I love my garden, and that’s an understatement. But you don’t see many vegetable recipes on this blog. The reason for that is pretty simple. Vegetables taken from the ground mere hours before they are eaten just don’t need a lot of help. I find the flavors best when barely adorned. Raw, lightly cooked, or roasted, then tossed with olive oil, pepper, salt, and fresh herbs. That’s all I need. And eating vegetables in season means that there’s a limited supply. Just as soon as I think I’m getting bored with any given vegetable, it’s done! Gone for a long while, while my taste buds gather an appetite for it again.
Of course, as with anything, there are exceptions. This year, I couldn’t keep up with the sugar snap peas. After I had incorporated them into as many main courses as possible (because I could only eat them raw, or lightly steamed, so many times in a row) I resorted to pickling them. And my dinosaur (lacinato) kale? Let’s just say my freezer is full of the gorgeous deep green stuff, and I doubt that we’ll ever get through it all before it’s time to grow it again.
Then there’s – dare I say it? – zucchini. Summer squash in an array of colors. A vegetable that rivals cockroaches in the ability to grow, multiply, to survive absolutely anything nature can throw at it. (Yeah, I just said that. I put cockroaches and squash in the same sentence. I don’t know what I was thinking.) A vegetable so prolific that even I need hundreds of recipes for it, in spite of the fact that it is green-sweet and tastes virtually nothing like the bitter specimens found at the grocery store in January.
Did you know that there are recipes for zucchini crisp, zucchini cobbler, zucchini pie, zucchini whoopie pies, for heaven’s sakes? I kid you not. Do a little google search and you mind will explode from all the recipes. I’m clearly not the only one who gets bored with summer squash about now.
So I’m going to share a recipe that we found to be so meltingly creamy and delicious that we would eat it again. And again and again. I only made a half recipe this time, which was a mistake. We would have loved to have leftovers of this dish. Even though the picture is not a head-turner, the gratin tastes like a dream, and it’s easy. And it doesn’t make zucchini pretend to be a dessert!
Zucchini Gratin
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, by Ina Garten
Ingredients
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, plus 1 Tablespoon for topping
¼ Cup low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth (homemade if you have it)
1 Pound yellow or white onions, cut in 1/2 and sliced
2 Pounds zucchini or yellow summer squash, sliced 1/4-inch thick
2 Teaspoons kosher salt
1 Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ Teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 Cup hot milk (I used 1% and it was delicious – heated mine in the microwave)
¾ Cup fresh bread crumbs
¾ Cup grated cheese (I used a low-fat Italian Blend that I had on hand, but get
get creative and use any kind of semi-hard cheese/s that you like!)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Melt the butter in a very large saute pan and cook the onions over low heat for about 20 minutes, or until tender. If the onions start to brown, lower the heat and add a little (just about a tablespoon) of the broth at a time. This slow cooking of the onions will totally make the flavor of the dish, so don’t try to cook the onions too fast! (Depending upon the water content of your onions, you may not use much of the broth at all.) Add the zucchini and cook, for 10 minutes, or until tender. Add the salt, pepper, and nutmeg and cook, covered, for 5 more minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the zucchini mixture and then stir it in. Add the hot milk, stir, and cook over low heat for a few minutes, until it thickens. Pour the mixture into an 8 by 10-inch baking dish.
Combine the bread crumbs and cheese and sprinkle on top of the zucchini mixture. Dot with 1 tablespoon of butter cut into small bits and bake for 20 minutes, or until bubbly and browned.
Another summer squash recipe we love:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This dish is awesome! I love it.
My biggest fan. : )