Cooking from my garden.

I'm very excited about the massive plant in my garden FINALLY producing something.  I couldn't tell if it was going to be a squash or zucchini plant but, after it began flowering, I suspected it was a zucchini.  The flowers are edible.  I had some on my trip to Italy.  The Italians like to stuff them with cheese and fry them.  Delicious.  Here is an actual photograph of one I ate in Italy.  It doesn't look as good as it tasted because this pic is in black and white - but trust me - It was yummy.

I didn't want to eat the flowers without getting some actual vegetable so I had a serious conversation with my plant.  I marched out to my garden and basically threatened to yank its flowers off and start devouring them if it didn't make something soon. Sure enough, after "the talk" a good sized zucchini magically appeared.  Sometimes you have to show your plants who's boss!

Lately I've been obsessed with a website called Gojee.  It pulls all sorts of different recipes from food bloggers and such.  You can actually type in ingredients you have, or what you don't like, and it will spit out some suggestions.  Well of course I typed in zucchini.  I could just cut it up and grill it but after being mean to my plant I decided I needed to do something special.

A quick search led me to Aggie's Kitchen and a recipe for Baked Parmesan Zucchini Sticks.

(Sidenote: Aggie is not an Aggie as in Texas A&M, as I originally assumed.  Being from Texas, I think this was a fair and honest mistake.  Her name is just Aggie - unassociated with the college.)

I have decided to give the recipe a go with my zucchini.  Here is my lovely creation before I butchered it:

You have to cut it up into sticks.  Don't worry, I didn't do this in front of my plant.  That would just be cruel.




The set up: Zucchini Sticks, Egg, Breadcrumb/Parmesan/Spice Mixture




Zucchini taking their egg bath...

After their bath they were dipped in the breadcrumb mixture and into the oven.  I think the Italians would have probably fried them.  Italians fry a lot of things (surprisingly).  This is the somewhat healthy version so they get baked.



TA-DA!  The final Product!  I realize that serving these with ranch took away the health factor.  They would have been good with marinara also.  All-in-all quite delicious.  Highly recommended.










Although this is not a food blog, I have a future post in the works about how to make the Perfect Grilled Cheese - because I have perfected this art and think its important to share with the world.  Stay tuned!