By Margaret Malsam
“Help,” you may be muttering to yourself. “I have so many tomatoes and zucchini in my garden that I don’t know what to do with them.” Even though you may love the taste of vine-ripened tomatoes and freshly sautéed zucchini, too much of any one food can create boredom. You may have decided (as I have) that fresh garden vegetables are a delight to eat, but that you really don’t want to spend hours in a hot kitchen preserving them for next winter. One exception: I do blend zucchini in my blender with the specified amount of oil for zucchini bread or cake and freeze it for later holiday baking as zucchini bread or cake.
Another alternative: If your vegetable vines keep producing more than you or your friends can use, you might consider donating them to local food banks and charities. Check with the organization first, however, as they may not have a way to store them.
I’m giving you some recipes for different ways to fix zucchini and tomatoes besides the usual zucchini bread and tomato sauce. First of all, you might consider cooking tomatoes and zucchini together with herbs and seasonings and then putting them in the blender to make a delicious chilled summer soup. Top with a dollop of sour cream for a crowning touch.
Ways with zucchini
Be creative and think of different ways to use zucchini in salads. You can grate zucchini and mix it in potato or pasta salads. You can add uncooked, peeled zucchini strips to your favorite green salads. Try marinating the strips in a basic Italian dressing before adding them to salads. You can serve zucchini strips with a dip as an appetizer.
Did you know that you can substitute sliced zucchini for fresh apples in many dessert recipes, like the recipe printed below for Zucchini Crisp. You friends will think that it is Apple Crisp, and you need not reveal your secret unless you desire. You can explain to them that zucchini is really a fruit even though it is considered a vegetable that is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Botanically, however, zucchini is an immature fruit as it is the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower. Its flowers can be a delicacy when stuffed with cream cheese or deep fried as tempura.
Tomato tips
Like zucchini, you probably always considered a tomato to be a vegetable. Actually tomatoes can be prepared as either a fruit or a vegetable. Botanically, they are fruits as they are parts of a flowering plant that contains seeds. Peas, peppers, and pumpkins are in this tomato family as well as potatoes, eggplant, and peppers.
The movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, popularized frying unripened tomatoes. I’ve include a recipe for a simple and delicious way to fry your still-green garden tomatoes, plus a recipe for fancy baked tomatoes stuffed with cheesy mashed potatoes from the Idaho Potato Commission.
