A fresh feast of green zucchini, yellow pattypans and “music” variety garlic.

The inspiration for this new feature really arrived in the form of a free zucchini from the garden of a friend of a friend; a reminder of the abundance of the season. When we asked our farmer-friend Rebecca what was most prolific from the farm right now, she confirmed what we already new: zucchini and garlic. We left Moss Street Market with pattypan squash, music garlic and Rebecca’s favourite zucchini recipe. With a bit of online searching and I also found a recipe for zucchini bread that sounded good.

Rebecca’s Zucchini Pasta Sauce

Ready to cook…

Zucchini or other summer squash, cut into half-inch dice
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
A few fresh tomatoes, cut into one-inch dice
Olive oil;  salt and pepper to taste plus shredded basil for garnish

Heat a frying pan on med-high heat. Sauté the onion in olive oil until golden and caramelized. Add the garlic and cook stirring for less than a minute. Add a bit of salt and pepper to taste and then the zucchini. Stir to combine all the flavours then cover and cook for five minutes maximum. Uncover and add the tomatoes. Stir and cook a couple minutes until the tomatoes wilt and soften. Serve immediately over your favourite noodle with basil and a drizzle of olive oil.

GJ made fresh fettucini for our feast and we served the pasta with a gorgeous salad of greens, shaved cucumber and daikon, red pepper and scallion all from the farmer’s market.

For dessert I made two adaptations of a recipe I usually save for the autumn: Pear Frangipani Tart. I replaced strawberries and nectarines for poached pears in the long tart and grated some 70% chocolate into the tart shells before filling with frangipani and a half strawberry.

The free zucchini was used to make the zucchini bread from this great recipe on Smitten Kitchen.

This recipe made either two loaves or 24 muffins, so I did one loaf and 12 muffins just for fun! Great flavour and texture.