It is that time of year again–zucchini season! This is probably my favorite squash, but I admit, it can be a little overwhelming as I pull in zucchini after zucchini from the garden. How will I ever use them all?

But luckily, zucchini is versatile. You can grind it up and freeze it. You can pickle it. You can put it in almost any veggie side dish or spaghetti sauce or soup. You can even bake with it.

So in that spirit, here are five dishes that use a lot of zucchini:

Zucchini Muffins–Of course, the classic zucchini treat, which uses 2-3 zucchinis.

Zucchini on Zucchini Ravioli–I made up this recipe last year. It is a very yummy, plus it uses up 5 zucchinis.

Zucchini Garlic Soup–I recently tried this dish from The Kitchn, and I can attest that it is delicious. It uses 4 zucchinis.

Greek Style Zucchini Fritters–I haven’t made this particular recipe, but this is a classic zucchini dish and this recipe makes sense to me. Probably uses about 3 zucchinis.

Zucchini Rolls–This is a tasty-looking appetizer: grilled slices of zucchini stuffed with cheese. How can you go wrong? Uses 3 small zucchinis.

That should make a dent in your harvest.

Scones are one of those things that can either be wonderful or awful. They are either dry and gum up your mouth or they are lovely and soft. My mom’s recipe is the latter kind. Her scones are a soft biscuit with lots of fruit and a sugary crust on top. Really, they have ruined me to most coffee-shop scones.

I made these scones with blackberries that I picked a couple of weeks ago, but you can make them with any fruit, fresh or frozen. The recipe:

Blackberry Scones
(Makes 6-8 scones)

Ingredients:

For the scones:

1 - 1 1/2 c blackberries
2 c flour
1 Tbs baking powder
4 Tbs sugar
4 Tbs butter
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 c milk
1/4 c sour cream

For the crust:

1 egg white
1/4 c sugar

Directions:

If you are using fresh berries, wash them and then stick them in the freezer for at least a half hour. This will help the berries maintain their structural integrity when you work them into the dough.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Combine the flour, baking flour, and the 4 Tbs of sugar in a bowl. Cut the butter into chunks and work it into the dough until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Stir in the milk, eggs, and sour cream and form a soft dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board. Fold the berries into the dough. Be careful not to overwork or smash the fruit.

Pat the dough into an 8 inch circle. Now it’s time to make the sugary crust. Beat the egg white until it is frothy and then spread over the top of the dough. This will seem soupy and strange, but go with it. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the egg whites so that the top is covered and the sugar is absorbed by the egg whites.

With a floured knife, cut the dough into wedges. The scones will expand a bit in the oven, so keep this in mind when you cut them. Carefully transfer the scones onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake 18-20 minutes until they are lightly browned. Wait until cooled and then enjoy.

It’s blackberry season! In my little town, blackberries seem to be sprawling all over every vacant lot. I have been craving blackberry pie since February, so last weekend I walked down the street to a lot that I know of and spent about 40 minutes picking. I came back with two containers full of berries:

I plan to go again next weekend.

Blackberries are my favorite berries, but I don’t have them that often because when you buy them at the store, they are usually sour. That’s because, like the tomato and the strawberry, blackberries are only good when they are so ripe they are about to fall off the vine. That doesn’t make them a great commercial crop, but it does make them the perfect food for foraging.

To forage blackberries:

* Bring plenty of clean containers to hold the blackberries.
* Wear gloves to protect against the stickers.
* Wear long sleeves for the same reason.
* Wear old clothes because the stickers will snag you.
* Bring a pair of tree trimmers to clip long briars out of the way–very helpful.
* Only pick the softest, sweetest berries (if in doubt, taste!).

Pick as many as you can right now. They freeze well and they make great jam, scones, pastries, and of course, pie:

The best part of blackberry pie is that it is even better the next day. The juices soak into the crust and make everything gooey and delicious. It may just be my favorite pie.

The recipe:

Blackberry Pie

Ingredients:

Enough pastry for a two-crust pie. (Someday I will post my pie crust on here, but in the meantime here’s Martha Stewart’s pie crust.)

5 c blackberries
1-1 1/2 c sugar
1/4 c flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl, mix in blackberries, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Add one cup of sugar and taste the berries. If they don’t taste sweet enough, add another 1/2 cup and taste again. You want the filling to be sweet, but not too sweet.

Set the filling aside. Roll out the pie dough and form in a pie pan. Pour the blackberry mixture into the crust. Roll out the top crust and place on top of the pie. Pinch the edges together and cut a vent in the top to let out the steam.

Put the pie in the hot oven. It’s smart to put a cookie sheet under the pie to catch the juices when they leak out. Cook for 15 minutes on 400 degrees, then lower the temperature to 375 degrees. Cook for another 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees. Cook for 30 more minutes until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling. Remove pie from the oven and cool before serving.

Cooking with My Kid made bite-sized Greek salad appetizers. They are feta cheese, olives, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes strung on a toothpick. Simple and seemingly delicious. I might have to do this at my next party. (Via Craft)

NPR reported that there is a basil shortage this year due to downy mildew. The article says this will put a cramp in the style of pesto lovers, but you don’t have to make pesto out of basil. In fact, I’ve made pesto out of lots of different herbs and one of the best I’ve discovered is oregano pesto.

I put in my oregano plant about five years ago and it has been thriving ever since. Here it is when I first put it in:

Since then it has quadrupled in size. That is a lot of oregano, far more than I would ever use. But that’s fine because the plant requires no care besides the occasional watering at the height of summer. Contrast that to basil, which is plagued by pests, needs a ton of water, and can only be grown in the summer. One plant gives me no trouble and the other is a prima donna in the garden.

Of course, basil tastes about a million times better than oregano, but that’s the point here. Oregano pesto is a poor woman’s version of basil pesto. It uses a cheaper herb, cheaper nuts (walnuts instead of pine nuts), and less oil, but you still end up with a delicious pesto that tastes almost as good as the original. Together with a little garlic bread and wine, oregano pesto makes a great vegetarian dinner.

Recipe:

Oregano Pesto
(Serves 2 people)

Ingredients:

1 heaping c fresh oregano
1 small handful fresh basil, about 3 large leaves
2-3 cloves garlic
15-20 walnut
1/3-1/2 c Parmesan or other dry Italian cheese. I used Pecorino.
3 Tbs butter
Olive oil
Salt
Enough spaghetti for two people.

Directions:

Put a pot of salted water on to boil. Cook the spaghetti.

In a food processor, combine oregano, garlic, basil, walnuts, and a pinch of salt. Grind until it all looks uniform. Slowly add the olive oil until it becomes a paste. Go conservative with the oil because you will also be adding the butter. It doesn’t take much. I would estimate about 2 Tbs of olive oil does the trick.

Add cheese and butter to the mix and grind it all up again in the food processor. Taste the pesto. It should have a nice balance of oil and herbs and nuts and salt. If not, adjust the ingredients accordingly. Most likely you may have to add a bit more salt.

When the spaghetti is done, get a frying pan out and spoon the pesto into it. Turn the pan on medium heat and warm up the pesto. Add the spaghetti to the pesto. Turn the heat to low and slowly began to mix the pesto into the spaghetti with a spoon or spatula. Keep this up until the pesto is fully integrated into the spaghetti and everything is warmed through.

Dish onto two plates. Top with more grated cheese, if you like. Enjoy!

I decided to experiment with ice cream flavors this summer. First up: bourbon ice cream.

And it was great. In fact, I will cut to the chase right now and say that if you like bourbon and ice cream, you should try this recipe.

The challenge here is that alcohol doesn’t freeze in your average freezer, so I had to figure out a way to get the bourbon into the ice cream and still have it freeze.

I started with the above Woodford Reserve Bourbon and made a bourbon syrup. I combined sugar and bourbon together in a pan and simmered for 3-4 minutes until it became thick and heavy. By doing this, most of the alcohol evaporated into the air, leaving behind a syrup. Then I combined the syrup with the rest of the ice cream batter and put it through an ice cream machine.

The result is delicious! That is, if you like bourbon, of course. It is rich and creamy while still maintaining the caramel and oaky notes of the bourbon. I can see a lot of potential here–chocolate and bourbon ice cream, bourbon ice cream with peaches, mint julep ice cream, bourbon ice cream root beer floats…

Bourbon Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1/2 c good-quality bourbon
3/4 c sugar
2 eggs
2 c whip cream
1 c whole milk

Directions:

First, make the bourbon syrup. In a pan, combine the sugar and the bourbon. Stir rapidly over medium-high heat so that all the sugar dissolves. Then continue to stir as the mixture begins to boil rapidly. A steam will rise from the pan that smells like bourbon–most of that is the alcohol leaving the pot.

You will want to stir for about 3-4 minutes or until the syrup begins to thicken. You want a thick consistency, but not too thick–you are not making candy here. When the syrup dribbles off the spoon a little more slowly and is thick to the eye, turn off the heat.

Put the syrup in the fridge for at least 4 hours, until cold.

Now make the batter. Remove the bourbon syrup from the fridge. It will be hardened from the cold, but that’s fine. Break two eggs right on top of the bourbon syrup. Using an egg beater, beat the eggs and syrup together until they are completely integrated. Add the milk and whip cream and beat them in too. Make sure the syrup is completely dissolved into the ice cream batter.

Cover the batter with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 8 hours. You want the batter very cold. Then make the ice cream by running the batter through an ice cream machine. Mine took 40 minutes to form.

That’s it!

One question remains: Is this ice cream alcoholic? I would guess there is a little bit of alcohol in the ice cream, but it is no where near the 40% that was originally in the bourbon. That would be impossible because the ice cream would not freeze. However, this ice cream does melt at a faster rate than usual, so I would guess that there is still some alcohol in there. It’s not going to get you drunk though, unless you eat a ton of it.

And honestly, if you’re worried about that, why cook with bourbon in the first place?

This isn’t as good as their 101 salads, but the NYTimes has an articles detailing 101 Fast Recipes for Grilling. Lots of good barbecue ideas here:

2. Best grilled artichokes: Cut artichokes in half, scoop out the choke, parboil until tender. Grill, cut-side down, until lightly browned; grill a couple of halved lemons, too. Combine the juice from the grilled lemons with melted butter and spoon over the artichokes. Finish with parsley.

7. For perfectly ripe tomatoes only: Grill tomatoes, any size, until hot and lightly charred but not bursting. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve with fresh mozzarella (or, even better, burrata) and grilled bread.

22. Cut a slit in as many ripe figs as you like; stuff with herbed goat cheese (or cream cheese mixed with chopped nuts) and grill slowly. Appetizer or dessert? Your call.

32. Crisp (and better) duck à l’orange: Score the skin of duck breasts and press rosemary leaves, salt and pepper into both sides. Grill skin-side down over low-ish heat until crackly, then turn and grill briefly. Serve with grilled orange halves.

41. Bacon-wrapped hot dog. You know you want one.

And so on. Read the rest here.

In my garden, the zucchini is starting to come in. I always end up with more zucchini than I can eat, and one of my favorite ways to use it up is to make my mom’s zucchini muffins.

This recipe takes 2 cups of zucchini, which is a lot, and because of this, it’s probably fairly healthy, as far as cakes and muffins go. If you are the type to trick your kid into eating vegetables through baking them into sweets, this is a good way to go. And anyway, these muffins taste great with coffee in the morning.

Also, this is a fairly versatile recipe. For example, you can use this same batter to make zucchini bread. All you have to do is pour it into a loaf pan and cook it a bit longer–see note at the end of the entry. Or you can use other types of squash in this recipe. I have tried it with pattypan squash and it came out great. It tasted basically the same, just a bit more tender.

Here’s the recipe:

Zucchini Muffins

Ingredients:

2 c grated zucchini, about 2-3 zucchinis
3 eggs
1 c oil
1 1/2 c sugar
1 Tbs vanilla
3 c flour
1 tsp salt
1tsp baking soda
1 Tbs cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder

Directions:

Grate the zucchini using a food processor or box grater. I leave the skin on, since it has extra nutrients in it. Once you grate the zucchini, put it in a strainer over the sink and massage it so that the water drains out. Since squash has a lot of water, this step will keep the muffins from getting mushy.

Leave the zucchini in the sink to drain. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and oil in a bowl. Add in the sugar, vanilla, and zucchini. Mix together.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix together until you have a batter.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a muffin pan. With an ice cream scoop or spoon, fill the muffin pan with the batter. Bake until you can insert a knife into a muffin and it comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Makes about 12-16 muffins, depending on size.

Enjoy!

* Alternately, if you want to make this into zucchini bread, pour the batter into two greased 9″X5″ loaf pans and cook at 325 degrees for about an hour.

** Some people like nuts in zucchini muffins. I don’t. However, if you do, add 1/2 c chopped walnuts or pecans right before you pour the batter into the pan.

My dad likes steak, potatoes, and vanilla ice cream. You could take him to a fancy French meal, if you wanted. He would eat it. But you would really be wasting money because he would rather just have a good hamburger.

Here are five burger recipes to consider making this Father’s day:

Hamburger with Double Cheddar Cheese, Grilled Vidalia Onion and Horseradish Mustard by Bobby Flay. Covered with cheddar cheese, grilled onions, and spicy mustard.

Spicy Cheddar-Stuffed Burgers by Southern Living. An interesting take on the cheeseburger–the cheese is stuffed inside the meat.

Greek Lamb Burgers with Spinach and Red Onion Salad from Bon Appetit. I love lamb burgers. They are one of my favorites.

Salmon Burger from Oprah. For a healthier alternative, this recipe explains how to make salmon burgers. I would use regular mayonnaise, however.

Finally, I am not sure how this Garbanzo Beans Burger would taste, but the picture looks good. It’s an interesting veggie alternative to the portobello mushroom burger, anyway.

Now I’m hungry.

Here’s a good, reliable lemon cake. It is somewhat like a pound cake, only lighter, and softer, and more lemon-y.

This is a very versatile cake. You can freeze it. You can eat it with coffee in the morning. You could bake it in cake pans and top it with chocolate icing. Or, as I did this weekend, you can top it with homemade strawberry ice cream and feed it to your guests, like so:

Convinced? Here’s the recipe:

Lemon Cake
(makes 2 9″X5″ cakes)

Ingredients:

1 c butter, softened
3 c sugar
5 eggs, separated
3 Tbs lemon juice
4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 c milk
powdered sugar

Directions:

Separate the eggs. Beat egg yokes until thick and lemon colored.

Cream the butter. Gradually add sugar to the butter, beating well. Add the egg yolk to the butter and sugar. Then add in the lemon juice.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda. Add alternately with the milk, stirring well after each addition, until you get a thick lemon-y batter.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff. With a spatula or spoon, carefully fold the egg white into the batter until they are integrated.

Pour the batter into two 9″X5″ pans. Bake a 325 degrees for 60-70 minutes, until you can insert a knife and it comes out mostly clean. (Over-cooking the cake will dry it out.)

Dust the top with powdered sugar. Wait until it cools and enjoy.