When you turn your back on a zucchini (or just overlook it), it turns into a monster.  John sets aside the Fred Flintstone zukes–we’ve nicknamed them this because they look big enough to to be Fred’s prehistoric club–and lucky me, I get to cook with them.  They don’t make the cut to go into the CSA Shares not because their flavor is compromised, but because when they get this big, they can be a real turn off…no longer looking so edible…almost looking like a comical exaggeration of their kind.

We forgot to pick a row of zucchini on Sunday, which meant there were plenty of monster zukes for me to work with today.  So what can you possibly do when you’ve got two or three humongo zucchinis on the counter?  Why you make soup!  It utilizes all of the extra zucchini on hand, requires very little “extras” to really make it flavorful, and you can eat on it for days.  Vegetable soups in summer are a staple at our house, and they usually spotlight one seasonal veggie at a time.  Although Zucchini Soup may sound dull and one-dimensional to some, to me it’s an opportunity to really show off the true flavor of the veggie in its seasonal peak.  Squash Soup.  Zucchini Soup.  Tomato Soup.  I am really looking forward to the summer soups ahead.  A one-pot dish of something relatively quick and pain-free to make, delivering that much flavor and nutrition?  Honing your soup-making skills really is worth it — your body and taste buds will thank you.

Where to turn for an inspiring recipe?  Since zucchini figures prominently in Italian cooking, and I wanted a soup that was very minimal and straightforward–the absolute essence of simplicity–I turned to none other than Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of The River Cafe in London, a restaurant well-known for its superb Italian cuisine, and the chefs’ devout commitment to seasonal cooking and local sourcing.

I've seen this book with several different covers. Although it's not easy to find, I discovered this copy at Half Price Books.

The recipe is delightfully easy, a reminder that food picked in its peak needs little done to it to make it delicious!  Calling only for garlic, zucchini, parmesan, olive oil, cream, basil, and Italian parsley, it came together in under an hour.  If you have a well-stocked pantry, a trip to the store isn’t even necessary.  You may have all the ingredients on hand:

The only thing not pictured (but that is absolutely vital to the recipe) is Parmesan. Easy breezy. And if you haven't been using kosher salt in your cooking, now is the time to start!

Gray and Rogers call for chicken broth in the recipe, but I’m a big fan of using water in place of meat or veggie broths when the soup I’m making is driven by one main vegetable.  I don’t want anything to mute the delicate flavor of the vegetable; I want it to shine.

Our zucchini plants on the farm have been out-producing the yellow squash, so CSA Members have been getting far more zucchini than they have squash.  CSA Members: This is a perfect recipe to use any zucchini that might not have made it as an accompaniment to other meals, or in the case that some of your unused zukes are turning a little soft.

Zuppe di Zucchine  |  Zucchini Soup

Serves: 4 as a main course |  6 as a starter

Ingredients

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil - about 2 tablespoons

Zucchini – about 2 1/4 #, chopped into 1-inch pieces

Garlic – 4 cloves, peeled and chopped

Water – 2 1/2 cups (or use veggie or chicken broth)

Italian Parsley – one small handful, leaves only, chopped fine

Basil – about 10 – 15 big leaves, chopped fine

2% Milk – 1/4 cup (or use half & half or heavy cream)

Parmesan – 3/4 – to – 1 cup, freshly grated

Kosher Salt

Preparation

-  Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat and add the chopped garlic and zucchini.

-  Cook the zucchini for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until very tender and soft.  Add water and cook another 5 – 10 minutes.  Add a big pinch of kosher salt.

Before adding water (or broth), the zucchini and garlic cook together until fragrant and very soft.

-  Get your blender ready (nothing fancy needed here).  Transfer about 3/4 of the soup and the chopped herbs to the blender and puree until smooth.  Add the pureed soup back to the soup pot and combine with the remaining broth and zucchini chunks.  Add the milk or cream and the parmesan cheese.  Stir until well combined.  Add a good amount of salt, because it will need it.  First give it a few pinches, stir well, taste, then determine how much more you’ll need.

-  Once the soup is seasoned to your liking, let it cool some — then ladle into soup bowls and serve!  (To completely push the soup over the top, in a good way, garnish it with some homemade croutons!  Take any thick, country-style white bread you might have–we used individual ciabatta buns we picked up at Central Market–cut it into cubes, toss with olive oil, salt, and a few turns of fresh cracked black pepper, then bake in a 375 degree oven until lightly toasted and crisp!)

It was so delicious!

I like to eat three meals a day.  Do you?  Whether it’s the routine I like or a simple preoccupation with food — I don’t know.

At least the physical nature of farming warrants a nice (read: hearty!) lunch daily.  Back in Dallas, where I grew up, lunch was often less about satisfying an actual hunger, more about just not wanting to skip it.  Because skipping it would inevitably lead to real hunger, which would lead to a 3:00 p.m. binge on sweets!

So by lunch time here on the farm we’ve almost already put in a full day’s worth of work–weeding, hoeing, picking, planting–trying to beat the heat.  Which means come noon we’re all starting to go a little quiet while we work, waiting for someone else to bring up lunch.  The first question is whether or not to eat in town, or at home.  I suppose it was also this way in the city.  Would you pick something up, dine out, or eat something you brought from home.  And even there, because I put pressure on myself to cook at home (If you know how, you must!  is the inner voice I hear), there was always an undercurrent of guilt if, instead of cooking at home or bringing your lunch, you went out to eat.  Are you like that, too?  In any case, I renew my vows to eat lunch and dinner at home on a weekly basis, and right now the commitment is sticking!

The question then becomes What can we eat for lunch besides meat and cheese sandwiches?  The other day it was a Very Easy Tomato Soup with garlic rubbed, good, crusty bread.  The tomatoes come from cans–you use whole peeled and crushed Italian tomatoes–add some olive oil, saute some onions, puree it in the blender…it comes together in a jiffy.  So we ate on that for a few days and then today it’s back to the drawing board.  With John away for the morning, I knew I had a little extra time to prepare something and I wanted to use the veggies from the farm and make it interesting.  The way I approach any meal is by considering what I have on hand, and then thinking about how I want to enjoy it.

Hot?  Cold?  With Bread?  Turn it into a soup?  Is there meat involved?  Do we have good cheese?  Nuts? 

You catch my drift.

We’ve just started harvesting squash and zucchini, about six different varieties so far. (Pictured below is a Mexican squash, straight-neck yellow, and “Plato” green zucchini).  The zucchini seem to be the more vigorous producers so far, being that we’ve almost had double the harvest, but the squash aren’t far behind.  And although I don’t tend to think of squash as being crave-worthy for lunch, I thought: with these goodies, why not heighten their flavor with some garlic and onion and make a topping for bruschetta?

We also had a small bundle of Hakurei Turnips lying around.  You know Hakurei Turnips, don’t you?  They’re the petite little “salad” turnips that are so sweet and crisp, they hardly ever make it to the saute pan because they’re so good just eaten out of hand?  It’s a Japanese variety of turnip that doesn’t need peeling and is so beautiful because of it’s small stature and big flavor!  They’ve made an appearance in the CSA Shares the last couple of weeks, and we hope they’ll be around for a bit longer.  Anyhow – being a very simple cook, I decided to saute all the chopped veggies together with lots of garlic and some of our sliced spring onions, then spoon it over the toasted ciabatta rolls we picked up from Central Market on our last trip to Dallas.  (Because good artisan bread is hard to come by in Pittsburg).

First things first: I chopped up the squashes and zucchini in different sizes (but similar thickness, for even cooking), and then sliced the turnips about 1/4-inch thick.

Once I had my veggies prepped, I got the flavor base (garlic and sliced spring onion bulbs) ready to saute in some extra-virgin olive oil.

I cooked the garlic and onions together over medium-low heat until they were fragrant and soft, then added the chopped squash and turnips.  The pan was a little crowded, I admit, but I raised the heat some and after stirring occasionally for about 8 minutes or so, everything was sauteed and smelling good.  (Believe it or not, the zucchini–even raw–tasted so buttery and flavorful; being locally grown, these don’t need a lot of fuss to make them taste great).  Throw several pinches of kosher salt over top, stir to combine, and voila – the topping was ready. . .almost.  I added a few sprigs of thyme from the herb garden, some freshly ground black pepper, and then got the bread out of the oven.  (Rub the bread with the cut end of a clove of garlic, put on a dab of butter and a pinch of salt, and toast at about 350 until it’s warmed through and crispy around the edges).

Lunch is Served!  Squash Bruschetta

The peppers on the farm aren’t all producing just yet, but we had a few Cubanelle peppers that were ready so I chopped those up (raw) and sprinkled over the top, along with some feta and fresh grated Parmesan.  John walked in the door just in the nick of time, singing praises that the house smelled so good, and we sat down to eat.  He chowed!  But me–ever the critic–I told him the bruschetta might have been better with some fried prosciutto torn over the top.  He disagreed.  Ah, well…maybe next time!  Squash and zucchini are about to start making weekly appearances in the CSA Shares, so it’s time for us all to put our heads together and come up with some inventive and delicious ways to use them.  And let’s not relegate them to dinner only.  What about lunch?