Zucchini bread, zucchini chips, zucchini, zucchini, zucchini. Our goal this week has been to give you a few fresh ideas for this most ubiquitous of summer squash, recipes to wake you up instead of making you hit the snooze button one more time. This stir-fry from Michael Natkin of Herbivoracious is exactly what you need: it's fast, needs only five ingredients, and has a spicy kick.
Mark my words: This is the easy, crowd-pleasing appetizer I will be serving all summer long. Blistered shishito and padron peppers (they're basically interchangeable here) are so much more addictive than you might expect from such a simple dish. It's something about the interplay of crunchy salt, rich oil, and smoky peppers — you can't stop at just one.
Or maybe the addictiveness comes from the fact that you're playing Russian roulette with every bite — there are a few mega-spicy interlopers in every batch of otherwise mellow peppers, but there's no telling which ones.
I think most of us know (and love) Heidi Swanson's website, 101 Cookbooks. It has certainly been one of my favorite food reads for many years, and I am always inspired by the way Heidi brings vegetables to the fore, often in unexpected ways. So when we were hunting for some fresh ways to feature zucchini and squash this week, Heidi's books were one of the first places I looked.
This soup is one of the rare soups that really sounds good in the summertime — a spicy, tangy blend of Thai red curry paste, coconut milk, tofu, and squash. It'll make you sweat — in a good way.
This is, hands down, my favorite way to eat yellow summer squash. And I realize this might be due to a nostalgic predilection for Southern-style vegetables (i.e., cooked until they "surrender"), but trust me: As far as savory-sweet combinations go, this is one of the best.
I'm pretty sure that zucchini bread is the whole reason that zucchini exists. How else would we get to make a tender, rich, and ever-so-slightly sweet cake like this and still be able to call it healthy?
This past weekend I joined my family for a lazy afternoon in the park. The sun was blazing, we rode our bikes, and a water fight ensued, which we followed up with some serious napping. When we woke up to a subtle, perfect breeze, we dove into this tofu "egg" salad with gusto.
Oh, hello there! Were you just thinking you'd like a bite of cheesecake without the bother of water baths or a hot kitchen? One that would, perhaps, win you friends and earn you accolades at backyard picnics this summer? Why, me too! Great minds really do think alike.
