Last week at work I was having a conversation with one of my co-workers. We were talking about recipes and I mentioned something about zucchini. She told me “whatever I do, do not spend money on zucchini”. She said she had a ton of zucchini in her garden. She wasn’t joking about that. On Friday morning a ginormous zucchini was sitting on my desk.
I started to think about everything I could make with this huge vegetable. After going through my pins on Pinterest, I picked out a few recipes that I wanted to try.
For my first zucchini recipe, I made zucchini lasagna on Saturday for dinner. I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for a while. Using zucchini slices, instead of noodles, seemed like the perfect substitute to cut down on the carbs and offer a gluten-free lasagna option. I started by cutting the zucchini into long slices. After grilling each slice for about 1 minute on each side, I made a cheese mixture of ricotta cheese, mozzarella, 1 egg, 1 clove of garlic and 1 tsp of oregano. In a pan, I cooked up some ground turkey with garlic. After everything was prepped, I layered the zucchini, cheese mixture and meat, then topped it with marinara sauce. After making about 2 layers, I topped it off with mozzarella cheese and baked it in the oven at 350 for about an hour. I never know how a new creative recipe is going to turn out, but this one turned out great! It came out of the oven looking great and tasting delicious!
I made my lasagna the same way I would make normal lasagna with noodles, but here is a similar recipe to follow if your thinking about trying to make your own zucchini lasagna.
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| Delicious zucchini lasagna for two |
On Sunday, it was time for some baking. The first recipe I tried was zucchini banana bread. I’m not the best baker, but one bake good that I feel I have mastered is bread. Banana bread is one of my favorites, so I knew I couldn’t go wrong with Zucchini Banana Bread. This recipe turned out delicious and made a great breakfast for the rest of the week.
After my bread, I still had a huge piece of zucchini left. It was time to move onto muffins. I made some Oatmeal Zucchini Carrot Muffins. I had a little bit of trouble with this recipe, because I don’t have a food processor. My blender was not cutting it…literally. It still ended up tasting great, even with the lumpy carrots and zucchini.
After all that baking and cooking on Sunday… I still had left over zucchini. So for dinner, I made some zucchini pizza. I kind of created this one on my own. I sliced the rest of my zucchini and drizzled olive oil over them. Then, I added garlic, mozzarella cheese and cherry tomatoes. I baked it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. They turned out perfect! Just like the lasagna, this was a great low carb or gluten free recipe.
Considering the fact that I was able to make 4 recipes out of one vegetable, I would have to say that this was a thrifty recipe for me. August is a great time of year for fresh vegetables! Look for sales at your local grocery store or plan on planting a garden next year. You will never run out of vegetables in late summer!
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