Cucumber/Tomato/Chickpea Salad

There was one cucumber left in the fridge and I needed to use it up. Checked out pinterest and really didn't see anything that I wanted to make.

As I peeled the cucumber I saw one tomato that I wasn't going to use so washed and chopped it.

Love chickpeas and added a can and was going to make a dressing then decided to add the Zucchini Relish . That turned out to be a brilliant idea.

Once I mixed all the ingredients, it was something I would differently make again.

1 cucumber-washed, peeled and chopped. Did not remove seeds
1 tomato- washed, chopped. Did not remove seeds.
1 can chickpea- drained and rinsed
1 tsp. dried dill
4 tablespoons zucchini relish- recipe above
Sprinkle with cranraisins

Add chopped cucumber, tomato, chickpea to a med. sized bowl.
Sprinkle with the dry dill weed.  Add the zucchini relish and mix well.

Sprinkle with the cranrasins. 

I'm going to make this again and next time I'll toast some ramen noodles and toss them in.

Zucchini Relish

This cookbook was given to me by my friend Paddi. She added notes with comments to recipes she's made and hints.

Many of my huge cookbook collection I'm slowly giving away but this one will be traveling to Florida with us.

Please if you haven't canned follow the Ball Canning Guide.

4-4 1/2 zucchini, chopped
2 medium onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped ( used a green pepper)
3 jalapeno peppers,chopped ( my addition, was not in the recipe)
2 tablespoon non-iodized salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar( used apple cider vinegar)
2 tablespoon celery seed
2 tablespoon mustard seed

Coarsely grind zucchini, onion and red pepper and jalapeno. I used my Cuisinart to chop. Few short pulses and had the consistency which was perfect for relish.

Add the salt to the zucchini,onion and red pepper in a large bowl and mix well.

Cover and refrigerate over night.

Drain, rinse in cold water, and drain again. 

I used an old white dish towel and squeezed out any liquid that was left in the zucchini.

In a large kettle, combine vegetables  and remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer 10 minutes, stirring frequently. 

Ladle into sterilized pint jars. adjust lids and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Makes 4 pints

The person to give credit for this recipe is Ann Harding, Philipsburg  Montana.

LINK on how to water bath for canning

Zucchini Carrot Fritters

Rita has a wonderful garden,which she so kindly shares peppers,tomatoes and zucchini with us. Lewis, Rita's husband picked this huge zucchini for us to bring home and I wanted to make something different.

This recipe is from Taste Of Home
2 tbl finely chopped onion
1 tbl. butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 med. zucchini, shredded and squeezed dry (about 1 1/2 cups )
1 large carrot, shredded
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbl. cornmeal
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
Oil for frying

Next time I'm going to fry the onions first before I add them to the recipe. I bet caramelized onions would be fantastic in this.

Place onion and butter in microwave dish. Cover and nuke until onion is soft. In a bowl add the onions and butter to shredded carrots, shredded zucchini and egg.In another bowl mix up the flour, parm, cornmeal, salt and pepper. Add the flour mixture to the bowl with zucchini/carrot mixture. Stir until just combined.
Put your oil in pan and fry mixture for 1-2 min.

I did a few and knew divingabe would want them to be spicy. I added  Tony Chachere's to the zucchini/carrot mix and loved it.

I also topped mine with the Jalapeno Relish that I made and recipe is on the blog.

Kookoo Kadoo - Persian Zucchini Kookoo

Picked up some zucchini at the farmers market and wanted to make something different.

Turmeric and Saffron is one of the many blogs I visit. The zucchini kookoo was different and wanted to try it.

I baked the kookoo in a muffin top pan. I like little bite size pieces. Good for portion control~

I also adapted the recipe. The first pan of Kookoo I baked, didn't change a thing. They were good but Gabe and I like spicy.

When the first batch of baked kookoo was cooling on a wire rack, I added about 3 teaspoons of Slap Yo Mama to the bowl and also added 1/4 cup of spicy panko to firm it up.

The second batch was spicy! 

The only thing that was missing was I would to top these with Jalapeno Relish. 

Ingredients:

3 large zucchini, wash and peel (5 cups finely grated) I didn't peel and used my food processor to finely grate
4 large eggs
1 medium onion, peeled and grated -another job for the food processor
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 tablespoons flour 
1/3 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable oil for frying (6-7 tablespoons)-didn't fry- baked in a muffin top pan which I sprayed with cooking spray

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl combine all the ingredients except for the oil. Mix thoroughly.

Heat the non-stick frying pan on medium heat, add oil, scoop in the mixture and fry on both sides until golden brown.

You can also pour the mixture in a greased oven-proof dish and bake it in the 375 degrees pre-heated oven for about 30-40 minutes till it starts to set and the edges turn brown.

I sprayed a muffin top pan with non- stick spray. Added the Kookoo to the first batch which I baked at 375. Baked until the sides of the Kookoo started to brown which was about 25-28 minutes.


Did a taste test and they were good. Azita, blogger where I found recipe said the recipe is kid friendly.

Gabe and I like foods that have some kick so I added the additional ingredients as mentioned above to the mixture.

Baked for the same amount of time (25-28 minutes) .

This is a nice little side dish and always nice to try something different.