Health and Lifestyle - Dressing Up Your Zucchini

Health and lifestyle ... it can mean many things ... like dressing up your zucchini.  When your plants begin to produce massive amounts of veggies sometimes you run out of ways to prepare them.  You begin to search for ways to dress them up in a new dish ... and on the other hand sometimes you just "dress" them up and put them back in the garden!

After this guy came back in from guard duty in the garden I chopped him up with some eggplant, onions, yellow pepper, tomatoes and made an awesome ratatouille .... see recipe below:

Ingredients 

• 1/4 cup cold pressed olive oil
• 1 large onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 eggplants... about 2 pounds, I took about half the peel off chop into 3/4-inch cubes
• 1 gigantic zucchini about 2 pounds, cut into 1" cubes
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 yellow bell peppers, cleaned, cut into 3/4" cubes
• 4 ripe tomatoes, diced 
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

In a large saute pan with lid heat oil over medium heat. Cook onions and peppers, stirring occasionally, until soft and glassy.
Add garlic; cook until fragrant
Add tomatoes and thyme ... cook until they begin to break down
Stir in eggplant and zucchini; season to taste with salt and pepper.
Reduce heat to medium/low and let simmer partially covered until veggies begin to soften ... 15-20 minutes
Remove from heat
Stir in half the basil and reserve the rest for garnish.
Sprinkle Parm cheese on top
ENJOY!

Actually this can be eaten hot or room temp.  We had some leftover that I served with dinner and just had it at room temperature and I think it was even better!

Now, that our healthy lifestyle is evolving ... we do eat meat ... just not a lot of it ... and only when we crave it.  Certainly not everyday and in the summer heat with all of our fresh veggies from the garden it only makes sense to harvest, wipe the dirt off and eat!

FUN ZUCCHINI TRIVIA

• Did you know that a cup of plain zucchini has more potassium than a banana ... or that they’re more than 95% water? 
• One zucchini is a 'zucchina.'
• The largest zucchini weighed 65 pounds and was 7 feet 10 inches long.
• There are 37 people in the U.S. listed on whitepages.com with the last name 'Zucchini' and an additional 47 with the last name 'Zucchino'

(Mark Morton, 'Gastronomica', Fall 2010)

Enjoy life.  Here's to your health and lifestyle!

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