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Thursday, July 31, 2014

A little zucchini goes a long way

A little zucchini goes a long way and what do you do with all of it is usually the gardeners dilemma.

We had my take on zucchini fries for lunch the other day which was a nice change from zucchini bread which is one of the go to recipes when you suddenly realize the garden has given you way more zucchini than you know what to do with. These oven fries were so good that my husband declared that they deserved a glass of wine to go with them. All that laudatory rhetoric was a real surprise since he typically, favors high fat, high sugar foods. My dad was like that - if it didn't slide off the plate he didn't want to eat it. So, needless to say, I was thrilled to come up with a recipe that he loved and it was healthy!

Here's what I did: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Brush a fairly light coating of olive oil on a raised sides cookie sheet. Then  cut enough zucchini  (don't peel), into French fry shapes about 3/8" on each side and 3" long. Beat two eggs in a shallow bowl. Add a little salt and pepper and stir in a couple of light shakes of cayenne pepper to the eggs. Put about a cup of Italian flavored read crumbs in a low wide bowl and add salt and pepper to taste and several shakes of garlic powder and a few shakes of cayenne pepper. Taste the crumbs and adjust seasoning to your taste.

Dip each zucchini fry in the beaten egg and then quickly dip it  in the bread crumb mixture and fill the cookie sheet without the pieces touching each other. (lay the side with the peel face down on the sheet. If there's no peel, no problem. Just set it down as is). Bake about 20 to 25 minutes, checking about half way through and turn if the bottoms are lightly browned. Continue cooking till the tops are also lightly browned.

I served these with the spicy red cocktail sauce you use for shrimp salad. They'd also be good with ranch dressing, or a creamy Caesar dressing as a dip. I just opted for the lower fat choice. The two of us finished the whole tray's worth. Since I still had half of that zucchini left, I made a zucchini and tomato casserole to go with dinner; but that recipe is for another day.

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