Stewed Zucchini with Tomatoes
A little while back, Musical posted an intriguing Punjabi “rural” recipe. I made it, and found that the final dish, plus her written introduction to the recipe, reminded me very much of another dish that my own maternal grandmother would often make, especially if she knew that I was coming to visit as she was well aware that I loved it so: stewed zucchini.
I don’t know too much about this dish’s history, but I can tell you that it is very popular here in the midwestern area of the U.S.; I would think it was introduced in the early 1900’s when there were many Italian immigrants settling in the area, but this is pure speculation on my part… and, although there are a few vegetable-canning companies that produce a simple and bland version of this dish, thankfully I never tasted them while I was growing up. My German grandmother always prepared it fresh with ingredients from her large garden.
Just short of 5 feet tall, she was a brilliant lady with a quiet, determined energy, who seldom followed recipes nor wrote down her own. Therefore, she had little to pass on to future cooks in the family unless you happened to be present during the heyday of her busy kitchen with an interest and a watchful eye, tasting and asking questions. Her spicing/herbing had a tendency to change with her moods, but I can tell you for certain that, in this dish, she always included garlic and a smidge of ground chiles- not too much, because grandpa would complain… but as much as she could get away with!
This is my own recipe….er, well, I should say that this was the way I made it a few days ago! I usually don’t think about it and just hum along while I add this and that to taste, but this time I wrote it down! And I must say it’s the best I’ve ever made.
Other summer squashes/young gourds can be used in place of zucchini; in fact, my grandmother usually made it using half dark-green zucchini and half yellow crooknecks for a nice colour combo.
Stewed Zucchini with Tomatoes
4 T olive oil
1 T butter*
3 T garlic paste
2 lg. onions, diced 1/2″
2-3 stalks of celery, sliced crosswise 1/4″
1 C of mixed green chiles and/or capsicums(bell peppers), seeded and diced 1/2″ (I used seeded serranos)
1/4 t or more of ground red chiles (I used 1 t)
1 1/2 t fresh thyme leaves (or 1 t dried)
4 fresh basil leaves, minced (or 1/2 t dried)
A few leaves of fresh oregano (1/2 t dried)
3-4 fresh spearmint leaves (1/4 t dried)
A few grinds of black pepper
A teensy-weensy, little-itty-bitty pinch (use your two pinky-fingers to do this) of ground allspice berries
3 1/2-4 C peeled and roughly-chopped fresh tomatoes (good-quality canned or home-canned works fine too)
salt to taste
2 medium-sized or 3-4 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced 3/4″
1 C fresh green beans, chopped 3/4″ or other mild-flavoured green vegetable of your choice (chopped spinach or other greens work well)**
1/4 C pickled/brined capers
1)Eighteen ingredients…it sounds daunting, but it’s not- easy easy! Warm the oil and butter over med-low heat, add the garlic paste and saute for about 30 seconds.
2)Add the onions, celery and green peppers, raise the heat to med-high and saute until the onions turn translucent.
3)Add the aromatics, and stir, frying for about 1 minute.
4)Add the tomatoes and some salt; keep stirring until the juices are released- about 3-4 minutes.
5)Add the zucchini, green beans, and capers; stir well. Add a half-glass of water, if necessary, to bring the liquid nearer the top of the veggies, and bring to boil. Cover, lower heat way down and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring now and then.
6)Adjust salt and grind a bit more black pepper on top. Serve with bread, over pasta or with rice.
*If you would like to serve this as a chilled soup, replace the butter with more olive oil; thin the stew with more water.
**Some people like to add ground meat or sliced sausages, browning it at the beginning with the garlic (reduce oil, omit butter), but my grandmother usually made it meatless, and often added small amounts of other seasonal vegetables. Just remember: the zucchini must be the star in this show! 
Curious contenders for the starring role: Kalonji and Washiarla…
A few people have mentioned the dish’s similarity to the French ratatouille. I did some reading in Wikipedia, and found that there are several, similar dishes across Europe: kapunata- Malta, caponata- Italy, pisto- Spain, lesco- Hungary, letscho- Germany… Though many of these are prepared with eggplant, there was mention of variants using zucchini or other summer squashes/young gourds.
These dishes, in turn, seem to repeat the much-loved combination of eggplant with tomatoes found throughout the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, again with variants sometimes using young gourds instead of eggplant, apparantly descended from the Arabian musaqqaʿa…
Do, re, MI! (random musings)
This would be what happens when a batch of candy totally doesn’t work out, (it was made of left-over syrup from another project anyway), and I decide to get vainly creative:
Speaking of left-overs, of late I’ve been trying to diminish my stock of frozen, already-made food from the freezer. Since I usually cook only for myself, it’s very easy to make too much of something; therefore I freeze what I don’t consume. And then, one day, I’ll happen upon a container of food, the taste of which I’ve totally forgotten; curiosity then prods me to thaw it.
It sounds like a winning system, but I’ve run out of space to add anything. And especially now is not a good time, as I like to freeze a few summer vegetables for use in winter….so, that means it’s time to relax and reflect back on things I’ve made over the past year. (Apparantly this means a lot of sambar and rasam! So, I had to make dosas….idlis for tomorrow)
Very thankfully, Bee of Jugalbandi has tagged me for random musings. 7 things….Here goes…
1
I am a total organization freak! I have always been this way. As a child, my parents never had to tell me to straighten my room because I had very particular spots for everything I owned; and if something was moved while I was away, I would immediately know when I returned.
I relaxed a little bit when I lived with my former lover of seven years in Kewaunee. He was a total slob! For awhile, I tried to “help” him, but seriously it takes constant vigilance to maintain a system: setting one in place is only half the battle. I gave up when my attitude became too frustrating for both of us- trying to “follow his trail” plus maintain my own things got to be way too much to handle. Reaching that point was a great relief, because then I could return to dealing with my own things, plus letting go of “getting on his back” allowed him to deal with the consequences of his habits (ie: having to spend a whole day putting things away before his parents came to visit).
I guess I just like to know where everything is. For me, it is utter bliss to be able to locate anything I own within 5 minutes.
2
This is a place I used to work at. A very memorable 2 years that ended on a full moon night.
3
I love rain. I love watching it rain from a sheltered place, or being right in it getting all wet. I love the cozy feeling of the sky covered by stratus clouds, a gentle rain just drizzling through the day. I love violent storms when the thunder crashes all around and lightening makes my hair stand on end. And the wind, oh how I love the wind…
The best storm I ever saw was on a trip through South Dakota- “pancake land” as I called it; you could see the horizon 360 degrees all around. The rain was so torrential that we had to pull over to the side of the road for awhile. We just watched. At any given time there was lightening to be seen somewhere in the sky. Absolutely magnificent!
4
I miss my grandmother very much. My father’s mother. She was not known for her cooking really, but when I was young she was very much a “second mother” to me, as my own was always too busy and too agitated for much one-on-one interaction. She taught me many things, least among them how to play card-games like rummy, blackjack, and unusual poker-games. Grandma had a nice, neat house with a huge collection of National Geographic magazines that I loved to read.
Those and other things in her house were amazingly always in the same place for the many years that I knew her. Maybe I’m a little bit like her in that way. Above the console TV in her living-room hung a jewelry tree (these are traditionally made of broken pieces of costume jewelry) on green velvet that she had made many years before I was born. Despite its Christmas overtones (most examples are non-evergreen in form and mounted on black velvet), it stayed on the wall, in the same spot, all year long, year after year. When she died, I asked for it:
5
I will always recall my first experience with chiles of any kind: I was 3-4 years old (until I was 4, my parents lived on the bottom floor of a divided house before buying one of their own, so this change of environment forms a good line of demarcation in the memory from my extreme youth) and had somehow managed to procure, from a kitchen-cabinet, several boxes of spices that I was fascinated to investigate… I ended up inhaling red-chile flakes into my nose! That was the beginning of the love affair…
The first thing I ever made for myself was a horse-radish-mustard sandwich….again when I was about 4. I am starting to consider that my folks might have been amused by this young food-preference for spicy things… :-)
6
I dread unwelcome change- especially death. I’ve lost too many friends and family-members in the last few years to not be a bit saddened. And often death gives no warning at all, but there is no choice but to go on living, to cherish those memories of them…after all, it was all we really ever had of them. (this photo is of my friend Chuck, who died two years ago- at age 38- of meningitis)
I used to dread the approach of winter- it can really limit one’s enjoyment of the outside! But, these last few years it hasn’t been too bad- (less snow, more rain) I really think global warming is definitely taking place: our winters in Wisconsin seem to be getting milder, the growing season seems a bit longer; plants that were “iffy” for us to grow, to survive the winter, are doing fine. Selfishly I think it’s nice. Looking at the big picture worries me. I dread what may come to pass.
7
I’ll tell you what I have handy for reading on a small book-shelf in my study. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve opened the book- some I’ve read entirely, some I’ve pecked at like a bird tasting a bowl of seeds, some just have nice covers so far:
Wealth 101, Roger and McWilliams
an issue of Parabola magazine
Hoyle Official Rules of Card Games
A Treasury of American Superstitions, De Lys
Digital Photography for Dummies, King
The Three Pillars of Zen, Roshi Philip Kapleau
501 French Verbs, Kendris
501 Spanish Verbs, Kendris
Mixed Bag, Hutchinson
The Trial, Franz Kafka
The Annotated Alice, Gardner
Period, Dennis Cooper
The Brown Fairy Book, Lang
The Olive Fairy Book, Lang
The Arabian Nights, Burton
Literature of the Eastern World, Miller, O’Neal, McDonnell
A La Carte…, Berger
The Electronic Revolution, Burroughs
The Better Homes and Gardens Story Book
Bhagavad-Gita, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Thanks Bee….that was challenging, and cathartic as well…. I can see my audience meter plummetting as I speak! 
I’d like to tag:
Shilpa of Aayi’s Recipes
Manjula of Daalitoy
Musical and her Kitchen- oops! Tagged already I see..
Vee of Past, Present and Me
Trupti of The Spice Who Loved Me
Sharmi of Neivedyam
Cynthia of Tastes Like Home- tagged already
Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook- tagged already
Indira of Mahanandi
If they would like…
Feta-and-dill-stuffed Pide
This is one of the most delectable things I’ve ever eaten, and as fresh dill is now widely available locally here, I put some of it to good use. I found this recipe several years ago in a Turkish cookbook by Ayla Algar entitled Classical Turkish Cooking- definitely one of the most-treasured volumes in my collection!
Although I’ve already posted a recipe for filled pide, the filling for this one is by far my favorite, and therefore I only make it 2-3 times a year, and share it; otherwise, I’ll eventually nibble my way through every loaf!
The directions for making the dough, filling and shaping it can be found here, but I offer this filling for you to try. Oh, and this time, I replaced a cup of the white flour with ata (Indian, fine whole-wheat flour) and it came out splendidly!
Also, I have made a few adjustments to the original filling, but these will be noted.
Feta and Dill Filling (for small, stuffed, pide)
2 1/2 C (about 1 pound) crumbled feta (this means Turkish feta, which is milder than Greek-style…the author suggests replacing part of this stronger feta with Italian ricotta (which I did- 1 C) or cream/Philly cheese)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
6 T unsalted butter at room temperature (I used 3 T)
2/3 C finely-chopped fresh dill
I also have begun to add the following 3 things:
freshly-ground black pepper
the green part of green onions or chives- a handful
green chiles, minced (2) or powdered, dried chiles 1/2 t or so
Mix the butter and dill together, add the eggs and mix until blended, add the crumbled feta (plus the etc.)
Shape and fill as directed here.
I have one more thing to share with you in this little post…well, two things maybe. The first is that a very talented cook named Connie, with whom I loved chatting with at a former place of employment, was so enraptured by the combination of flavours in this filled bread that she designed a pasta salad using similar ingredients…I hope my memory is intact enough for me to share it:
Boil pasta until tender/al dente (I believe she used farfalle…butterflies/bow ties), drain and cool quickly in cold water.
Then she added crumbled feta, dill, olive oil, green onions , perhaps some salt, pepper, and ground chiles to taste… toss well……lovely for a light summer feast!
Happy Independence Day to all of you…(though the original day was so long ago that now it’s a day to watch firework displays and get a little tipsy… 
) But, maybe we ought to take a moment to consider those living in turmoil and fear, and send a prayer to them for peace.
