Zuccanoes and an Aioli Feast

Many, many moons ago a very artistic cook wrote...actually hand-lettered...and hand illustrated (no photos) an amazing cookbook called the Moosewood Cookbook. The recipes are vegetarian but you won't miss the meat because they are soo good. 

Once the zucchini in my garden start producing a few every day, I almost always remember how much I love the Zuccanoes, which are actually stuffed zucchini. This is an especially good recipe if you've missed one of the squash which was hiding under one of those big leaves and it got to be 7 or 8 inches long...or longer! You slice it in half long wise and scoop out some of the inner part. If the zucchini has gotten more than a day or two old, you may be scooping out a lot of seeds...that's O.K. I sometimes just discard the seedy part that I remove. Below is the photo of the finished zuccanoe. Looks a bit like a canoe made out of a half of a zucchini, right? Love the melty cheese on top!

Now comes the fun part. You get to make a filling. The recipe calls for mushrooms, onions, garlic and sunflower seeds. Sometimes I do it that way and sometimes I make my own combination. A few days ago I combined some leftover brown rice (about a cup), some onion (1/4 of a large one) that I had cooked in a bit of olive oil for a few minutes, four or five cherry tomatoes, diced, some frozen corn (about 1/3 cup) that I defrosted in the microwave, a lone steamed and peeled golden beet that I found in the fridge, and some seasonings like salt, pepper and Italian herb mix. All of that went into the scooped out part of the two zucchini halves, then I put a three cheese mixture on top (equal parts Parmesan, shredded mozzarella and shredded cheddar) and then baked them in a small baking dish at 350 until tender, about 18-20 minutes. Delicious and I used up two leftovers! There was more filling, so I heated that up completely in a small skillet and served it along side the zuccanoes.

Yesterday for dinner I decided to make an aioli feast. Aioli is basically garlic mayo and you make it in a blender. It's another recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook and it's home territory is the south of France. You serve that wonderful sauce with warm and cool veggies and you can throw in leftovers if you don't care if you are authentic. The photo at the top of the post shows my version last night.

I served mine with steamed green beans, small chunks of red potatoes that I'd boiled until tender and then drained, a yellow zucchini that I sliced and then browned in a skillet, cherry tomatoes, and warmed leftover grilled chicken and sausage. It was delicious and I still have aioli in the fridge for another meal...and I had garlic breath! Other veggies that work well include broccoli, cauliflower, carrot sticks, mushrooms, and steamed beets. Hard cooked eggs are nice, too.

Here is the recipe for the Aioli found in the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. This garlic-mayonnaise sauce is on the thin side, but fully flavored.

Combine in a blender and blend well:
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
 1/2 teaspoon tamari
2 medium cloves crushed garlic
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks

After those are well blended at high speed, take off the cap so that you can pour into the blender. Turn the speed down to medium. Measure 1 cup oil...all or part olive oil...in a measuring cup that pours well.

Very gradually, drizzle in the oil a little at a time. After a few tablespoons have been drizzled in, gradually dribble in the rest of the oil in a slow, thin stream until all the oil is entered. The mixture should be fairly thick. Once it's thick, turn off the blender...if you beat too much it will get thin again which is not what you want.

Transfer to a covered jar or bowl and put in the fridge until ready to use if it's not already meal time. Be generous with this sauce for dipping those warm  and cool veggies (and protein if you like). It makes a nice topping for fish, too.

A Garicky Feast

Don't you love garlic? I guess not everyone does, but most of the people that I share food with do. I love it roasted with chicken, I love it minced and put into guacamole, I love it in all my favorite soups and stews and braises. I love it in mayonnaise, especially when it is fresh garlic mayo or aioli. This is a really easy sauce to make if you have a bender or food processor, but you can also purchase jarred aioli. My favorite is Stonewall Farms and I love their roasted garlic aioli.

I used that for an aioli feast a few nights ago. I first made aioli from scratch using a recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen many moons ago in the dark ages when it first was published. The recipe was included as part of a feast and I really loved having a large platter covered with steamed and fresh veggies, some fish or chicken, and lots of lovely garlicky aioli to spread liberally over it all. She wrote,"The traditional aioli supper consists of the central dish - garlic mayonnaise - surrounding cluster of freshly-steamed vegetables to dip."

For this version I steamed green beans, sugar snap peas, chunks of zucchini, and chunks of multi-colored carrots. I also reheated some roasted chicken. Then I used my small cast iron skillet to reheat some mashed potatoes, so they became a potato cake with browned crust. All of this went on a large platter with a bowl of aioli in the middle and we helped ourselves to some of each. I dipped the green beans into the aioli like you would dip French fries into ketchup or mayo. Sooo good.

Other additions that I've used in the past are quartered hard cooked, peeled eggs, cherry tomatoes, steamed asparagus spears, and red pepper strips. You may have other favorites like sardines or firm white fish, steamed brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, or baby artichokes. What ever you use, be sure that it is the best quality you can find and only cook it enough to bring out the flavor and color...it should still have plenty of chew and character to it. Instead of the potato cake a great choice is steamed small red potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes.

I recommend that you limit the feast to about 7 or 8 items or fewer. With more choices the flavors can become muddled as you eat your way through the various choices.

This is a great meal to share with friends...just increase the amounts of each veggie and fish or chicken and be sure to have plenty of that wonderful aioli!

"This recipe makes enough for an aioli supper for 4 people. It will amply cover four servings of fish...and there should be some extra for dipping potatoes or whatever your're serving with the fish. This only takes about 10 minutes to prepare." ~ Mollie Katzen in Moosewood Cookbook

Aioli

1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon tamari
3 medium cloves crushed garlic
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups oil (use all or part olive oil)

Combine the lemon juice, salt, tamari, garlic, egg and egg yolks in a blender and blend well at high speed.

Reduce speed to medium. Gradually drizzle in the oil. Don't just dump it in all at once. Keep the blender running at medium until all the oil is in. The mixture should be thick. Once it's thick, turn the blender off. If you beat it too long it will get thin again, which is not what you want.

Place finished garlic mayonnaise in a dish and on a platter and surround with steamed veggies of your choice and/or baked fish.

Love That Garlic

My focus the last few days has been the garden. The flowers are blooming like mad and the veggie are finally harvestable...at least some of them. We get about one good sized zucchini per day, a handful of firm, slender tiny green beans, another handful of pear shaped cherry tomatoes, and a small cucumber every other day. Should be baking a cake for the Cake Slice Bakers, or bread for the Bread Baking Babes, but I'm in the garden now that the bath project is done.

In order to really enjoy the beginning of the harvest season, I decided to do a meal that is perfect for this kind of collection of veggies. With the addition of some boiled red potatoes, one hard boiled egg, and two kinds of mains (grilled salmon for me, tri-tip for Sweetie), we had a feast with the addition of a drizzle of home made aioli. You can dip, but the drizzle (see photo at top) looks pretty.

One of the most visited posts over the 10+ years I've been blogging is the one for Spinach-Rice Casserole, a comfort food and economical vegetarian dish from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook. I'm showing how ancient I am with this, but I bought the book when it was new and when the idea of a vegetarian restaurant was pretty new, too.The recipes are from the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York and the book is unusual because it is hand-lettered instead of being typed. Mollie did very cool illustrations, too, some helpful, some fanciful, but all lovely. If you don't have a copy, you can go online to places like Powell's and try to find a used copy. Worth the search.

My Sweetie has always been a meat and meat kinda guy, so the idea of vegetarian meals was never a hit with him. He did, however, enjoy trying new things. That casserole became a side dish and was enjoyed partly because the only other thing needed (by Sweetie) was his meat or poultry or fish entree.

Another loved recipe from this cookbook was for Aioli, a delicious garlic mayonnaise, which is served as a sauce for fish or, even better, as the dipping sauce that ties together a meal of steamed veggies, potatoes, hard boiled egg and whatever protein of the meat/poultry/fish variety that Sweetie wanted to make that day. You better love garlic if you make and serve aioli the way that Mollie makes it. It makes an assertive mayo, so was mostly made when the kids were off at camp or something similar. The garlic goes raw into the blender and there is a fair amount of it too. Be sure to use a good olive oil, too (not a finishing olive oil, but one that tastes good since you really taste the olive oil in this, along with the garlic). This makes enough for a generous serving for 4, but it keeps in the fridge for days. This afternoon I made a tuna sandwich filling using a little of it. Wonderful!

If you have your ingredients gathered, this only takes about 10 minutes in your blender. I suspect you could use a food processor, too, but I've only ever used a blender. For variations, you can add hot sauce or herbs like basil, mint, oregano, chives, etc. If you like roasted red peppers, adding some to the blender can make this sauce perfect for putting with grilled sausage. Bet you figure out your own variations.

Aioli
from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook

1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (don't use anything else...you need the hit of lemon)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon tamari (I used soy sauce)
3 medium cloves garlic, crushed...or use more if you really love garlic
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups oil (I used all olive oil, but you can combine it with other oils for a milder taste)

Combine the lemon juice, salt, tamari, garlic, eggs and egg yolks in a blender and blend well at high speed.

Turn the blender speed down to medium. Gradually drizzle in the oil in a thin stream. Keep the blender running at medium until all the oil has been absorbed. The mixture should be thick. Turn the blender off because overbeating will cause the mayonnaise to thin out again.

Refrigerate until ready to use, or use right away. Refrigerated aioli will be a bit thicker than freshly made. Store leftovers in the refrigerator...I like to store in glass because the garlic really is strong.

Serve as a dipping sauce with a plate full of steamed veggies like green beans, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, carrot sticks, zucchini, etc. Include some good bread for mopping up the sauce. Nice additions include hard boiled egg halves or quarters, fresh tomatoes, cooked fish, chicken, pork or beef, the latter three cut into bite sized pieces.