Quinoa and Zucchini

I'm disappointed every year with the lack of decent produce we can get around here. That is why I was so ridiculously happy when I found a small organic farm nearby that offers a CSA program. Each week we get a variety of different vegetables and herbs. This is only the third week but I already love it!

One of my favorite vegetables is zucchini so I was thrilled this week when I saw 14 zucchini go into my bag. Doesn't that sound like a lot? Well, not for us. I picked them up Friday afternoon and all the zucchini was gone by Sunday!

This is my favorite way to prepare zucchini. I love it. Kay will eat it but puts a lot more quinoa than zucchini on her plate (we just recently discovered that she really likes quinoa). Bill eats the zucchini but as a side dish and refuses to touch the quinoa.

This picture shows the zucchini and quinoa along with mustard and dill green beans (the green beans and dill were also in my CSA bag).

Quinoa

1 cup quinoa
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable broth

Rinse the quinoa well in a fine mesh strainer. Place the quinoa, water and vegetable broth in a medium sauce pan. Bring it to a boil then reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.


Zucchini

3 medium zucchini cut in 3 inch sticks
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoon margarine
1/4 cup onion, minced
1 handful chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
1 bouillon cube
2 teaspoon ground thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet (with a lid) heat the oil and margarine over medium heat. Cook the onion and parsley (or cilantro) until soft and translucent. Add the zucchini sticks, bouillon cube (crumble it), thyme, salt, and pepper. Stir to coat the zucchini and then cover and cook for 15-20 minutes stirring only once or twice. You want the zucchini to get lightly browned.

Kay: I didn't really like the zucchini but I like the quinoa a lot. I can eat quinoa just plain with a little salt for my whole meal.

Mom (Dana): I ate this Friday night, Saturday for lunch and dinner and Sunday for dinner. After typing this up, I'm really wishing I had more - it is that good!

Phyllo bar dessert

Wow. When I said we all got sick on 4th of July, I had no idea what we were in for. We got much, much worse before getting better, including several days of fever. After two weeks we are all finally starting to get back to normal again although we still aren't completely well. We've also gone through every kind of cold related medicine and crazy amounts of Kleenex!

We did feel well enough through all this to make a dessert though! I had opened a package of phyllo dough to make something else and the rest of it was just sitting around the fridge so I decided to experiment. Kay and I thought it was fantastic and had trouble not eating it all in one sitting!

We used dark chocolate covered edamame which my sister-in-law gets me from Trader Joe's. I usually hoard them and refuse to share since I only have a limited supply but my illness obviously confused me and next thing I knew, a whole handful of them wound up in this dessert! If you don't have a super nice sister-in-law who brings you dark chocolate covered edamame a couple times a year, then you can use any chocolate covered nuts or even chocolate chips and chopped nuts mixed together.

Phyllo Bar Dessert

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 cup chocolate covered nuts, chopped

2 tablespoons melted margarine

6 sheets phyllo dough

1/4 cup agave nectar (or honey)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, stir together the cinnamon and sugar.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place one sheet of phyllo dough on the pan. Brush melted margarine over the sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture. Top with another phyllo dough and repeat. On top of the third phyllo dough, brush on margarine and spread all the chopped chocolate nuts over the surface. Top with another phyllo dough sheet. Again, brush with margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Repeat. On top phyllo dough, brush with margarine.

Bake in oven for 10 minutes. Remove and pour agave nectar over the top. Let sit 10 minutes. Cut into squares (preferably with a pizza cutter).

Makes: 2 servings

Just kidding - you'll get about 15 decent sized squares.

Kay: These were awesome!

Mom (Dana): These are gooey and sticky and delicious!! If you use honey instead of agave nectar, you may want to warm it first so that it pours better. Plus honey is a little sweeter so don't use as much.

4th of July

No food this time. I woke up with a terrible cold, Bill's kicked in around lunchtime and Kay's half way through fireworks. Plus it was really cold and the mosquitos were terrible. But we did get some videos to show how noisy it is around here.

In this one you can see some of our pathetic fireworks but you can also hear all our neighbors. They obviously spent much more money than we did!

This one is the town's fireworks show that we can see from our driveway. If you listen closely, in the middle you can hear Bill's beautiful cough!

Today Bill and I are feeling better but Kay is miserable. At least we all got it at the same time so it won't drag out over a week or two.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday!