All The Z’s 3 – All The Zucchini – REPOST

You knew it was coming right?  There was never going to be a showcase of Z recipes without a recipe for zucchini.  Except there’s not just one zucchini recipe…there’s going to be four.  Because it’s midsummer and my zucchini plants have gone berserk. I have been eating zucchini at least once a day for weeks. I have given away dozens of them.  And they just keep coming!  So I have to keep finding things to do with them.  Here is a summary of this summer’s dishes…so far…

This flatbread recipe which is below  came via Australian Gourmet Traveller and it is so good – not to mention almost too pretty to eat!  If you don’t want to make your own bread, you can sub in a flatbread of your choice.  But the bread is pretty easy and gives you a huge dose of smug!

 

Zucchini Flatbread 1
Zucchini Flatbread 1

Zucchini Flatbread 3

 

Seriously three zucchini plants are producing enough to feed a small army!  And they grow so quickly.  One second they are tiny, the next literally as big as my arm!

Zucchini 4

But here’s the thing…up until recently, I wasn’t that big a fan of zucchini.  I recall it from childhood as being a bland soggy mess.  My conversion came when I tasted it raw in a salad one day.  And it was super good!  Zucchini Salad (2)The above salad is so easy to make and became my go-to whilst on holidays – I chopped a heap of carrots, zucchini, celery and cheese and kept them in a container in the fridge.  Whenever I got a bit peckish, I would get out some lettuce, sometimes crumble in some hard-boiled egg,  add a splash of dressing and roll up for a healthy, tasty snack!  The recipe is from my old fave Rosemary Mayne Wilson’s Salads For All Seasons.

Rosemary suggests a mayo dressing for this salad.  I vote no on that.  My preferred dressing for this salad is a vinaigrette with a good dollop of mustard in it.  Try it…you won’t regret it.

Recpe: Raw Zucchini Salad - RMW

Turkey and Zucchini Patties with Cacio e Pepe Zoodles

Okay, here’s one for the meat eaters!  Although I was not very complimentary about a lot of the meals in Pete Evans’ paleo cookbook, Healthy Every Day, these turkey and zucchini patties were an exception.  They are awesome!  I make them all the time (sometimes I even have to buy zucchini to make them!).  I don’t use the egg in this recipe as I find the mixture is already quite wet without it.  (Pete also doesn’t tell you to squeeze the water out of the zucchini which you need to do).

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And here’s Pete’s recipe:

Turkey & Zucchini Patties – Pete Evans

The eagle-eyed of you may have noticed the fourth dish nestled in below the turkey patties in the photo above.  The last recipe in the zucchini extravaganza is a Zoodle Cacio e Pepe.  (Zucchini noodles which cheese and pepper).  A lot of recipes I have found for this cook the zoodles.  We’re not going there.  I far prefer raw zucchini to cooked so mine is kind of a Cacio e Pepe carpaccio…

 

Print

Zoodle Cacio e Pepe

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 zucchini
  • 2 tbsp Grana Padano or Parmesan cheese
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 finely chopped mint (optional)

Instructions

  1. If you have a spiralizer, make noodles out of your zucchini.
  2. If not, use a vegetable peeler to make long thin strips of zucchini.
  3. Place in a bowl and toss through the olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper and cheese.
  4. Top with the mint if using.
  5. Serve straight away

Have a wonderful week!  I’m off to harvest more zucchini!

Before we go though, tell me what is your favourite zucchini recipe?

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Faye Dunaway Cocktail

Back in my school days, we had an annual music competition where each House had to arrange and sing a song of their choice to assorted judges, family, staff and fellow schoolmates.

One year the song selected by my House Music Captain for all of us to sing started like this:

Bonnie and Clyde were pretty lookin’ people,
But I can tell you people,
They were the devil’s children.

 

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I had no idea who Bonnie and Clyde before then but wow!  Believe me, just those opening lines were enough to send me racing to the Encyclopedia Britannica for more!  Pretty people?  Of course I  wanted to know more.  Pretty people who were also evil?  My 14-year-old mind was blown.  Who knew such a thing even existed!

Why am I telling you all this?

Because a little while ago the lovely Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers asked if I would test out a cocktail recipe for her upcoming cookbook.  The cocktail was the Faye Dunaway cocktail, and Faye played Bonnie Parker in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.

And oh boy, you want to talk about pretty looking people?

Bonnie and Clyde

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Oh, the glamour!!!!

The Faye Dunaway Cocktail is also pretty glam!  It was invented in 2011 by Jonathan Humphrey of the Drake Hotel in Toronto and was inspired by the film Chinatown, which stars Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson.

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The recipe for the Faye Dunaway cocktail calls for mango juice which I was unable to find.  I also do not have a juicer so I puréed a fresh mango.  I was a little worried because the mango purée was quite thick but it worked out perfectly.  So do not despair if you also cannot find juice.  If fresh mango is unavailable frozen would also work perfectly!

The Faye cocktail perfectly balances sweet, spicy and sour flavours in a glorious mix of mango, lime and chilli.  It’s sooooo good!  I loved it – it reminded me of sunshine and holidays and tropical climes!  I made this exactly as per the recipe (which you can find here) because I was testing the recipe for Jenny.  However, even though this is divine as is, I can’t help wondering what it might be like if you also brought in a salty element by edging the glass?  Salty, sweet hot and sour being the four elements Thai cooks try to bring into balance.  Because that is really what the flavours of this cocktail reminded me of…cocktails on a beach in Thailand.

Faye’s birthday is coming up on January 14.   I was going to hold off posting this until the day itself.  Then I thought it would be much more fun to give you all a chance to buy the ingredients so we could all celebrate her gorgeousness and iconic fashion sense by donning a beret and drinking one of these in her honour!

I will be trying the Salty Faye myself but if anyone makes either version, please let me know what you think!

And speaking of iconic fashion…I  had so much fun trying to find the Dinah Shore look a few weeks ago that I thought I would give it another go.

Here is my take on Faye’s Bonnie and Clyde look fashion via my very first post on Polyvore.  Because don’t we all need a little bad girl glam every now and again?

Polyvore - Inspired by Faye Dunaway

Oh, and for anyone who is wondering how our music competition turned out?

The judges said that our singing and arrangement were spot on but that the content was inappropriate for both us to be singing and our audience to be listening to!

If you would  like to hear the scurrilous lyrics not fit for the mouths of good God-fearin’ girls (and see some photos of the real Bonnie and Clyde)  here’s a YouTube of that song:

Many thanks to Jenny for the opportunity to help with her book (I will let you all know when it is ready to be purchased, it’s going to be awesome!) and for selecting such a fabulous recipe for me to try!

And don’t forget, Faye Day on the 14th!

Cheers!

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Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad Sandwiches

One of the absolute delights of my childhood was discovering the Anne of Green Gables set of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  They were my favourite books for years!  And to be honest, although I haven’t read one in forever, I still have the entire series and it wouldn’t take much for me to be again drawn into the world of Matthew and Marilla, Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe and the adorable red-haired, high-spirited feisty girl known as Anne of Green Gables.  And that’s Anne with an E and don’t you forget it!

Anne Books

These books taught me so much about the world – about love, about friendship and family, about how it’s okay to be different (and how to embrace that difference).  Oh, and how I wasn’t the only person in the world who constantly had to spell their name to people to ensure that they got it right!

So I was overjoyed to find out that there is an Anne of Green Gables Cookbook.  And beside myself to be given a free ARC from NetGalley and Race Point Publishing to review!  Thank you so much!

First up, this book is gorgeous!  The illustrations and the photos are beautiful.  And all of the recipes are referenced to the exact place in the books where they occurred..which a pedant like me totally loves!

I choose to make Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad sandwiches.  And they were delicious.

Anne's Poetical Egg Salad SandwichesOMG…these were so good!

I think sometimes it’s hard when blogging to present something as simple as these sandwiches because…..well…it’s egg salad right and everyone knows how to make that.  so why bother?  But this is also real food, the kind of food I want to make. Eat. Repeat.

Recipe?  Here.

And you can also fancy these up.  The version you are looking at has some chives in the mix.  It’s great with lettuce in the sandwich.  To make it really fancy, a slice of smoked salmon is divine!

Poetical Egg Salad Sandwich5

I adored this book almost as much as the novels that inspired it!

Poetical Egg Salad Sandwich7

And as we head into the new year, some rules for living from Miss Anne Shirley:

ON FRIENDS

 

ON MAKING MISTAKES

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ON MAKING AN EFFORT

Anne effort

ON ATTITUDE

Anne and Marilla (1)

ON LOVE

Gilbert

THE FUTURE

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And on that note sweet people, I’m going to bid you adieu for 2017.

Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, sharing.  You’re the best and most wonderful kindred spirits ever!

And for all of you, all my very, very best for a joyful 2018!  May it bring it everything you wish for!

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This Paté is a Turkey!

Welcome to the end of the world.  Or at the very least the end of The A-Z of Cooking (1977).

Prepare to feel robbed.

Turkey Pate2

Dear A-Z of Cooking,

Look…listen…over the past few years we’ve had joy, we’ve had fun, we’ve had seasons in the sun.

There’ve been many good times.

Remember the Mushroom Cakes?

And the Brioche?

The Profiteroles?  They were awesome!

Okay, so it wasn’t always smooth sailing.  There were downs with those ups.

There was this:

Still one of the scariest pictures I have ever seen in the pages of a cookbook.

And lets not forget this delightful looking salad:

 

 

Or this suggestion for punishing people who drop in without notice:

 

But on the whole, it’s been good times.

And this is how you end it?  With a Turkey Paté that looked like cat food until I slapped a few sage leaves and pomegranate seeds on top?  And, I might add, tasted of nothing?

And whilst we’re at it…right from the start you promised me an A-Z.

So…ummm…why are we done after Yesterday’s Leftovers?

Where’s my Z, you dick?

A-z

And a really bad turkey paté.

And no Z.

 

 

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History Happy Hour – The Flamingo

So, I made this Flamingo cocktail today with the idea that I would post it in the usual time it takes me to post anything – a month, six weeks, some time in the yet to be disclosed future.  But then I opened my email and discovered that today, December 26 in the way back of 1946 was the day that Bugsy Siegel opened the Pink Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Nevada.

I’m not a big fan of posting too quickly because I like to procrastinate carefully curate what goes into these pages.

It’s why the quality is usually so high…😂

But some opportunities are too good to miss.

Flamingo2 (2)

 

And how pretty is this?  It’s a gorgeous, glorious, fabulous pink! Perfect for drinking at the most fabulous, magnificent , luxurious resort in the world….or just, you know, at home…

Flamingo Casino

Siegel, called “the mobster with the beautiful blue eyes” by Cesar Romero named the resort the Flamingo after his girlfriend Virginia Hill who was a leggy redhead.

The opening of the Pink Flamingo Casino was a total clusterf**k.  Bad weather kept many of the Hollywood celebrities who had been invited to the opening away.  The rooms weren’t finished so gamblers took their winnings elsewhere.  By the end of the first week, the Pink Flamingo had lost $300,000 in revenue.  By the end of its first year of operation it had earned nothing!

Siegel was shot to death in 1947.

A memorial to him still exists in the current Flamingo complex.

Flamingo1

Far from being a clusterf**k, the Flamingo cocktail is a total delight!

Gin, Apricot Brandy, lime juice and Grenadine make it delicious!

A maraschino cherry gives it some vintage glamour.  It’s not in the recipe but it does make it gorgeous!

Here’s the recipe – Enjoy!!!!

https://mixthatdrink.com/flamingo-cocktail/

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