So my fella and I have a vegetable garden that tends to yield an amazing amount of food. The problem is that everything tends to grow at once and we’re stuck with large varieties of large squash. Case in point.
Patty Pan Plethera
I’ll get some zucchs up there later, but for now, you catch the gist of my vege dilemma. Well, last night we had steaks and we needed a side dish. As I am currently participating in a new Crossfit/Paleo challenge (see here for the deets) my challenge was to avoid starches, grains, sugars, and anything else that would be bad for me, so I decided to try mashed ‘potatoes’ using zucchini. I went on to my absolute favorite food site, Epicurious (thanks so much Bob!) to check out some ideas. I love the site because it has a gazillion recipes to go through and reader reviews with different cooking suggestions. I have yet to be devastatingly let down.
Anyway, I found a couple of recipes and revised them to fit my dietary desires, time frame, and all around love for garlic (you’ll see what I mean in just a sec). The following is my recipe.
About 1/4 Medium White Onion
About 1/2 Bell Pepper (any color you want!)
Like half a head of Garlic, at least – less if you don’t ♥ garlic as much as I do
1 – 2 Tbl of bacon fat, coconut oil, extra virgin oil, etc. for cooking.*
*Please don’t ruin this perfectly good thing with crap like canola oil. Ew.
~ Start cooking all this together on medium heat, stirring often enough to not burn anything or get it forever-stuck to your pan. Do this for about 10 minutes.
4 – 6 Medium to large Zucchs, cut into about 1/8″ rounds.
~ Toss those little green medallions into the mix and sauté everything for about 12 – 15 more minutes, or until the zucchs are as soft as you wannem. (Zucchs naturally hold a lot of water, so if you want them mushy, I suggest you keep an eye on the mixture and drain it accordingly.
~ Next, get that bad-boy food processor out and plugged in. Throw in about 1 tbl of sour cream. I personally like to use Nancy’s Cultured Sour Cream* as it is very nutritious and delicious.
*Qwik Lesson: Most Paleo diets suggest that animal based fats are ok to eat, hence the use of sour cream and butter in my cooking at times. I do always try to find the healthiest versions of these delicious food items though.
~ Put half of the vege mix into the food processor and pulse/grind for about 1 minute. Throw in another dap of Nany’s and the rest of the vege mix. Turn that puppy on and let it go. I processed mine for a little under a minute because I didn’t want it to get too mushy.
~ Now serve!
If you’re looking for those really smooth mashers, I suggest cooking the zucchs for about 30 seconds or more, depending on the softness. Also keep it in the food processor longer.
My guy and I both really enjoyed this little experiment, and he even went back for seconds! I will definitely be tweaking this recipe in the future to make it even better! Let me know any suggestions you may have to create the perfect Zucchini Mash. We can try them together.
BPJones Lives It Up 