I have a tendency to get on these food kicks where I will basically cook an ingredient to death. Carlo still groans about my lentil and chickpea kick when pretty much every meal for a week included either lentils or chickpeas (I think our stomachs are still groaning too ).

Due to our visit to Gilcrease farm and me picking the giant squash, last week turned into a squash fest with me making Zucchini Pesto Pancakes and a Ricotta Cheese and Zucchini Tart with Potato Crust. Despite having enough of both dishes to eat them for a dinner and then lunch the next day, we still had more squash in our fridge that needed to be cooked!

Luckily this recipe for Zucchini Carbonara, from the issue of Jaime Magazine that my sister brought me from Scotland, had been taunting me ever since I had returned from Texas. Every time I opened the magazine, it always seemed to fall open to this recipe and I just couldn’t resist the siren’s call any longer, especially with all that zucchini in the house!

Worried about testing our threshold of just how much zucchini one can possibly eat in a week, I’m happy to report that the lemon-infused sauce of the Zucchini Carbonara was so good that we kind of forgot that we had been on a squash binge for the previous few days. So if you too have overloaded on the summer bounty of zucchini, I highly recommend this pasta recipe to chase away your squash blues. The Zucchini Carbonara feeds 2 people and costs $2.11 per serving.

Zucchini Carbonara
2 large eggs
1 ounce creme fraiche
1 ounce finely grated Parmesan
2 1/2 ounces smoked pancetta, cubed
1/4 red onion, sliced
1 small yellow squash
1 small zucchini, julienned
grated zest of 1 lemon
parsley or chives
dried spaghetti or linguine

Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan over medium-high and fry the pancetta to a crisp. Add the onion to the pan and cook for around 2 more minutes. Lastly add the zucchini to the mix and cook long enough for the zucchini to wilt.

Beat the eggs together with the creme fraiche, lemon zest, freshly ground black pepper, and most of the grated Parmesan cheese.

If you don’t have any creme fraiche, but still want to make this recipe, you can substitute the sauce that I made for the Orrechietta Carbonara a few weeks ago. Just be sure to add the lemon zest.

Boil the spaghetti or linguine according to the packet directions, then drain the pasta and save some of the cooking water. Return the cooked pasta and a little bit of the pasta water to the pot and add the zucchini, pancetta, and onion mixture. Toss everything together and then pour over the egg mixture. Gently combine all of the ingredients and allow the sauce to thicken. Serve with a little more grated Parmesan and sprinkle with some chopped parsley or chives.

Despite using up half of the monster squash by making Zucchini Pesto Pancakes, I still had 1lb left to go. I decided to take advantage of making too much pesto the day before for the pancakes and whip up a Ricotta Cheese and Zucchini Tart with Potato Crust.

Basically I wanted to try the potato crust. I’d never tried anything like that before but it was really good, and would taste awesome as the base for a quiche because who doesn’t like a layer of crunchy potatoes in their meal? The tart was quite creamy and pesto-y which you can’t complain about, but the potato crust was definitely the standout in this dish. The tart feeds 4 people at $1.42 a slice.

Ricotta Cheese and Zucchini Tart with Potato Crust, from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
3 tablespoons butter or extra virgin olive oil
1 large russet potato, peeled
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 small or 1 medium zucchini, or half the giant squash, sliced
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
1/2 cup fresh pesto
3/4 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
1 egg, plus 1 yolk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Liberally grease a 9-inch pie pan with 2 tablespoons of butter or some olive oil. Grate the potato and season it with salt and pepper. Place the grated potato inside some paper towels and squeeze out the excess water. The drier the potato, the better the crust will crisp.

Press the potato mixture into the bottom of the pan to form a thin crust. Bake the crust until it is golden brown and crisp, around 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven and set it to the side, then lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

Heat up the remaining butter or olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. When the butter or olive oil is hot, add the sliced zucchini and cook for a few minutes until the veggies are soft.

Stir together the ricotta, egg, and pesto, then season with salt and pepper. Add the cooked zucchini to the mix next. Depending on how much water was cooked out of the zucchini, adjust the amount of cream that you need to pour in the mixture. I think it is better to use less cream and have a drier tart than use too much cream and have it not set properly. Stir in the cream and mix everything together.

Place the ricotta and zucchini mixture into the cooked potato crust and put it in the oven. Cook the tart until it is set but still slightly jiggly in the middle, around 20 to 30 minutes. My tart had to stay in there a bit longer, so just keep an eye on it to make sure it is thoroughly cooked.

When the tart is finished cooking, remove it from the oven and let it cool down for a while. Letting the tart rest for a while allows for everything to set so you don’t make a mess of your tart when you try cutting it up (I did this the first time I cut a slice and made a huge mess of the slice).

You can serve your tart warm, or at room temperature. We heated up leftovers the next day in the microwave and the tart still tasted good.

A couple of weekends ago, Carlo and I went up to North Las Vegas to check out Gilcrease Orchard, where you can pick your own produce. We didn’t really know what to expect but they had loads of zucchini, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, and apples. They had hundreds of tomato plants too, but unfortunately, we had gotten there too late and all of the ripe tomatoes had already been picked. At $1 per pound for tomatoes, we are going to try and go back early one morning to pick some fresh tomatoes for canning.

We got quite a few cucumbers and zucchini, and I found this enormous black squash. It was so big and awesome that I had to pick it even though I had no idea what I was going to do with that much squash. Unfortunately, this photo doesn’t do the size of the squash justice since my hands are covering the top and the bottom of it.

When we went to pay for all of our veggies, we found out that the bad boy squash weighed just over 2 lbs, and only cost 50 cents!!!! Hands down the best valued squash I had ever bought. To figure out what to make with 2 lbs of squash, I turned to the index of my new cooking bible, and looked up different squash and zucchini recipes. As usual, I found some great ones, including this Zucchini Pesto Pancake, which feeds 4 people at 32 cents per serving.

Zucchini Pesto Pancake, from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
1 lb zucchini, or 1/2 of the giant squash, grated
1/2 onion, grated
fresh pesto, around 1/2 cup
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup flour
salt and freshly ground pepper
milk, half-and-half, or cream as needed
olive oil for cooking

Grate the zucchini by hand or in a food processor. Mix the vegetables, pesto, onion, egg, and flour together in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and then add just enough milk so that the mixture drops easily from a large spoon.

Heat up a large frying pan with a bit of olive oil in it over medium heat. You have a couple of options for making the pancakes: you can either drop spoonfuls of batter in the pan and make mini pancakes similar to the Thai Style Corn Pancakes, or you can pour in half of the batter to make a large and thick pancake, which I decided to make.

Let the pancake cook for around 10 minutes until the bottom side is nicely browned and then flip over the pancake with a spatula so the other side can brown. The more cooked the pancake is at this point, the easier the flipping will be so let it cook until the pancake is ready to be flipped.

The recipe made enough batter to make 2 large pancakes, which we cut up and served with some salad. This Zucchini Pesto Pancake makes a great lunch or light dinner, and can be served either hot or cold. We kept one pancake to eat the next day and it held up well as a leftover too.

I’ve never heard of or tasted Salmon Bulgogi before, but this Salmon “Bulgogi” with Bok Choy and Mushrooms recipe borrows the flavours of the more traditional Korean dish bulgogi with lots of ginger, garlic, chili, and sesame oil. This flavourful fish dish makes a tasty and fast weeknight meal, and feeds 4 people at $3.07 per serving.

Salmon “Bulgogi” with Bok Choy and Mushrooms
For the Sauce:
1 garlic clove, peeled and diced
1/3 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine vinegar
1 3/4-inch cube peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
3/4 teaspoon chili-garlic sauce

For the Rest of the Dish:
4 6-ounce center-cut skinless salmon fillets
1 garlic clove, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large bok choy, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide strips (about 7 cups)
4 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps sliced
toasted black or white sesame seeds

Whiz up all of the marinade ingredients in a food processor to get a nice paste. Arrange the salmon fillets in a glass baking dish, and then pour the marinade over the fish. Let the salmon marinate for at least 5 minutes, but as with most marinades, the longer you marinate it the better.

Preheat the oven to 500¬?F. Arrange the salmon, with some marinade still clinging on the fish, on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast the salmon until it is just opaque in the center, about 8 minutes.

Take the leftover marinade from the baking dish and put it in a small saucepan. Bring the marinade in the saucepan to a boil; and then set aside and reserve for the glaze.

Heat the oil in large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add in the bok choy, mushrooms, and minced garlic and stir fry until the mushrooms are tender and the bok choy is wilted, around 4 minutes. Once the veggies are cooked, season them to taste with salt and pepper.

To serve the dish, divide the veggies among each plate and top them with the salmon. Finish off the dinner by brushing the glaze over the salmon and sprinkling with some toasted sesame seeds.

When I was back in Texas, I made some lasagna for my family for when they got off the flight from Scotland. Plane food has always tasted pretty awful, but it seems as though it has only gotten worse over the last couple of years. So I thought they deserved something tasty and comforting to welcome them back to Texas. This lasagna makes 6 large dinners at $3.29 for each serving.

Lasagna
For the Meat Sauce:
1/2 pound lean ground beef
1/2 pound spicy Italian sausage
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
42 ounces canned cans crushed tomatoes, 1 large can and 1 small can
salt and pepper

For the Lasagna:
10 lasagna noodles
12 ounces ricotta
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup Parmesan, grated
12 ounces Mozzarella, grated

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium high heat. Brown the ground beef and sausage, and break up the meat with the back of a spoon. Stir in the onion and cook for 4 minutes. Then stir in the garlic, bay leaf, basil, and oregano. Add the wine, canned tomatoes, and carrot. Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium. Simmer the filling uncovered until the sauce has thickened, around 45 minutes. Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare the lasagna noodles as instructed on the package, and drain. I prefer noodles that you have to cook over the no cook lasagna noodles because they just have a better texture and flavour.

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, egg, parsley, 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese, and then salt and pepper to taste.

Spread a quarter of the meat sauce on the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch baking dish. Lay 3 lasagna noodles down in the pan and spread half of the ricotta mixture on top. Sprinkle with some Mozzarella and then top with another quarter of the meat sauce. Repeat the procedure for one more layer ending with the last 4 noodles on top. Place the last bit of meat sauce on the noodles and then top with the remaining Mozzarella and 1/4 cup of Parmesan.

Bake the lasagna for 45 minutes or until bubbly at 375 degrees F. Remove from the oven and let the lasagna stand for 15 minutes. Letting it stand allows the lasagna to cool down and makes it much easier to cut and serve since each slice won’t fall apart.

Recently, we, or should I say I since I’ve been doing the bulk of the cooking lately, decided to try and eat less meat and more vegetarian meals. This decision was brought on by a variety of factors from wanting to eat better to saving a bit of money.

The whole process of eating tasty vegetarian meals has been made much easier by Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. There are so many delicious vegetarian recipes in here and pretty much everything that I’ve made from the cookbook has been a winner.

Last week we didn’t really eat any meat during the week and I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything (even if I did make up for this by eating an obscene amount of bbq at Salt Lick over the weekend. For the record, I did feel pretty wretched after eating so much meat coming off the veggie diet). We also watched Food Inc., which furthered our resolve to try and eat less meat. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favour and watch it to learn about the appalling state of the US food system.

Anyway, these Thai Style Corn Pancakes are a really great savory vegetarian dish that you can make a lunch or dinner out of by pairing them with a green salad. The recipe feeds 4 people at 70 cents per serving, and it is a good way to use up all that fresh corn in season right now.

Thai Style Corn Pancakes, from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
2 eggs, separated
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1 teaspoon minced fresh chile, or to taste, or hot red pepper flakes to taste
2 cups corn, preferably just stripped from the cobs, but thawed frozen is acceptable
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 to 4 tablespoons, butter or canola oil, as needed

Combine the egg yolks, green onions, chile, corn, soy sauce, and flour in a large bowl. Mix everything together and season well with salt and pepper.

Beat the egg whites in a different bowl until they are stiff and form peaks. Slowly and gently fold the egg whites into the corn mixture. You want the whites to be loosely folded in with the rest of the ingredients so they do not lose any of their airiness.

Heat the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter or oil is hot, spoon in pancake-sized dollops into the pan, around 4 to 6 at a time.

Cook each pancake until they are nicely browned on one side, around 3 to 5 minutes, and then turn and brown on the other side. Add additional butter or oil as needed in between each batch until you have cooked all of your corn mixture. Serve the pancakes immediately with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

The New York Times one ups the Observer today by publishing 101 simple and fast summer meal ideas. There are some great ones on the list, so be sure to check out the article for some ways to cook tasty food, very very fast.

I’ve been on a real pasta kick lately and have been trying to cook recipes that are fairly light considering the weather in Vegas has been around 112+ degrees for the last week or so. This Linguine with Tomatoes, Baby Zucchini, and Herbs fits the bill for a perfect weeknight summer dinner.

Not only is this pasta dish fast to cook, it tastes incredible, especially if you use really ripe and juicy tomatoes. While the sauce may not be cooked, it has a surprising depth of flavour from the acid of the tomatoes, crunch of the zucchini, and the freshness of the herbs. I’m looking forward to buying some more tomatoes at the farmers’ market this week to make another batch. This pasta recipe feeds 4 people at $1.32 a serving.

Linguine with Tomatoes, Baby Zucchini and Herbs
1 pound tomatoes, cored and finely chopped
3 baby zucchini, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh basil
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 small red chile, seeded
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
fresh lemon juice to taste
12 ounces linguine
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

Mix together the tomatoes and zucchini in a large bowl. I put the herbs, garlic, chile, salt, and oil into a food processor and whizzed them all together to create a vinaigrette which I then poured over the veggies. I let the tomatoes and zucchini marinate in the dressing while the pasta cooked. I also squeezed in a bit of fresh lemon juice to add a bit of brightness to the sauce.

Cook the linguine al dente, and after draining it, return the pasta to the pot and stir in the veggies and sauce. Mix in the grated Parmesan cheese and then plate up the pasta. Top the dish with a little extra Parmesan cheese and get ready to enjoy a truly summer worthy pasta dish.

The Observer’s Food Monthly magazine celebrated its 100th issue yesterday, and collated 100 of the best easy and fast recipes from top chefs and foodies. There are so many good suggestions on this list that it makes my mouth water. Now I just need to figure out where I want to start in making some of these delicious summer recipes.