Zucchini & Kidney Beans

Thank goodness for ETL because even on a day like today, when I'm just really tired and on mental auto-pilot, I get to eat like this. I had a large zucchini sitting in the fridge and I just threw this together off the top of my head. It was delicious!

I water-sautéed the zucchini with one large diced clove of garlic then poured on an 8oz can of Hunt's no-salt-added tomato sauce. I seasoned it with 1/2 tbs of Mrs. Dash salt-free tomato, basil, and garlic blend then added a can of no-salt-added kidney beans and let all the flavors blend for a little bit on low. It was actually a lot of food in the end so I split it and just ate it for dinner too. Perfect for an evening of going to bed early.

Zucchini, garlic, nsa tomato sauce, Mrs. Dash, nsa kidney beans.

Farmers Market Meal

My girlfriend Anne Marie came to Casa De Schmidt on Saturday, bearing gifts from her Farmers Market run that morning. She brought me heirloom tomatoes, snap peas and a gorgeous bundle of basil. I was so inspired by the brilliant colors that I pulled out the fancy vinegar for this meal. I used a little bit of water to start off the peas and squash, then added the vinegar later with the tomatoes and basil. I find that if you use vinegar instead of water to sauté, the vinegar burns off before you can get a good infusion of flavor, so I add it as a seasoning at the end instead. This was totally delicious!

Sauté: summer squash, snap peas, heirloom tomatoes, basil, Lucini Pinot Grigio vinegar.

Squash "pasta" sauté.

Ahhh, the water-sauté. Such an important cooking method in ETL. It's super simple, yet requires a lot of attention. The trick is in the amount of water used because veggies release water as they cook too. Best to start low (less than 1/4 cup) and add as you go. Also, it really helps to have all your ingredients prepared before you start or you might end up with soggy veggies from interrupting the cooking time. Always start with the hard, crunchy veggies like onions or carrots first and add the softer more delicate ingredients as you go along so that everything cooks evenly. Add your seasonings to taste. If I have any greens on hand, I will toss those in last and give them just a quick flash saute to wilt them.

Truly, you can add whatever you want. I LOVE to play with flavors and colors. Often I find myself influenced by what is fresh at the market, naturally.

Now to the squash "pasta". I found instructions online for how to best make these ribbons. The video tells you to discard the core, but that is just too wasteful for me. No reason for it. I dice it up and add it to the sauté.

Sauté: onions, capers, exotic mushroom mix I bought at Wegmans, summer squash, and cumin.