Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip

You know when you have spare zucchini and don't know how else to use it? Yeah, that rarely happens to me. For some reason, even all through college, I always managed to have zucchini at my apartment. It was easy to cook and throw into stir frys with a protein and I had dinner. Lately, I've been reading about all kinds of uses for zucchini in breads, muffins, etc. I will get there soon. First, let's just enjoy it by itself.

Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip

Ingredients:

Dip
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium sweet onion, about 1/2 pound, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

Zucchini sticks
3 medium zucchini, unpeeled, cut into 3"-long stick
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
scant 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon Pizza Seasoning or mixed Italian herbs
olive oil spray
1/2 cup egg substitute; or 2 large eggs; or 3 egg whites, lightly beaten


Preparation:
1) To make the dip: Melt the butter in a medium frying pan over moderate heat, and add the sliced onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften, then caramelize. This should take between 10 and 15 minutes. The lower the heat, the longer it takes, but the less likely you are to burn the onions.

2) Once the onions are a medium brown, remove from the heat and add the vinegar.

3) Place the onions and vinegar into a small food processor. Add the honey and mustard, and process or blend until smooth.

4) Add the mayonnaise and salt and pepper to taste, stirring to combine. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve.

5) To make the zucchini sticks: Place the zucchini sticks in a colander over a bowl and sprinkle with the tablespoon of salt. Let the zucchini drain for 1 hour or longer; rinse and pat dry.

6) Combine the Panko, Parmesan, and pizza seasoning; set aside.

7) Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment, and spray the parchment with olive oil.

8) Dredge sticks a few at a time in the egg, then roll in the crumb mixture. Place the sticks on the prepared baking sheet.

9) Bake sticks for 12 minutes, turn over, and bake for an additional 8 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.

10) Serve immediately, with sweet onion dip.

Yield: about 3 dozen zucchini sticks, and 1 1/2 cups dip.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is it. That recipe that has been making the rounds on the internet thanks to the New York Times.

Jacques Torres' Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients: 
1 pound unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons pastry flour
3 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 pounds bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats; set aside.

- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars.

- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

- Reduce speed to low and add both flours, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and chocolate; mix until well combined. [Your choice: continue with baking the cookies or pause and refrigerate the dough for 24 hours]

- Using a 4-ounce scoop for larger cookies or a 1-ounce scoop for smaller cookies, scoop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.

- Bake until lightly browned, but still soft, about 20 minutes for larger cookies and about 15 minutes for smaller cookies.

- Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes twenty-six 5-inch cookies or 8 1/2 dozen 1 1/4-inch cookies

Tine's Notes: The original recipe recommends refrigerating the dough for 24 hours (or even 2-3 days) before baking, but really who waits that long for cookies?! I baked 3/4 of the dough and saved 1/4 in the fridge. You can see the difference in my cookies, on the left was the immediate cookie. On the right, is my aged dough cookie. I will say that although the right-away cookies are REALLY good, the aged-dough cookies were slightly better. The outside had a great crisp to bite into and the inside is still perfectly soft cookie innards. Also, they spread out less so the cookies remain a little more upright than sprawling. Ok fine, I might wait for these cookies again. The color is also pretty as well. Also like the original recipe, I used disks of chocolate instead of chips. More chocolate in each bite! As for the flours, I used all-purpose all the way. I just can't justify having multiple types of flour on a limited budget.

Hummingbird Cake

Disclosure: No actual hummingbirds were harmed in the making of this cake.

I found this recipe browsing through my Big Oven app on my phone. Marked it 'Try Soon' and I have already made three of them. Only one stayed at the house, the others to mother's work and brother's work. I suppose I am good for something after all.

Hummingbird Cake

from Big Oven

Ingredients:

3 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

8 oz. can crushed pineapple with juice

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs, well beaten

3 medium bananas, chopped

1 cup walnuts or pecans, finely chopped

1/2 tsp vanilla

Glaze

1 tbsp butter or margarine, melted

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325F.

Generously grease a 10" tube or a fluted tube pan.

To make the cake: In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

Next remove 2 Tablespoons of juice from the can of pineapple. Set this juice aside for the glaze

To the flour mixture, add the can of pineapple, the oil, eggs, banana, nuts, and vanilla. Stir until just blended. Do not beat.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the 325 degree oven for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack and remove the pan from the cake. Cool completely.

To make the glaze: In a small bowl combine the melted butter or margarine with the powdered sugar. Add enough of the reserved pineapple juice to make a glaze of drizzling consistancy. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. For a glaze with a whole new dimension, try substituting rum for the pineapple juice.

I'm not the most patient of people so I have tried to glaze a warm cake and the frosting melted into the cake. Yeah, don't do that. Be patient and you will be rewarded with a cake that looks store bought. I added rum to one of the glazes plus the pineapple juice. It was about 2 tsp so it wasn't overpowering at all. I sent that cake to my brother (of course).

Tine's Notes: It'll take a couple of hours to completely cool. I KNOW. If pressed for time, make the night before and leave to cool overnight. This recipe makes 14 servings, you can freeze the cake if you need to.

Veggie Pizza with Tofu Ricotta

 You already know I'm a fan of pizza. All kinds of pizza. I've constantly been on the hunt for a better crust recipe and I think I've finally been able to settle on one. The best part? It only requires 30 minutes to rise rather than the HOURS that many other homemade crust recipes called for. I'm all about that now.

You'll see that this pizza was actually a combination of three recipes: pizza crust, veggie pizza and tofu ricotta. The best part? Three different sources. Let's get to the pizza!

First the dough. I scoured Allrecipes and finally decided on Pizza Dough III.

Pizza Dough III
from All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 cups bread flour (I used all purpose)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar

Preparation:
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, white sugar and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine. Beat well until a stiff dough has formed. Cover and rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough into a round and roll out into a pizza crust shape. Cover with your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Tine's Notes: What I love about making your own crust is that you can flavor it yourself. I added 1 tsp of basil leaves and 1 1/2 tsp of oregano. Those are the flecks in my dough

So I wanted pizza and had no tomatoes or sauce in sight. And I wasn't going to the grocery store. I googled alternatives to pizza sauce and found this Tofu Basil Ricotta recipe. I adapted it for what I had on hand and I have to say, I am totally doing this from now on.

Tofu Ricotta

adapted from Food.com

Ingredients:

1/2 package firm tofu, drained and pressed

1 tbsp lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp garlic salt

black pepper, to taste

Preparation:

Crumble tofu in a small bowl until consistency is of ricotta cheese. Add lemon juice, oil and salt. Add black pepper to taste. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Tine's Notes: The original recipe called for basil leaves, garlic and nutritional yeast. I already had seasoned my dough so I decided not to add anything else. I didn't have nutritional yeast available either. I used the entire serving to top my pizza dough. Turns out, I should have pressed my tofu a little more as it was just a tad runny.

I have made vegetable pizza before, but with some different vegetables. And finally the actually toppings for my veggie pizza: celery, bell pepper, red bell pepper, onion, broccoli, mushrooms and spinach. I also did a sprinkling of Italian cheese blend. I added the spinach about 8 minutes before I took the pizza out of the oven. You want them to be just wilted.

What I love the most is that homemade pizzas are never drowning in oil thus my stomach does not get upset at me. And I definitely don't feel guilty for indulging in this veggie goodness.