Too Much Pepper....

Have you ever been looking around on Facebook and you've seen friends post pictures of things they fixed for dinner and they look SO GROSS?  Like "What IS that brown stuff?"  Yeah, I've avoided posting food pics a time or two because of not wanting to scare off my friends.  My husband and daughters have this phrase for when they throw gutter-balls when bowling on the XBOX Kinect: "Too much pepper."  Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you just spent over an hour prepping dinner for your family for no one to eat any of it but you, or worse, even you are not willing to eat the God-awful monstrosity you put on the table?  Well, both of these things happened to me in the same week recently.

Maybe you got a little overzealous with a new recipe or maybe you simply gave it "too much pepper," and ruined the whole thing.  Let's face it, sometimes we'd just rather give up, bust out a bowl of Cheerios and call it a night. My challenge last week was to creatively come up with ways to cook the mother-load of yellow summer squash and zucchini that we've found ourselves with in our family garden.  You read all these food posts and no one ever talks about food failures. Well I've not had a banner week, folks.

I made an awesome gratin one night and we almost ate the whole thing, but that sort of thing doesn't really reheat well and who wants gratin every night (don't answer that). So I went for a vegetarian teriyaki stir-fry: a kitchen-sink-in-a-wok kind of deal using what contents I had in the fridge that might ideally have presented complimentary flavors.  My mistake, too much ginger I think (if there is such a thing), which really does not go well with zucchini and a bland sauce. Even though I added more brown sugar than I should have, it was bitter to me. Three bites and I was out. My husband said it was good, God love him. The brown leftovers are still in my fridge. 

With that failure came a halfhearted victory, with a fusion of Italian sausage and peppers meets pasta primavera. Mistakes, too much olive oil (if there is such a thing), overcooked pasta and my husband picked tonight to tell me after 15-years of marriage he "just doesn't like peppers." Geez, that was a shot.  So fine then, more for me.  Well, "more for me" turned out to mean another Gladware full of leftovers in the fridge and me being all pissed that I planted a bunch of peppers in the garden this year.  WTG.

So in my quest to find fun things to do with the old zucchini, sometimes simpler really is better.  How about some good, old fashioned fried zucchini with a nice, Italian twist?

Italian Zucchini Chips

Ingredients:

• One large zucchini or two medium, sliced
• 2 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• pinch of coarse salt, to taste
• One egg, lightly whisked
• Deep-fryer or deep skillet and vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients in a large Ziploc bag.  (It's Shake-n-Bake...and I helped!!!!)

Dredge zucchini slices in egg and shake in bag, three or four at a time.  Add to preheated oil in skillet or deep fryer and fry for about a minute or until golden brown.  Dry on a paper towel to remove excess oil and serve immediately when hot.

These are great when dipped in marinara and my kids like to dip them in ranch dressing.  This recipe also works great with green tomatoes!

Yum!  So until next time, may you have no kitchen disasters or brown buckets of goo hanging out in the back of your fridge.