Eighth of an Acre Bounty

And these are 12 inch tiles in the background!

Our neighbors just gave us two huge zucchini this morning as we were sitting outside drinking the first cup of coffee. We usually go through this exchange every year. They always plant zucchini, I never plant zucchini – I always plant tomatoes and they never do. So later in the season I can return the favor with a bag full of tomatoes over the fence. It works out nicely. Although I have to admit I think we are still getting the better end of the deal having them as neighbors. Throughout the year, whenever they have family over-or the mom goes on a cooking binge, she will send over one of the kids with still hot lumpia, or tostones. And let me tell you, if you have never tried Philippine corn nuts flavored with garlic, you have not lived!

So in figuring dinner for tonight I had a main goal of trying to clear some space in the fridge. I need to pull the remaining kohlrabi, lettuce and fennel tomorrow so I can get some fall seeds in. I spied the arm sized zucchini and decided upon stuffing it for dinner. Now usually when squash get this big they are either tough or spongy and best suited for bread or other baking endeavors. But I have had pretty good luck with the zucchini from the neighbors, once you scoop out the almost-matured seeds, the flesh is still pretty dense and juicy.

I split one of the zucchini in half and cleared the seeds (those went to the girls, who were very grateful). I salted both halves and set in a colander for about an hour to get rid of some of the moisture. Meanwhile I fished around in the fridge to see what I could throw into the squash halves. I settled upon half an onion, half a large kohlrabi bulb, 4 cloves garlic, half a lemon (are you noticing a trend of halves here?) a half block of cream cheese (left over from a horribly sad birthday cheesecake disaster) one smallish eggplant and some bacon (because the boy gets a pooky face if there isn’t flesh on the table for dinner). I also unearthed a small bag of dried shitake mushrooms left over from Siu Mai (steamed pork and shrimp dumplings) when my brothers boyfriend was in town and graciously offered to cook some Chinese dishes with me. I broke these up into smallish chunks and set to soak in a cup of hot water.

I diced the onion, kohlrabi and eggplant and set to sweat in a pan with some olive oil. Meanwhile I took the remaining cream cheese and beat it about in a bowl to soften a bit. I added 1 clove crushed and diced garlic, thyme, marjoram, oregano and all of the lemon juice from the half lemon. Once the veggies in the pan had softened sufficiently I added the 3 remaining cloves of garlic (diced).

The cream cheese would act as a binder but I still needed a starch both to bulk up the stuffing and to fuel the boy (who must burn somewheres around 8,000 calories a day if one witnesses his eating habits and physique). I rinsed a cup and a half of quinoa while defrosting 3 cups of chicken broth. Then after dry toasting the quinoa in a heavy pot, I added the quinoa and set to simer for 20-25 minutes.

While the quinoa simmered/steamed. I rinsed the salted zucchini and placed on a baking tray, then popped them in the oven at 350 degrees. Once the quinoa had been taken off the heat and cooled a bit, I combined all the ingredients together in a bowl and mixed thoroughly,and seasoned to taste. I then pulled the zucchini out of the oven and stuffed the hollowed out cores liberally with the mixture, mounding it up above the zucchini halves.

I put the stuffed zucchini halves back in the oven, adjusted the temperature to 375 and baked for 35 minutes or so. And there was dinner.

I realize that a full scale narrative like this is hardly useful for someone looking for a recipe, but then a recipe would violate the purpose of the fridge clean-out. I suppose if someone (god forbid) were to actually use this as a recipe and I were to write measurements for everything it would look something like

• 1 Giant Zucchini
• 3 cups whatever mixed veggies/meats sound good together and you are trying to use up and clear out.
• 4-6 ounces soft cheese, or equavalent hard cheese with egg/milk added for moisture
• 2 cups cooked grain (rice, quinoa, bulghur, wheat berries, etc)
• Herbs and Spices
• Follow general direction indicated above, with the exception that the quinoa dried out a bit in the oven, next time I would probably either cover the roasting pan or sprinkle the top with cheese to retain moisture

This is the way most of the cooking goes around here, especially during summer when fridge space is at a high premium. I’d post an after picture, but in all reality it just wasn’t that pretty. A mixed up khaki stuffing just isn’t that photogenic, but it was pretty tasty.