How to roast zucchini and/or burn your house down! ;)
Well let's just say I had an adventure tonight.... but it had a happy ending. I attempted....successfully mind you....to roast zucchini for the first time. In fact, I had never really had zucchini (except maybe in restaurants here or there) much less cooked it at home and I certainly had never roasted it before. But my husband's coworker had given him three very large zucchini ( well they looked big to me but what do I know?) from his garden....so additional pressure not to let some prized homegrown organic zucchini go to waste.
So I asked my buddies on the Tips page I have on Facebook. Got lots of great answers. I was stunned by how many people loved zucchini and told me great ways to cook it. But which one to choose? I had no idea. So I asked my sister. Just drizzle some olive oil and put salt and pepper on it. Fine. Sounded easy enough. Asked my friend Lana. Just do the olive oil salt/pepper thing or drizzle some italian dressing on them. Now that sounded pretty good to me. So it got to be dinner time. I didn't have time to go searching on the internet for the post where all the nice people answered how to make zucchini. So I looked it up online. It said just put salt and pepper and bake for 30 min on 450. Easy enough.
So what I did was a combo of all three. And it was so good I couldn't quit eating it tonight. YUMMY. Loved the italian dressing ones. Try them if you have not.I cut up the zucchini and had two cookie trays full. I just drizzled some italian dressing using a spouted measuring cup on one set. Worked out well. Put salt and pepper on it as well as some italian seasoning from my grinder.Drizzled the italian dressing on top. On the other tray I had some zucchini that I put olive oil, salt and pepper and some italian seasoning from the grinder as well as some parmesan sprinkled on top. The problem was I put TOO much olive oil...I wasn't thinking about the whole oil plus heat catches on fire thing.
Well I was thinking about the whole oil plus heat equals fire thing when the oven started smoking via the cooktop. In fact I thought I had turned on the stovetop accidently b/c it started smoking and then I realized it was the oven not the stovetop smoking. Then it hit me. Oh blankety blank....I have a bunch of oil in the oven! The red hot 450 degree oven. So I opened the door and the sizzling and spitting did little to calm me down. I had flashbacks to the time I had to carry a cast iron frying pan outside with a 4 ft high flame coming from it. So I was torn....should I open the oven door or shut it? Would more oxygen ignite the flame or not? Does olive oil even catch on fire? Is this even supposed to smoke?Why oh why had I tried this crazy zucchini thing anyway?
Then it hit me....use papertowels to sop up the grease. So I carefully removed the spitting sizzling cooking sheet full of oil ( well not full but the bottom had a good bit of oil) and set it on the stovetop and laid some balled up paper towel in the grease hoping it didn't catch on fire as well.....holding my breath I sopped up the grease....I was about to put the tray back in the oven when I tilted it to reveal more grease running around on the cookie tray ( making a get away I suppose!)....So I got some more papertowels and sopped up the remaining grease and returned the tray to the oven. The italian dressing one was spitting at me like a mad wet hen. But I wasn't the least bit worried about it. So I left it alone.
I "roasted" the zucchini on 450 for 30 min and then I removed it from the oven. I have to say...it really looked pretty on the plate.....and I couldn't quit eating it. In fact I couldn't quit moaning as I was eating it. It was a good thing I wasn't on a first date or I would have been in trouble. It was that tasty. In fact, right now, my belly is too full b/c I kept going back for " one more piece"....it was that good. Try it. And goodness knows, it was certainly easy enough to make. Except do yourself a favor and skip the burning down the house part. Go easy when you are drizzling the olive oil. I think I was glug-glugging....and you know how cheap I am. Olive oil isn't cheap either. House be damned I will be making this again. YUM. --Tips
3 big zucchini my husband's coworker gave us from his garden.Thumb for size reference.
Started by just cutting off the ends of each zucchini and then cutting them in half and then in half again and then in little sections...Just do whatever comes natural. Nobody will call the zucchini police on you I promise.
This is the second tray of zucchini I had once I cut the three large zucchini up. Almost couldn't fit them all.
Added salt and ground pepper and some italian seasoning from that grinder on both trays.
From left to right are what I used....parmesan cheese....olive oil...pepper grinder, salt shaker, italian seasoing grinder, italian dressing and the spouted measuring cup
This is showing you my "drizzler"...or spouted measuring cup...I put about an inch of italian dressing in the cup and then just poured it over the zucchini and then I did the same thing with olive oil on the other tray. So one tray had olive oil with parmesan on zucchini and
one had italian dressing drizzled on top.
Here are both in the oven once they were done cooking . Not a great shot but bear in mind....hot ovens and little phone cameras don't mix :)
This is what it looked like after being roasted.....both trays shown.
Weird food combo but was gonna have mexican for dinner so just made this to make sure I used it up before it went bad( it sat on the counter a week prior to my cooking it)....it made a pretty presentation on the plate even.
Isn't it pretty? And I couldn't quit making noises the whole time I was eating it. It was that tasty! YUM....try it sometime....it couldn't be easier... if you just skip the burning down the house part you will be quite happy with roasted zucchini I promise!
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