serves 4-6

3        large eggplants

2        large onions, julienne

1        red bell pepper, cut into thin slices

4       tablespoons olive oil

1        32-ounces can diced tomatoes

1        clove garlic, sliced

1/2   teaspoon thyme

salt and pepper to taste

4        tablespoons crumbled feta, optional

-Cut two 1/2-inch thick slices from top of each eggplant and place on cookie sheet.  Cut the rest of eggplants, lengthwise, into 1/2-inch thick slices and place on the cookie sheet.  Brush each slice with olive oil on both sides. Place the cookie sheet under broiler and broil until golden brown.  Remove from the oven  and set aside.  Take the round slices and set aside for decoration.

-In heavy pot, heat the olive oil and saute the onion for 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and the thyme, stir and cook for couple of minutes.  Add the diced tomatoes, the salt and the pepper.  Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.

-Spoon half of the tomato sauce into baking dish, place the broiled long eggplant slices on top of the sauce.  Spoon the rest of the sauce on top of the eggplants.  Cut the eggplant round in half and arrange them with the cut pepper on top of the sauce.  Cover with foil and bake in 395 degree F. oven for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven, remove the foil, sprinkle with feta cheese and serve. YOU CAN SKIP THE FETA CHEESE TO MAKE VEGAN DISH.

2       Acorn squash

1        butternut squash

1       12-ounce can pureed pumpkin

4       tablespoons olive oil

1       medium onion, finely chopped

4      celery stalk, chopped

4      carrots, peeled and chopped

1/4   teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/8   teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

1/8   teaspoon fresh shredded ginger

1/4   cup slivered almonds, toasted

salt to taste

-Cut the Acorn squash and the butternut squash, scoop the seeds and place the cut side down on cookie sheet and bake in a 400 F. degree oven for 20 minutes or done.  Remove from the oven and place on the side and allow it to cool.

-In heavy pan, heat the olive oil and add the vegetables.  Stir and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.  Add the red pepper, the nutmeg and the ginger.  Stir and cook for 1 minutes.  Remove from the heat and set aside.

-Spoon the baked flesh into a pot and discard the skin.  Add 8 cups of water and bring to a boil.  Bring to a boil, cover and allow to simmer for 5 minutes.  Spoon mixture into food processor and puree until smooth.  You can do that in patches.  Spoon back into the pot, add the pureed pumpkin, the vegetables and the salt.  Stir, adjust the seasoning and bring to a boil.  Simmer for 10 minutes.

-Spoon into a bowl, sprinkle with the almonds and serve.

Why we might wonder why such a plethora of vegetables doesn’t exist with hard to find shiitake mushrooms, or French truffles, for example.  But since we’re blessed, or stuck, as the case may be, with plenty of zucchini, it might be helpful to know how to use the great quantity that’s available during the summer.

Food historians tell us that zucchini came from the New World, and from here to the Old World in the sixteenth century after discovery of the Americas by Europeans.  The minute it arrived in Italy, the rest, as we say, is history.  It was first discovered in Northeast Mexico as a domesticated plant, and later in the Midwestern United States.  It was first introduced in the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century.

The Italian not only gave the squash variety its commonly known name, but they have developed dozens of ways to cook zucchini.  Both the Italian and the French have created so many wonderful ways to eat zucchini it would be impossible to list them all.  I learned one way while eating at a restaurant in France a while ago.  The waiter brought us a dish he wanted us to try, which turned out to be the zucchini flower stuffed with ricotta cheese and French truffles, then deep fried.  I would never have thought of the dish, but the taste was out of this world.  Another variation of this dish has the zucchini flower filled only with ricotta cheese.  One of the cookbooks I’ve read on teh fubject adds the flower to Italian rissoto.

The further east you travel the more ingenious the recipe become.  In the Levant, cooks everywhere in those countries use a special scoop, which looks very much like an apple corer, but it is longer and narrower, and scoops out the core of the zucchini without piercing the skin.  When I visited my family recently, I was helping my mother by coring the zucchini, and by accident pierced the skin of the squash.  My mother looked at me, shaking her head almost in sorrow, and took the corer away from me.”An you call yourself a chef,” she said.  “You can’t even core a Koosa without ruining it.”

Once the zucchini is hollowed out, it is filled with meat and rice and onions, then boiled in tomato sauce, with mint, salt, pepper and garlic.  Two of these are enough to feed a hungry farm worker.

When buying zucchini, look for the ones that have a glossy green skin and should feel firm.  Flabby zucchini are a no-no, as these are too old for good cooking.  The smaller and skinnier the zucchini, the better the taste, because, as usual, these have fewer seeds in them.  There is no need to peel the zucchini, but when you wash it check the skin to see if any grins of sand have grown into the skin.

There is many ways to enjoy zucchini and this dish is a favorite in my restaurant.

Zucchini Gratin

serves 4

6           baby zucchini

12         ounce frozen soy protein crumbled

4           tablespoons olive oil

1           medium onion, chopped

4           cloves garlic, mashed

4           tablespoons corn starch

4           cups skim milk

1/4       cup chopped fresh tarragon

1/4       teaspoons ginger powder

1/8       teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1/2       cup pine nuts, toasted

salt and pepper to taste

-In a deep pot, bring salted water to a boil.

-Cut the zucchini lengthwise in half and drop zucchini in the boiling water.  Boil for 5 minutes.

-Remove the zucchini from the water and scoop out the inside of zucchini with a teaspoon.

-Place the zucchini halves, cut side up, in a greased baking pan.

To make the stuffing:

-Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the onion for couple of minutes.  Add one mashed clove of garlic and the soy protein.  Stir and then add the salt and the pepper.  Cook for couple of minutes.  Remove from the heat and set aside.

To make the sauce:

-In a heavy saucepan, mix the corn starch with 4 tablespoons of water and mix well.

-Add the milk, the garlic, the tarragon, the nutmeg and salt.  Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the sauce slightly thickens.

To assemble:

-Divide stuffing between the zucchini halves.

-Pour the sauce over the stuffed zucchini.

-Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts and serve.

People in the Middle East invented a coring tool to core the zucchini and eggplant.  They picked grape leaves off the vines and wrapped them around rice and meat.  They even used cabbage as wrapper, probably copied from a similar Norwegian dish.  If something could be cored, then it could be stuffed.  If something could be wrapped, then it was wrapped.

Recently, when I was spending a Saturday morning carving the core out of a couple dozen small, gray zucchini, I thought of my sister, who is a medical doctor in Syria, an endocrinologist by specialty.  She has no interest in cooking, but she’s obsessed with cleaning houses-hers, mine, our parents-she doesn’t care.  When my parents came to visit me a couple years ago, my sister was obliged to prepare a meal for my brothers left behind in Syria.  I have no idea way, but she decided to make stuffed zucchini for them.  She cored about 30 zucchini for stuffing, thinking they would be sufficient for the next week.  It was painful for her to do the kind of work she detested doing, but she felt a sense of accomplishment when she finished cooking them.  Turning the fire off under the pot, she went to her clinic for couple of hours.  Upon her return, she found that our two brothers had eaten all 30 stuffed zucchini, leaving her not even one for herself.  She told me that she cried for a full hour.  That was her last effort at fancy cooking. She has since refused to even to boil an egg.

Although the Moors had taught the Spanish how to stuff vegetables when they conquered them a few centuries ago, the Spanish were too smart to undergo the kind of obsessive work required to core small zucchini.  So when Columbus brought back to Spain sweet peppers from the new world, their national dish became stuffed sweet peppers, which are much easier to prepare because one only needs to pull out the seeds.  There is no need to core a pepper.

Stuffed grape leaves are more known around the world because they are offered in Greek, Turkish and Eastern Mediterranean restaurants.  Grape leaves are somewhat easy, and because of my sister’s pain, I’ve found a new way to stuff zucchini.  I cut them in half lengthwise before coring and stuffing them.

It is great dish, can be eaten hot or cold. I love this dish cold in hot summer nights. My mom used to fry the onions until caramelized and crispy and leave on the side to sprinkle on each serving.  She never had enough onion for each serving and she could not figure out why. Some times she would fry the onion and place them on top of the refrigerator so I could not fine them until dinner time, but my nose never fail me.  At the end, she started to fry one whole onion for me and couple for the stew.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUGfJ5x2oCU

Lentil with Dumplings in Pomegranate Cilantro Sauce

serves 6-8

1        pound lentils

3       large cooking onion, jullienned

10    cups of water

1/2  cup olive oil

6      cloves garlic, mashed

1       teaspoon ground coriander

1       cup chopped fresh cilantro

1/2  cup pomegranate molasses

1/4  cup lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

1      5-inch ball pizza dough

-Wash the lentils, place them in a heavy pot with one chopped onion and the water.  Bring to a boil.  Simmer until the lentils are cooked but not mushy or over cooked.

-In a heavy frying pan, heat the olive oil and fry the rest of the onions until golden brown. Remove the onion with slotted spoon and place on a shallow tray that is lined with paper towel.

-In the same frying pan, place the garlic, the coriander and cook for few seconds.  Add the cilantro and saute for one minutes.  Remove from the heat, add the pomegranate molasses, the lemon juice and the seasoning. Spoon this mixture over the lentils.  Bring back to a boil.  taste and adjust the seasoning.

-By hand, cut the dough into 1/2-inch balls and drop into the lentils.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and spoon into shallow serving platter.  Allow the lentil to cool and then sprinkle with the caramelized onions.

Leeks do belong to the onion family, but in addition to being larger, their flavor is much milder.  They are used mostly as flavoring of soups and soup stocks.  There are two kinds of leeks—one native to the Mediterranean that is thicker and milder in flavor.  It grows from winter to spring.   That’s the one found in American stores.  The other kind is native to the United States, called “ramp,” that is much thinner, more pungent in flavor, and more closely resembles scallions.  This variety starts budding out in the spring.  American Indians used native leeks in their cooking as well as in the treatment of coughs and colds, and to relieve the pain and itching of bee stings.

European chefs call leeks “the poor man’s asparagus.”  In England there is an annual competition for the largest leek.  The most unusual place where a leek is found is on the flag of Wales, a province of England.  The founding myth of the Welsh leek is when it was worn in the helmets of Welsh soldiers in 640AD to distinguish themselves on the battlefield from their enemy, the Saxons.  Some Welshmen wear leeks to commemorate King Cadwallader’s victory over the Saxons on St. David’s Day, March 1^st.  Another version of this myth holds that the battle was fought in a field of leeks, and the leek is honored because of the Welsh victory on that day.

When the leek is growing, soil is constantly piled up around the base of the leek to encourage a long, thin, white base.  Because the leek grows mostly underground, one must cut it in half and wash it thoroughly before cooking, as the sand infiltrates the layers of the leek as it is growing.  It is better to use a leek that is no larger than two inches thick—the younger the leek, and consequently the thinner, the more delicate the flavor.  It is better not to wash the leek until you are ready to cook it, as putting a washed leek in the refrigerator will spread the odor throughout. 

Leeks are full of vitamin C, as well as a kind of fatty acid that is known to be good treatment for hypertension.  Food scientists believe that leeks increase the production of good cholesterol, or HDL. 

Here are a couple of recipes that may help you take advantage of the benefits of using leeks in cooking:

Leek with  Mushroom And Tarragon

Serves 4

3           leeks

1     medium onion, julienne

1     pound white mushrooms, thinly sliced

1     tablespoons olive oil

2     cloves garlic, mashed

2     tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

Salt and pepper to taste

-Cut the green part of the leeks and discard.  Thinly slice the leeks and wash thoroughly.

-In a shallow frying pan, heat three tablespoons of olive oil and saute the mushrooms until the juice evaporate and the mushroom start to become golden.  Remove the mushrooms and set aside.

-Add the rest of  the olive oil and  sauté the onion and the leeks over low heat for couple minutes.

-Add the mushrooms,  garlic, the tarragon and the spices, stir and continue to cook for couple minutes.

4        tablespoons olive oil

1        medium onion, finely chopped

8        ounces soy vegetable protein crumbles, or chopped mushrooms

1        clove garlic, mashed

1        fresh fennel julienned

4       cups skim milk

3        tablespoons cornstarch

1        tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

1/8   teaspoon fresh nutmeg

1/8   teaspoon allspice

salt and pepper to taste

-To make the boats; In  a deep pot, bring salted water to a boil.  Cut the zucchini lengthwise in half and drop the zucchini in the boiling water.   Bring back to a boil and  boil for couple of minutes.  Drain and allow the zucchini to cool.  Scoop out the inside of the zucchini with a teaspoon.  Place the zucchini halves, cut side up, in a baking pan.

-To make the stuffing; Heat the olive oil and cook the onion for couple of minutes.  Add the soy protein, the garlic, little salt and pepper.  Stir and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.

-To make the sauce; Mix the cornstarch with 1 cup of milk.  Mix well until the cornstarch dissolve.   Mix with the rest of  the milk and pour into heavy sauce pot and add the nutmeg, the tarragon and salt, stir and place over medium heat.  Cook , stirring constantly until the sauce thicken slightly and coat the back of the stirring spoon.  Remove from the stove, add the fresh fennel and set aside.

-To asseble the dish; divide the stuffing between the zucchini halves.  Pour the sauce over the stuffed zucchini.  Bake in a 375 F degree oven bake for 30 minutes.  Serve with rice.

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