Overcoming the Summer Recipe Rut: What to do with the next batch of zucchini
There comes a point every summer when abundance starts to feel just a little bit exhausting. The first tomato is practically a holiday. Then come the BLTs, the tomato sandwiches, the caprese salads and the bowls of salsa. Cucumbers become pickles. Zucchini becomes bread. Okra gets fried.
And then, somehow, the garden keeps producing. By August, you can be in awe of a basket full of vegetables and still look at it and think, I cannot make that again.
Sometimes we need some recipe inspiration at this point in the summer. Last week, I went to “Junior” in East Nashville and ate tomato tartare and eggplant gnocchi, and both knocked my socks off. At Dozen Bakery, their seasonal tomato tartine with pistachio butter does the same thing: it reminds me that the tomatoes sitting on my counter don’t always have to become the recipes I already know.
The point is, it can be fun to get creative with summer cooking. So, before you start leaving anonymous bags of zucchini on your neighbors’ porches, here are a few ways to get out of the late-summer recipe rut.
When you’ve eaten enough fried okra: Roast it.
I honestly don’t love fried okra, but 40 years of life in the south assure me that it’s a thing. Personally, I’d rather eat it raw, as a two-inch nub with the top-hat on, but when my garden is handing me 20 pods a day, I roast it. Roasting is one of the easiest ways to rethink okra. Cut the pods lengthwise, toss them in olive oil and salt, and roast them until the edges get deeply browned. From there, you can add hot honey, Parmesan, a squeeze of lime, or put them over a big swipe of lemony yogurt.
This Roasted Shrimp with Okra and Tomatoes recipe from NYT Cooking is exactly the kind of recipe I’m looking for in August: it uses a generous amount of two things that are probably coming out of the garden at the same time, requires very little prep, and turns them into an actual dinner.
The okra and cherry tomatoes roast at high heat until the tomatoes burst and the okra softens and browns. Shrimp seasoned with oregano and smoked paprika join them at the end, and the whole thing gets finished with lemon.
I should also make my proud announcement: I freeze okra. It’s one of my yearly commitments that I wrote about to prep for my New Year’s Day shrimp gumbo. Who’s coming to the party?
When you’ve made enough zucchini bread: Make zucchini butter.
Here is my issue with a lot of zucchini recipes: they call for one zucchini.
Nope. That is not the problem we are trying to solve. By late summer, I want a recipe that calls for multiple pounds of zucchini. I want to empty my full shirt tail on the counter and expect to use those babies!
Enter zucchini butter. (I love the recipe from Bon Appétit) Grated zucchini gets cooked slowly with olive oil or butter, garlic and salt until it collapses into a soft, savory spread. It bears very little resemblance to the pile of zucchini you started with.
Spread it over toast with goat cheese or ricotta. Toss it with pasta and Parmesan. Spoon it alongside eggs. Eat it straight out of the pan while standing at the stove.
Most importantly: it might make you happy to see another zucchini again.
When you’ve made enough pickles: Smash your cucumbers.
I love a pickle. But at some point, there are enough jars.
Smashed cucumber salad may be one of the best answers to the mid-August cucumber glut because smashing the cucumbers changes their texture completely. Those craggy edges grab onto whatever dressing you give them. You can keep it simple with avocado and lemon and flakey salt, or you could make a weekly batch of Samin Nosrat’s miso ginger dressing with rice vinegar and lime and let it be your new favorite. Smashed cucumber pairs with rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, chili crisp and a handful of peanuts, with cilantro or scallions if you have them. It is cold, crunchy, salty, spicy and about as far away from another jar of dill pickles as a cucumber can get. And unlike a pickle, you can be eating it ten minutes after you walk in from the garden.
When you’ve eaten enough tomato sandwiches: Change cuisines.
I hesitate even to write this section because I am not sure there actually is such a thing as too many tomato sandwiches.
But theoretically, should that day arrive, the easiest way out of a tomato rut might be to stop looking for another variation on the same summer tomato recipes. Try another continent for your cooking inspiration. Make a tomato curry. Spoon tomatoes over garlicky yogurt. Roast cherry tomatoes until they collapse and toss them with pasta, feta and herbs. Make shakshuka. Or try tomato tonnato: ripe tomatoes paired with a creamy, salty tuna-and-caper sauce that gives you an entirely different reason to slice into the good tomatoes.
If you’d rather point and click, I keep an annual tomato recipe roundup here. I am deeply committed to finding a job for every tomato that lands in my kitchen, and at this point I can probably prescribe a recipe based on your mood, hunger level and the temperature outside.
The good news about the late-summer recipe rut
If you are bored with zucchini right now, that probably means your garden is doing exactly what you spent all spring hoping it would do. This is the strange rhythm of growing food. We wait impatiently for the first cucumber and then, a few weeks later, wonder what possessed us to plant four vines.
So before you give the harvest away—and please, give some away—try changing the question. Instead of What else can I make with zucchini? ask How can I make this zucchini taste completely different? Roast what you normally fry. Smash what you normally pickle. Cook down what you normally sauté. Add a sauce, spice or cooking technique you haven't tried before. Pick up a cook book that’s been sitting on the shelf for years and find a page that matches your harvest, or just start throwing flavors together.
You may just buy yourself a few more weeks before you start sneaking vegetables into your neighbors' mailboxes.
