonus that you get to eat something delicious at the end!


I actually first made this tart awhile ago and somehow never got around to writing it up. Then this week, I suddenly found myself with some week-old zucchini and leeks sitting around in my fridge, and so I decided to try the tart again, except with a cornmeal crust instead of a normal pastry crust like I had used the first time.

Though the cornmeal crust was tasty, I decided it didn't complement the filling as nicely as a regular pastry crust, so I'll give the recipe for the first version, though of course you're free to substitute cornmeal for some or all of the flour and see how you like it. Either way, this is a wonderful tart - light and yet filling, and also not too difficult!

For the crust:
200 g pastry flour
50 g unsalted butter
1 egg
A small spoonful of salt
A little bit of cold water

For the filling:
2 medium-sized zucchini
1 largish leek
100 g ricotta
1 egg
Parmesan
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Begin by making the dough a couple of hours ahead of time. Sift together the flour and salt. Cut the butter into smallish chunks and crumble it into the flour mixture, using either your hands or mixing-gadget of your choice (I'm old-fashioned and go with the hands way). Once the flour and butter are thoroughly mixed, lightly beat the egg and then mix it into the flour/butter mixture. Pour in the cold water a little bit at a time, mixing as you go so that you get just enough to make a stickyish dough. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.

Several minutes before you plan to bake the tart, preheat the oven to 355º F/180º C. While the oven is heating, prepare the filling. Wash the zucchini and chop the ends off. Using the large holes of a cheese grater, grate the zucchini into a bowl.

Tear off the outer leaves of the leek and then rinse thoroughly. Slit the leek lengthwise with a knife down almost all the way to the root. Spread the leaves apart and rinse even more thoroughly in cold water to get out all the bits of dirt that inevitably find their way into the leek leaves. Once the leek has been washed, chop it into little half circles.

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot add the leek, and after a minute or so, add the zucchini. Let cook at high heat for a few minutes, then cover the pan and turn the heat to low. Let the zucchini and leek cook at this heat for 15 minutes or so, until the leek starts to caramelize. Stir every so often to keep the zucchini from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Lightly beat the egg with a fork. When the zucchini/leek mixture is done, add it to the egg, and then add the ricotta. Stir everything up well. Grate the parmesan over the top, sprinkle on the salt and pepper and mix everything up again.


When the pastry dough is done chilling, take it out and roll it out onto a well-floured board. I like my crusts fairly thick, but you can make yours as thin as you like - as long as it doesn't fall apart!

Butter a tart pan all over the bottom and sides and carefully place the rolled-out dough into the pan, adding and taking away bits where necessary. Poke holes in the bottom and sides with a fork, and let bake for about 10 minutes to pre-cook the crust.

After the crust is somewhat hard, take it out of the oven and spoon in the filling. Return the tart to the oven and let bake 20-25 minutes. Remove, let cool a bit, and then eat!

Crustless Vegetable Quiche

It's always nice when you make something for the first time and it actually turns out pretty decent!


I had some eggs and vegetables to use up and I realized I had never made a quiche before, and it might be fun. I wasn't really in a pastry-making mood (I also didn't have time) so I decided to make a crustless quiche and, in addition to being very tasty, it was so easy!

You will need:
2 eggs
About half a cup of milk
100 g emmenthaler (gruyère would probably also be lovely)
A small bunch of swiss chard (or spinach)
1 leek
Half a zucchini
Half a pepper
1 carrot
Several leaves of parsley
Salt
Pepper
Allspice

First, prepare the vegetables. Wash the swiss chard and tear it into smallish pieces. Wash the zucchini and pepper and chop them into little cubes. Peel the carrot and chop it into little cubes too. Finally, wash the leek. Leeks tend to get pretty dirty so they require special washing (but they're so delicious it's worth it). My technique is to first tear off the outer leaves, then chop off the top part where the leaves are all splayed out. At this point, I give it a quick rinse and then slice through cross-wise from the top down to just above the root. Then I hold the leek under the sink and splay the leaves out, rinsing thoroughly in between them to get out any icky little dirt particles. After the leek is well washed, chop it up and then also wash and chop the parsley.

Preheat the oven to about 180º C / 355º F. In a large sauté pan, heat some olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the leek and let cook until tender (a couple minutes). Once the leek is tender, add the swiss chard, in bunches if necessary so that there's only one layer covering the pan at all times.

Once the swiss chard has diminished substantially in size, add the zucchini, carrot, and pepper. Let everything cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring from time to time. Once the vegetables are somewhat cooked, turn off the heat and let them cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Butter the bottom and sides of a round pan and then cover the buttered surface with a thin layer of flour. In a bowl, beat the eggs, and add the milk. Grate the emmenthaler into the mixture, and mix everything up. Add in the flour, salt, pepper, and allspice and mix again. Finally, add the vegetable mixture along with the parsley and stir everything up thoroughly.


Pour the mixture into the pan and place in the oven. Let bake for about 40 minutes and then let cool another 10 minutes or so.

Eat and enjoy!

Spaghetti with cream of zucchini

I promised to post a recipe for a pasta that was not penne and so, here it is!


The idea for this dish came about because of the large zucchini that had been sitting in my fridge for nearly a week and clearly needed to be dealt with. This is how a good number of my recipes come about (and I might guess, many other people's recipes as well): I think "hmmm, I need to get rid of this ___(insert perishable food item)___. Now, what would be a fun way to do that?"

This time, the idea of a creamy zucchini sauce really appealed to me and it was something I had never tried before, so I decided to give it a go!

While the basics of the sauce weren't that hard to figure out, I had a lot of trouble deciding which cheese I wanted to go with my zucchini (being slightly lactose-intolerant, I'm not a big fan of sauces that use actual cream, which is a shame). Ricotta seemed like an obvious choice but I just wanted something different this time. The only problem was that I didn't have any idea what that "something different" would be. I went to three grocery stores, hoping for that one cheese that would just pop out at me, and finally, at the third - the one with the best selection of cheeses - I found one that looked promising - a cheese by the name of Laura Chenel Chef Chevre. This soft chevre, I decided, was just the thing for my zucchini sauce.

An excellent idea, as it turned out. Though I'd never seen a zucchini-chevre pairing before, I'm a big fan of goat cheeses in general, and the lightness of the chevre was a good companion for the delicate zucchini. The only issue with this combination was that the sauce was a bit drier than I would have liked - an issue which can easily be fixed by adding in a bit of milk along with the cheese.

You will need:
75 g of spaghetti (I finally got a kitchen scale so I could actually measure instead of just guessing!)
One largish zucchini
One shallot
Extra-virgin olive oil, which I have just realized is what is being called "olio EVO" in all these Italian recipes, i.e. "olio ExtraVergine d'Oliva"
About 50 g chevre
Half a glass of white wine
Salt
Pepper
A few spoonfuls of milk/cream

Chop up the shallot and wash the zucchini, cutting off the ends. Using the large holes of a cheese grater, grate the zucchini into little striplets. If you don't have a cheese grater, you can chop up the zucchini into very tiny pieces, or find some other tool that will help you get the zucchini into a similar state. Whether you add the peel or not is up to you. I like to add it in, but I have to chop it up since I haven't found a way to grate an entire zucchini without also grating my fingers!


When grating, do not use the fine holes of a grater or a microplane or any such thing. You will get a bunch of very messy and difficult mush, as I discovered the first time I tried to grate zucchini.

In a large pot, bring some water to a boil. When it's boiling, salt it and add the spaghetti. Then, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan. When the oil is hot, add the chopped-up shallot. I always test the olive oil by flicking a few droplets of cold water onto it and seeing if they start jumping and sizzling. If they do, I know the oil is hot enough.

Once the shallot starts to become translucent and give off its lovely shallot aroma, add the grated zucchini. Sprinkle salt and pepper over everything, and then pour the white wine in.

Let the zucchini cook until the white wine has evaporated. While it's cooking, crumble or chop the chevre into smallish chunks. Once the wine has pretty much all evaporated, add in the cheese and the milk/cream. Stir everything up and drain the pasta, if you haven't already (you should be testing to see if it's done while preparing the sauce and drain it the minute it stops being raw in the center). Add the pasta into the sauce, stirring everything up again so the pasta is well-coated.

Serve warm and enjoy!