Zucchini fritters

I've been keeping a bit of news from you - I start a new job on Monday! My time off (aka "funemployment") is officially coming to an end. I'm ready for it though - the job is in public health, which is a field I have been wanting to enter for a while, and I'm really excited about it. Anyway, I bring this up because even though I sometimes wonder if I have too many cookbooks, I still bought myself two more to celebrate getting the job offer. One of these was Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Ever since our trip to Turkey, I've been very interested in exploring the food of the Middle East, particularly the mezes.

The first recipe I decided to try was for Turkish zucchini fritters. Shredded zucchini and onion are mixed with herbs and feta cheese to make the batter, and then the fritters are pan fried. These fritters have a thin crisp crust, but are very soft and melty on the inside, due to the cheese. I especially love the addition of mint to the batter. For those of you looking for new ways to use up a bumper crop of zucchini, give this a try!

Turkish-inspired zucchini-yogurt spread

Andrew and I returned home on Saturday after two truly wonderful weeks in Turkey. Before this trip, we hadn't taken a trip together that was longer than 4 days in the last several years (including our honeymoon, or "minimoon" as I like to call it). So we knew that we had to do something special during my time off after graduation! We spent 5 days in Istanbul, saw the ruins at Ephesus, then spent some time on the coast in Fethiye and Antalya. I still can't get over how warm the water in the Mediterranean is!

Of course, the food was a big highlight of the trip. We ate freshly caught fish, grilled and dressed with nothing but a squeeze of lemon, accompanied by Turkey's national drink, raki (anise-flavored liquor). We tried countless versions of kebabs, and enjoyed one particularly memorable meal of pide (Turkish pizza). We loved the Turkish breakfast that we had every day - bread, fresh cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, fruit, yogurt, eggs, served with honey, butter, and jam. In the afternoons, we often stopped to re-energize with a Turkish coffee. We indulged in sweets - Turkish delights and baklava - and fast food too, like fried mussels and doner (meat cooked on a spit) sandwiches. We saw fruit trees everywhere, and ate fresh oranges, apricots, peaches, watermelon, and cherries.

Personally, there were two aspects of the cuisine that I found very inspiring - mezes and yogurt. Mezes are small plate dishes, usually served as starters, and they are often vegetable-based and served cold. The main dishes were heavy on the meat, so I got most of my vegetables through the mezes. Even the most simple ones, like green beans in olive oil, were delicious, and I loved trying a sampling of what each restaurant had to offer. You can count on seeing a number of meze recipes appear on the blog this summer, using plenty of local produce. As for yogurt, it was great to see the number of ways that it was used - mixed with vegetables or herbs in mezes, served alongside tomato sauce on top of sliced meat and bread, and used as a sauce for stuffed pasta - all so good! I love yogurt, and I am definitely going to expand the number of ways that I use it now.

The recipe that I am sharing with you today is a meze that includes yogurt. I found a great blog of Turkish recipes and I made a variation of a zucchini-walnut dip I found there. I'm not really sure if what I made counts as traditional Turkish, so I'm just calling it Turkish-inspired. It's great served with pita or other bread, especially when it's hot out!

Moroccan spaghetti

I might have a slight obsession with cookbooks. I just counted my cookbooks for the first time, and I have 54. That's not too many...is it? True, they no longer fit in the bookcase, but that doesn't mean it's an excessive number. It just means the bookcase is too small. Anyway, in all seriousness, even though I love cookbooks and have 10 more on my Amazon wish list, I almost never buy those wish list books for myself. The cookbooks I buy myself are usually from yard sales or the library book sale, and cost around $2 each. Usually these are books that I hadn't heard of before, but end up loving after flipping through them. And it's hard to beat such bargains! A perfect example is The Accidental Vegetarian, which I picked up at the Somerville library book sale a couple weeks ago. As soon as I got home, I went through it cover to cover and tagged about 10 recipes right away. This Moroccan spaghetti was particularly appealing to me because with the exception of the herbs, it uses all pantry ingredients. Perfect for that time before the summer produce really hits the farmers' market shelves.

This recipe jazzes up a basic tomato sauce with cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, parsley, cilantro, and mint. Chickpeas and almonds bulk up the dish and add protein. It's a pretty simple recipe that makes a nice change from the standard weeknight spaghetti dinner. I can't wait to try more recipes from this book, especially with all the great local produce that is going to be arriving soon!

Spring rolls

We had some very hot days earlier this week, including temperatures in the high 80s on Marathon Monday. I have nothing but respect for everyone who participated in the race - the heat was wiping me out and I was just a spectator! Anyway, when the temperature climbs, it's always nice to eat cool, refreshing foods. I've been really craving Asian flavors lately, so when I saw rice paper wrappers at my grocery store, I decided to try making spring rolls for the first time. And hey, there's not much available in terms of spring produce right now, so at least this recipe has "spring" in the title... For these rolls, I marinated and baked some tofu to add protein, used cucumbers and sprouts for crunch, and added mint and basil for fresh flavor. I had a lot of fun learning how to wrap the rolls - once I got the hang of it, they came together very quickly. I've got lots of wrappers left over, and I'll definitely be making spring rolls on hot days in the future!

Three party dips

Thank you for the nice comments on my last post! My mom and I cooked like crazy for the celebration party that we threw last night. We both love cooking, so we had a lot of fun with the preparations. All the food came out great, and the party was wonderful! Here are some photos of the spread:

Clockwise from the top left: blue cheese tart, butternut squash and apple bruschetta, zucchini and goat cheese rolls with raisins and pistachios, Italian stuffed mushrooms. The bruschetta recipe can be found here on Tri to Cook, and the zucchini rolls recipe can be found here on Cara's Cravings.

On the dessert table, we had monster cookies (peanut butter oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and M&Ms), chocolate-whiskey cake, gingerbread whoopie pies with maple buttercream, and cranberry pecan caramel bars.

We also made three dips that we served with pita chips and veggies. We had roasted red pepper and eggplant dip, Persian yogurt and spinach dip, and herbed lima bean hummus. I promised to tell you about all the party recipes, and I'm going to start with these dips. I've already posted the roasted red pepper and eggplant dip recipe, so you can check that out if you want. The lima bean dip is a great twist on traditional chickpea hummus, and is super flavorful due to garlic, cilantro, parsley, dill, mint, and cumin. The spinach and yogurt dip is creamy and delicious, and went especially well with the veggies. The three dips all had unique and distinct flavors but still complemented each other very well. Well, without further delay, here are the recipes!

Green beans with crisp onions, chile, and mint

We love green beans in this house and eat them with dinner at least once or twice a week during the summer. We usually eat them cooked with just olive oil, salt, and pepper, but that gets boring after a while so I'm always keeping an eye out for more unique preparations to try. I found this recipe in Gourmet Today. It has an interesting combination of ingredients that I wouldn't have thought to combine with green beans, but the result is really good. I like the combination of the hot chiles with mint, which I think of as a cooling herb. And it is pretty hard to go wrong with fried onions!

Green beans with crisp onions, chile, and mint
Adapted from Gourmet Today
Serves 4

1 1/4 pounds green beans, trimmed
Salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
6 ounces small onions or shallots, very thinly sliced and separated into rings
1 fresh hot chile, such as Thai or serrano, thinly sliced (remove seeds if you are sensitive to heat)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add beans and cook until just tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and run under cold water until beans are no longer warm.

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Fry onions or shallots in 3 batches, stirring often, until golden brown, about 3-6 minutes per batch. Working quickly, remove onions/shallots from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. They will get crisp as they cool.

Transfer 1 tbs of frying oil to a large skillet and heat over medium heat. Add chile and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the beans and toss until beans are warmed through. Remove pan from heat, toss with mint, and add salt to taste. Top with fried onions/shallots and serve. This dish is best served immediately so that the onions/shallots stay crisp.

Marinated eggplant

The photo of this dish in The Silver Spoon makes eggplant look so delicious and tempting - in fact, that photo was what got me going on the streak of eggplant recipes I've been trying lately (I'm looking at the photo right now and it's actually making me hungry, even though I just ate a pretty big dinner). Sadly, eggplant will be out of season soon, and then I guess I'll have to find a more autumnal obsession...

This recipe is easy to put together and has an interesting combination of flavors. We ate this over pasta, but it would be even better on top of toasted slices of hearty bread, kind of like an eggplant bruschetta. The only major change I made to the recipe was to broil the eggplant instead of sauteing - just decided broiling was easier and would require less oil. I'm sure grilling the eggplant slices would work well too.

Zucchini stuffed with goat cheese

Ever since I started blogging, friends and family have been generously giving me fresh veggies from their gardens or CSA shares. Naturally, I love it, but I do have to get creative finding ways to use it all. In particular, I have had quite a lot of zucchini to use up, a problem that many of you gardeners probably can relate to. I can always grate and freeze them if need be, but for now I'm trying to use them fresh.

I found this recipe in Vegetarian Cooking and Vegetable Classics, a book that my mom gave me a couple years ago. The zucchini is stuffed with goat cheese and slivers of mint, wrapped up in foil, and baked - nice and simple. I thought the recipe looked good, but needed something more, so I paired it with tomato sauce, which worked nicely. It made a nice light vegetarian main course, perfect for a summer evening with a glass of wine.

This will work best with small, slender zucchini that will cook quickly when left whole. I used goat gouda for the cheese because its easier to work with than soft goat cheese, but you could definitely substitute your favorite cheese here - I bet parmagiano or cheddar would be good choices...

Hedgehog potatoes with herbed yogurt dip

Have you heard of hedgehog potatoes? I hadn't, until I saw this fun recipe. Basically, they are potatoes that are cut into thin slices, but the cuts don't go all the way through the potato, so the slices end up spreading out a bit. This recipe comes from Super Natural Cooking, and includes thin slivers of harissa-coated garlic tucked in between the potato slices. The potatoes are garlicky and spicy, with a nice cool cilantro-mint yogurt dip to balance out the heat. As you can see, my obsession with purple vegetables continues with these potatoes...

Hedgehog potatoes with herbed yogurt dip
Adapted from Super Natural Cooking 
Serves 2

Note: we had a lot of dip left over when we made this.

8 small purple potatoes (ours were small enough that 4 potatoes was an appropriate side dish serving. You can substitute red or Yukon gold potatoes if you can't get purple)
3 cloves garlic, sliced paper thin
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp harissa (North African chile paste)
Salt

Dip:
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used sour cream)
1 small clove garlic, chopped
2 tbs chopped fresh mint
2 tbs chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 deg F. Wash and dry the potatoes. Cut each potato into very thin crosswise slices, but only cut about 80% of the way through, so that the potatoes stay intact. Mix the garlic slices, olive oil, harissa, and a couple of pinches of salt together in a small bowl. Tuck the garlic slices in between the potato slices, and rub remaining oil mixture over the outsides of the potatoes. Sprinkle the potatoes with salt, place on a baking dish, and cover with foil. Bake for 30 minutes, and then uncover and bake for 20 more minutes, or until fork tender.

Meanwhile, combine yogurt, chopped garlic, mint, cilantro, salt, and a couple pinches of pepper in a small bowl and stir well. Serve potatoes with dip on the side.

Moroccan carrot salad

I've been on a lookout for good carrot recipes lately, since I tend to come home from the market with at least one bunch every week. This is one of the more interesting ones, and led to my first taste of harissa, which is a very delicious chile paste that would be a welcome addition to a great many dishes. The harissa gives the dish some heat, which is balanced by the coolness of the mint and the sweetness of the carrots. Nothing is too overpowering here - the salad has a really nice blend of flavors. I found this recipe over on Smitten Kitchen, and thought it would be a good way to use some of the mint that my mother-in-law gave us from her garden. The original recipe calls for feta cheese, which is great, but I didn't have feta around, so I tried using olives to contribute some saltiness, with good results. A combination of olives and feta would be good too. I've been mentally toying with the idea of trying a variation using these spices with either roasted or sauteed carrot coins, to change up the texture and shape of the vegetable a little here, or maybe just wilting the shredded carrots a bit in a saute pan. Let me know if you try any variations on this. This salad keeps really well, and I've enjoyed it for lunch in a pita with some hummus.


Moroccan carrot salad
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Serves 4-5
3/4 pound carrots, peeled*, trimmed and coarsely grated
4 tbs olive oil
1 crushed clove of garlic
1/2 tsp caraway seeds or 1/4 tsp, ground
3/4 tsp cumin seeds or about half as much, ground
1/2 tsp paprika
3/4 tsp harissa, a North African chile paste
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs parsley, finely chopped
2 tbs fresh mint, finely chopped
1/3 cup chopped olives or feta cheese (or a combination)

In a small pan, cook the garlic, spices, harissa and sugar in the olive oil for 1-2 minutes, until fragrant. Remove pan from heat, discard garlic, and add the lemon juice and a generous pinch of salt. Pour oil/spice mixture over the carrots, add olives, and mix. Add the herbs and mix again. Make sure to salt to taste before eating. This salad keeps well for a few days in the fridge.

*I usually don't bother peeling carrots unless the skins are especially thick or rough

Caramelized corn with fresh mint

I found this recipe on The Wednesday Chef, a beautifully written food blog by Luisa Weiss that I read frequently. Luisa kind of freaked out over this one, with good reason -- it's a fantastic, simple recipe, and the cooking method has become one of my favorite ways to prepare corn. The recipe is actually written for frozen corn, but I used fresh corn that I picked up at the farmers' market. The mint here is kind of unexpected, and really good, but I've found that the browned, caramelized corn tastes great with basil instead of mint, or even with nothing but salt. I could imagine other variations too -- maybe cilantro, or some smoked paprika...

Caramelized corn with fresh mint
Adapted from The Wednesday Chef, the specific post is here
Serves 2-3

I'm including instructions for both fresh and frozen corn.

1 10-ounce package frozen corn, or 3 ears of fresh corn, husks removed
1 tablespoon unsalted butter (I think bacon fat would be a great to use instead)
2 tablespoons minced fresh mint
Salt

If using frozen corn, defrost the corn in a colander, tossing occasionally, for about 30 minutes. This is important -- if you don't defrost enough, the corn doesn't caramelize well. If using fresh corn, cut kernels off with a sharp knife.

In a large, wide skillet, melt the butter over high heat. Add the corn and cook, stirring often, until golden and browned (kernels will probably begin to pop, which is super fun). Stir in the mint and sprinkle with salt to taste. This is best served immediately, but still tastes pretty good reheated a day later.