The zucchini is here. I don’t have much experience with this plant. A couple years ago I think we had a plant or two in our backyard garden but nothing like now where we must have close to 300 plants. The thing about zucchini is once they start producing they do it prolifically. We picked on Wednesday for our larger CSA account. We thought we picked everything available but today low and behold there were already close to 50 more ready to go.

This was the first week zucchini appeared in our CSA’s box as well and I think it will be a presence for many weeks to come. In the Doeun household our favorite way to eat them is sliced thick, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt then roasted at 400 degrees until just tender. I have eaten them at least once a day for 3-4 days now. So this afternoon Mavis and I tried something else,

Dell’s Zucchini Brownies from my favorite vegan cookbook– “The Best of Veggies.”

Here’s the recipe.

1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sucanat
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp cardamon or cinamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 cup carob chips
1 cup grated zucchini

Combine all ingredients. Add baking powder last (I didn’t see it on the ingredient list so I added 1 tsp) Pour batter into well oiled 9 x 9inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

The batter was really thick and I had to mix it with my hands and it definitely didn’t pour. I think it came out more like bread but with a nice flavor.

I have more creative zucchini recipes to share and I think I’ll have lots of zucchini to practice on. We did get that gopher on his way to another plant, now we just have to make sure there aren’t anymore with a taste for zucchini.

Here is the newsletter for this week with my favorite zucchini recipe “Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies.”

Yesterday was a great day. As I was waiting for customers to pick up all those boxes of yummy food I was getting very very hungry. My tastes differ a lot from the rest of my family so sometimes it is really hard to get motivated to whip up a really satisfying dinner for one. Though sometimes I have to admit the children really surprise me with what they decide they want to eat–like grapefruit but that is a different story.

Anyway I was hungry and had all this good food lying around so I decided, “Let’s do dinner.”

I find myself craving beans a lot and though red lentils are not officially beans they are in the legume family and when you haven’t planned ahead fit the bill for beans quite nicely. This is my favorite way to cook them, my own variation on an authentic mid-east recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. I paired it with mustard greens cooked using a basic greens recipe, fresh radish and raspberry and nettle leaf tea for beverage.

Armenian Red Lentils

1 cup red lentils
4 cups water.
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp tumeric
2 TBSP vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp anise seeds
4 cloves garlic chopped
squeeze of lemon

Cook the red lentils in the water. I sometimes adjust slightly to make it thicker depending on my mood. Last night was a thicker night.
After the beans are cooked add the salt and tumeric. Adding salt too early can make your beans hard.

Heat oil in a frying pan, add the bay leaves, mustard seeds, anise and garlic. Stir constantly until garlic is golden. Be careful the mustard may start popping and it really hurts if it lands on you. Add the flavored oil to the lentils and finish with a squeeze of lemon. Eat over rice. We tend to eat a lot of Jasmine rice (a favorite with Southeast Asians) but i love it over brown rice also.

Then I was in the mood for dessert so we had

Banana Bread! using a mix of white flour with the germ and whole wheat flour. For sweetening I used sucanat.

Sometimes a nice meal made from your own hands using quality healthful ingredients can be so satisfying.

A friend of mine was interested in the Pho recipe but being a vegan it was not a good fit for her. So here Katie is a Vegan Vietnamese noodle soup. I have made it fairly regularly before marrying a carnivore in denial. It is from The Volumptuous Vegan Cookbook one of my favorites for vegan recipes that are phenomenal and not something I could come up with on my own.

Vietnamese Noodle Soup

4 cups vegetable broth of Southeast Asian Stock (also from the cookbook)
1 jalapeno, sliced in thin rounds
1 lemongrass stalk, cut into 2-3 pieces and bruised
3 TBSP shoyu or soy sauce
1 TBSP Maple syrup
1 14 ounce can of unsweetened coconut milk
2 ounces rice noodles
3 TBSP creamy peanut butter
2 TBSP fresh lime (or lemon) juice
2 cups shredded napa cabbage
1/2 cup thinly sliced snow peas
1 cup mung bean sprouts
2 TBSP fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup cilantro leaves chopped
1/4 roasted peanuts crushed

1. Add the stock to a medium pot. Add the jalapeno, lemongrass, shoyu (or soy sauce), maple syrup, and coconut milk. Bring to boil over high heat, lower the heat and simmer, partially covered for 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, place the noodles in heatproof bowl. Pour boiling water over them to cover and let soak for 10 minutes. Put up additional water to boil so that it is ready when your soup is.

3. Remove the lemongrass from the soup and discard. Place the peanut butter in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup of hot soup to the peanut butter and whisk them together until the peanut butter is well dissolved. Add the peanut butter mixture to the soup along with the lime juice. Add a pinch of cayenne and sprinkle with salt to taste.

4. Drain noodles. Put the napa cabbage, snow peas, bean sprouts and noodles in a a strainer. Pour boiling water over just to heat them. If you are eating only a portion of the soup, pour boiling water only over the portion of vegetable you are going to eat.

5. Divide the vegetables and noodles among the soup bowls. Pour the hot soup over each portion.

Garnish with scallions, mint, cilantro and chopped peanuts. Serve with a wedge of lime.

OK I am really hungry now!

Today I got my wish–rain on the weekend when we had no place pressing to go. We did get up this morning and go out to the farm getting in about 3 hours before the rains began. On the way home we were talking about lunch and Proeun said that it was a good Pho day. For those who don’t know Pho is the national dish of Vietnam and variations of it are family favorites all over Southeast Asia. I had never eaten it before eating Proeun but now it is one of my favorites. I consists of a mildly sweet and intensely flavorful beef broth served over rice noodles with meat balls or other pieces of meat and lots of cilantro, thai basil and green onions on top.

We stopped at our local Asian store for beef neck bones, meat balls, thai basil, and cilantro then home to start the magic. As with so many dishes I have learned from my in-laws it is really hard to give specific measurements. But what we did was start the bones in salted water and slowly cook it for like 5 hours. Skim off the fat and add more water and seasoning as needed.

We also like to roast an onion by wrapping it in foil and placing it directly on the burner until the inside is nicely burned. Then chop up the roasted onion and add to the broth.

For seasoning we used anise and cinnamon, sugar, salt, black pepper and some fish sauce. That makes the broth, alot of time patience and working with your tastebuds. It doesn’t need to be overly seasoned because it is traditional to add a variety of condiments.

Deep fried red onions, hoisin sauce (Chinese barbeque) Sriracha (pepper paste), preserved cabbage, Pho paste, cilantro, green onion and thai basil. Lemon or lime is also really nice.

Everyone selects and puts on their own choices to taste.

To assemble the bowls, soften the dried rice noodles in boiling water. Strain and put in bowls. Select the meat you chose, tonight it was sliced beef and meatballs plus the beef neck bones and cook or warm in a strainer on top of the broth. Add to noodles and ladle the broth over it. The noodles really soak up the broth so you will probably need more then you think, then add the condiments of your choice.

It’s one of our families favorites.