101 Ways to Use Zucchini and Here’s a Dieters Favorite!
July 21, 2009 by Terry
Filed under Featured, Terry's Rambles
Perhaps the economy is not that great but its been a bountiful year with many of us having weight loss surgery, going on diets and working on improving our health in general. Many of us planted gardens in the spring or early summer. Tending those gardens is getting us outdoors, giving us a bit of exercise and best of all those gardens are starting to produce a bounty of vegetables. Most of us realize that a single zucchini plant will feed a neighborhood. With our garden we got carried away and planted not one or two but a plot of zucchini. Thank goodness there are 101 uses from steaming and baking to zucchini bread to plugging a hole in the boat. I can think of a lot of other uses but would probably get slapped by the next woman that saw me so you will just have to read on to figure out what we are doing with our zucchini.
One of my favorite ways to fix zucchini is grilling. Hey ladies some of us guys might not be that good in the kitchen but give us a barbecue and we will at least fake that we know what we are doing.
Not only zucchini is great grilled but so are a lot of other vegetable so if you are having difficulty getting your kids to eat vegetables grilling may do the trick.
Here are a few tips that you just might find handy in preparing and grilling those veggies from zucchini to corn, tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, potatoes, onions, peppers and just about anything else that will fit on the grill.
Preparation Tips
Zucchini: Wash thoroughly. Trim off the ends and slice the Zucchini lengthwise in one-quarter inch thick slices. Brush with olive oil and place over a hot grill. They will not take long so keep and eye on them. Do not over-cook.
Corn on the Cob: Peel the husks back a little over half way. Do not pull them off completely. Try to get most of the corn silk off, then pull the husks back up and tie them to the cob, then soak the whole ear in water for about an hour before setting over a hot fire on the grill. When you take the cobs out of the water, untie them and brush them with a mixture of melted butter and chili pepper sauce, salt and pepper, then tie them back up and then put them on the grill. Yummy!
Bell peppers: Grill the whole pepper until the skins blister and turn black. Then scrape or pull the blackened skin off, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper and enjoy. You can also do this with chilies and other peppers.
Potatoes: Clean the skins and cook in boiling salted water until only half cooked. Let them cool and cut into triangles lengthwise and spray with olive oil, place on hot grill, turning occasionally until brown and crispy.
Asparagus: Roll in olive oil, salt and pepper and placed across the grill and turned occasionally. They are great and again, do not over cook.
Eggplant: Slice about half an inch thick, salted and placed in a strainer to drain. After about half of an hour, dry the slices with a clean paper towel and brush with olive oil and grill.
Artichokes: Halve lengthwise and place in boiling salted water for about 15-20 minutes, then drained thoroughly. Brush the cut sides liberally with olive oil, salt and pepper and place cut side down over hot fire.
Onion: Skin the onion, either cook whole or cut a cross from the top down three-quarters of the way through the onion, pour on some olive oil and wrap with foil, salt and pepper and grill.
As far as your choice of cooking oil I usually use olive oil but you can use canola, sunflower, walnut or just about any other oil as long as it is food grade so you might want to keep an eye on some of your guys to make sure they are not using motor oil.
As far as grilling of those vegetable you can do like me an place them directly on the grill or if you are a neat freak or don’t like a bit of burnt veggie you can cook them on foil. Generally you will grill for 10 to 15 minutes and then salt, pepper or spice, as you prefer.
Vegetables generally are grilled over high heat, so when grilling with charcoal, build a 3-zone fire with the coals piled in a double layer on one side of the grill, then in a single layer in the center of the grill and then with no coals on the other side. This lets you sear over the high heat of the double layer, cook over the moderate heat of the single layer, and keep your vegetables warm over the coal free zone.
While your at it keep some skewers around to make shish kabobs. Slice up a varieties of vegetable not forgetting that zucchini and slide them on the skewer and grill. You can intermix the vegetables with chicken, pork, beef or other meat if you prefer.
Hey folks just because we are on a diet or had weight loss surgery doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our zucchini! Enjoy that garden, eat those vegetables and have a great time grilling this summer and fall.
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Just wanted to say that we have really been enjoying the zucchini from the garden. Those fresh vegetables really taste great.