Zucchini in bread and pie?

Why is it that I used to write headlines for a living but can't come up with decent blog post titles? Oh well, it's recipes today.

After I picked up my share on Saturday, I spent most of the day cooking. This is what my kitchen looked like:

My kitchen is pretty small, so when I ran out of space, I moved to my table in the living room:

I found some great recipes to use with my share this week. The main ingredient is zucchini. I knew I had a couple of recipes I wanted to try using zucchini, so I traded in my rhubarb to get extra zucchini. I ended up with 3.5 pounds of zucchini, so I still have plenty left!
 
Here are the recipes:

Zucchini bread
(This is from my Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. I actually doubled the recipe and froze one loaf, and I’m so glad it, it is really good! Unfortunately, I do not have photographic evidence.)

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup finely shredded, unpeeled zucchini
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Grease loaf pan, set aside. In a medium bowl combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder and nutmeg. Make a well in center of flour mixture.

In another medium bowl, combine egg, sugar, zucchini and oil. Add zucchini mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened. Fold in nuts. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 to 55 minutes (mine took a little less).

Zucchini Pie 
(This is courtesy of my co-op’s recipe blog and came highly recommended by a friend. It's also more like quiche than pie, but I'm leaving titled the same way they have it.)

• 4 cups thinly sliced unpeeled zucchini (I cheated and shredded mine with my food processor.)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped onion
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley OR 2 tbsp. parsley flakes
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. sweet basil leaves
• 1/4 tsp. oregano leaves
• 2 eggs, well-beaten
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 can (8 oz.) quick crescent dinner rolls (I made Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pie Crust instead.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In skillet, cook zucchini and onion in butter until tender (10 mins.), stir in parsley and seasonings. In large bowl, blend eggs and cheese. Stir in vegetable mixture.

Separate dinner roll dough into triangles (or make your favorite pie crust recipe). Place in ungreased 11-inch quiche pan, 10-inch pie pan or 12×8 baking dish. Pour mixture in.

Bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes. (I had to cook mine longer.) Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

As if I don’t have enough to eat, I made this pasta dish to use some of my cabbage. This is a very random assortment of ingredients, but I actually liked it. I was skeptical of the bread crumb mixture, but it’s exactly what the dish needs. I can't believe, I am saying this, but I actually liked it cold the next day for lunch just as much or more than for dinner the night before. Note that I decreased the amount of all the ingredients and didn’t measure anything very closely, which I realize is not much help.

Cabbage Tomato Pasta Toss 
(Recipe from AllRecipes)

• 2 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
• 8 ounces bow tie pasta, uncooked
• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• 1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 2 cloves garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup butter

In a bowl, combine the tomatoes, vinegar, basil and parsley; set aside. Cook pasta according to package directions, adding the cabbage during the last 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a skillet, saute bread crumbs, almonds and garlic in oil and butter for 6 minutes or until golden brown.

Drain pasta and cabbage; place in a large bowl. Add tomato and crumb mixtures; toss and serve immediately.

I really enjoyed all of these dishes, and I’m still eating them. I also still have asparagus and lots of lettuce to eat, but I did finish off the cherries.

Leftovers

Recently, I had to clean out my refrigerator. The reason: I was out of Tupperware. I don’t own tons of Tupperware, but every piece I own was holding leftovers of something, sometimes it was unrecognizable.

One of my struggles with cooking for myself is that I hate leftovers. My Tupperware situation was evidence of that. I had dutifully put the chicken or taco meat or vegetables in Tupperware containers after making whatever it was the first time, put them in the fridge and let them sit there for weeks. OK, I do eat them at least once more, if not twice, but I never seem to finish off whatever it is. It's often the third night that I talk myself out of it somewhere between work and my kitchen. And so the food goes bad sitting in my Tupperware, taking up space in my fridge.

I still can’t quite figure out exactly why I don’t like leftovers, but I never have, it was one of the things that drove my mother crazy. Growing up, Sundays after church were frequently leftover lunches. My dad would pull out everything we had eaten over the last week, and everyone was responsible for deciding what they wanted and reheating. I typically sulked at the table before finally fixing a sandwich to avoid eating the leftover casserole from the Thursday before.

But those days of complaining about leftovers coincided with a time when I ate the same thing for breakfast every day — Honey Nut Cheerios and banana nut bread with plain cream cheese. I was so tied to having that every day that my mom used to panic when she realized we were out of one of those things. Plus, I am not a morning person so even speaking to me, much less messing up my breakfast, was a scary thought to my family.

But if it’s not about eating the same thing every day, then maybe it’s the reheating process because I seem to see baked goods and sandwiches differently than dinner meals. 

Although these days I feel like it is more about the fact whatever I cooked the first night wasn’t that good to begin with, so the second and third nights are even worse. And I don’t plan ahead to cook something else with what’s left. Honestly though, even if I was prepared with some other ingredients, I’m not that comfortable creating something without following a recipe in some form.

I know that getting over this hatred of leftovers and getting creative with what I have is going to be my biggest challenge in this. So how do you avoid leftovers? Or turn them into something different on the second night?