Aug 12

Aug 12 When confronted with a zucchini....

For whatever reason, today I’m thinking about the long winter that I had. I feel like it is finally a different season, despite the broiling heat that we’ve had throughout the spring and summer, really. My mom passed away about a month ago but the beginning of 2025 and leading up to her death really paralyzed my creative thinking and it was nice to once again go to sleep thinking about how to make a new meal.

I did manage to plant a garden this past spring but it’s been ignored for the most part. Despite that I’m starting to harvest a few ginormous zucchinis. Throughout my mom’s illness, I was lucky enough to work part time with Ereka Vetrini - an instagram chef (if you don’t follow her you should!) and that was a bright light during a dark time. If you’re a person who loves cooking for large groups you’ll understand how fun it it to be in an active household and know what you’re cooking will be eaten and enjoyed. For me, I got to take home some good meals for later - often wondering how would I do it differently for myself in my kitchen?

Yesterday we made this ridiculously good tomato jam that I knew I needed to add to my assortment of (as Ben refers to my fridge) things you put on food :)

Despite cooking for four hours earlier I went back to the store to buy the tomatoes I would need and cooked my jam - which I tweaked so it would be a little more my style. We had put the jam on grilled cheese paninis - one with gouda and one with mozzarella. Honestly, the gouda was my wheelhouse - LOVED.

I found this zucchini in my garden and I wanted to incorporate the protein health trend into the panini and thought maybe I could use the zucchini as my “bread” and just put the tomato jam on that. So here we go!

But first the zucchini!

I decided to try slicing this baby two different ways - lengthwise and in coins. I was curious to see which way would hold food / it’s shape better. Zucchini is tricky though - there’s such a high water content that you have to let it dry out before you start roasting it - otherwise it turns into a goopy mess. So I cut it in half and then mandolined both options and put them on paper towels for about an hour - then I pressed them on both sides to get any additional water out.

I loved the gouda paninis we made yesterday and I had a little Gouda in my fridge so I used my microplane and grated what i had. Sprinkled parchment paper with some of the grated gouda and then layered the zucchini on it and then sprinkled more gouda on top. Then I brushed it with olive oil and salt & peppered the “slices” that you see below. I made kind of a basket weave with the vertical zucchini.

The coins failed to hold up after roasting however they were delicious with the jam. The basketweave, however was awesome.

I spread this with the tomato jam, put some arugula on that and then for some added protein I added 2% cottage cheese and then drizzled the whole thing with balsamic vinegar (I use Massimo’s balsamic - Villa Manodori - BAM - rolled it up like a wrap and had it for lunch!

Tomato Jam

Ingredients

2 Pounds of Tomatoes - I used mostly Roma but I added about 1 1/2 Heirlooms I had lying around. Core and chop roughly.

1 cup of sugar

Juice a lemon (at least 2 - 3 Tablesppoons

1 TablespoonChopped Calabrian Chilis

1 Teaspoon dried parsley

Salt & Pepper to taste - about 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Directions

Throw all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a rapid boil. Continue to boil it until it’s starting to caramelize and reduces down until it looks like this.