How to Make a Meal Out of Almost Nothing
With a recipe for my favorite secret ingredient: zucchini butter
It’s five o’clock Wednesday night when I make my way to the kitchen to start dinner. There’s been little downtime on this very full day. Between homeschool lessons, dance practice, and household chores, I have given little thought to what we’re eating tonight. Grateful for the meal plan I created over the weekend, I open Occasionally Eggs to find the recipe for today’s planned meal: “Bean & Dumpling Soup.” After a quick scan of the ingredient list, I make a mental list: onion, carrots, stock, cooked white beans, peas (fresh or frozen), pesto, flour, milk, and some seasonings.
I open the fridge to discover we ate all the beans, carrots, and chicken stock earlier in the week. The produce drawer has cilantro, parsley, half a turnip, and a large beet. I sigh audibly just as my husband David comes in the door, having returned from taking the puppy on a walk.
“We ate all our soup ingredients earlier this week,” I moan, closing the fridge to greet Leo the Labradoodle, who is jumping with excitement to see me. “I guess I have to figure something else out for dinner.” This is the time of year when every meal is a true test of creativity. We’re nearing the end of our Winter Farm Share. Spring Shares are on the horizon, but the next few months are all about using whatever is left in the freezer from summer. Most days I find this to be a fun challenge, but not this close to dinner time. Soon my kids will come in from playing outside and ask what’s for dinner. If I don’t figure out something quickly, we’ll be eating popcorn and apples.
David feeds the dog his dinner and I turn back to the fridge, wondering what I can find hidden within. After foraging through the shelves, I find a pack of bacon and a forgotten head of cabbage grabbed off the farm’s misfit shelf two weeks ago. Giddy at the discovery, I throw a party in my head. “I know!” I say, talking to no one in particular; “I can make Bacon & Cabbage Pasta!”
Feeling confident in this new dinner plan, I take the cabbage out of the produce bag and unwrap it from two layers of plastic wrap—my attempt to keep it fresh. I grab my biggest knife out of the drawer with one hand and a large wooden cutting board out of the cabinet with the other. Rolling the cabbage from the counter to the cutting board, I carefully tear the outer leaves off, stopping when I see no further evidence of black spots. I slice the knife right through the middle of the core, and then again. I now have four wedges of cabbage in front of me, each one covered in tiny spots of mold. All the way to the core. “Guess we don’t have cabbage,” I lament, leaning over the counter with my head nestled between my hands. Sometimes no matter how well I plan, dinner just doesn’t go the way I hoped.
“What will we have?” David asks, now playing fetch with the puppy who never seems to run out of energy.
“Bacon and eggs?” I joke. He laughs, knowing I don’t make breakfast for dinner unless there is absolutely nothing else in the house. “I don’t know, yet.” I shake my head. “I’ll go see what I can find in the basement.” The day has felt so long, I think, trudging down the stairs. I don’t want to be creative right now. I’d rather order pizza, but we’re trying to trim down the budget and eating out is not in the cards.
I open our very large chest freezer and dig through what’s left from our summer bounty. It was stuffed to the brim back in November, filled with fruits and vegetables frozen at their very freshest peak. My summer preserving work has served us well over the last few months: frozen corn thrown into enchiladas or on top of nachos, frozen green beans roasted alongside pesto meatballs, frozen tomatoes turned into salsa, marinara, or tomato soup. The freezer has been an endless source of food through the deep winter months. But we’re nearing the end of Spring and have slim pickins to work with today. I take out the last tub of zucchini butter and a bag of frozen peas, then walk to the basement pantry for a bag of pasta. It may be a meal full of carbs, but at least I’ll sneak some veggies in.
I trollop back up the stairs to the kitchen and drop my finds on the counter. “Did you find anything good?” David asks, throwing the ball to Leo once again.
“There’s not much down there, but I think I can make something work.” Grabbing our stock pot, I fill it with water from the sink and wonder about the best way to mix frozen zucchini butter with pasta and peas. Zucchini butter is one of my favorite ways to preserve the over-abundance of zucchini that inevitably comes in late summer. Shredded zucchini, cooked for an hour or two in olive oil and butter with a little salt, garlic, and herbs, becomes a spreadable jam-like consistency perfect for freezing in half cup or one cup portions. It’s a savory treat that I often spread on toast for breakfast, and I’m confident there’s a way to turn it into pasta sauce.
I put the pot of water on the stove, add a handful of salt, turn on the gas and rotate back to the counter where my bacon awaits. As I cut up a few pieces of bacon into small pieces and toss it in our smallest cast-iron skillet, I find my mood beginning to lift. When the bacon is almost crispy, I use a slotted spoon to remove the pieces to a paper-towel covered plate. Bacon will continue to crisp as it sits, and I don’t want any complaints of burnt bacon. I typically use the bacon grease to saute’ veggies, but I don’t need it tonight, so I drain it into a jar and save it for later.
When I discover the zucchini butter is frozen to its container, I pop it in the microwave for a few seconds—just long enough so it will slide into the pan. While it warms up, I grab my biggest skillet and set it on the stove to preheat. Once the zucchini butter is loose enough to release from the sides of the plastic vessel, I drop it into the skillet to simmer off any extra water. By now, I’m working on auto-pilot. The creative side of my brain has taken over, and I’m enjoying every moment of preparing this meal.
Right about the time the zucchini butter starts simmering, I notice the water is boiling, so I add the pasta and set a timer. The package says eleven minutes, but I want to add my frozen peas when it’s almost done, so I set it for ten. “Dinner’s almost ready,” I tell David. “Can you take the dog out before we eat?”
When there’s five minutes left on the timer, I find the triangle we use as a dinner bell and walk out the patio door to ring it. I hear my daughters tell the neighbors “Gotta go! It’s time for dinner!” at the same time I hear the timer go off. Quickly walking back to the kitchen, I add the peas to the boiling water and set the timer for another minute.
Meanwhile, I stir my zucchini butter with a wooden spoon and turn the heat down as low as it will go. When the timer goes off, I drain the pasta and peas, saving a cup of water or so. “Wash your hands,” I call to my girls as they walk in covered in dirt from head to toe. I dump the pasta and peas into the skillet with the zucchini butter, and add a little pasta water to create a sauce.
If I had fresh veggies in the house, I could serve it with a salad. Alas, I have nothing fresh to work with, so I just fill four plates with the pasta concoction, top each with a little grated parmesan cheese and bacon pieces, and plop them on the counter. “Grab a plate,” I say, handing them each a fork. As I fill four glasses with water, a smile creeps up on my face and I pat myself on the back for feeding my family a meal with all four food groups. And for having a little fun while I did it.
You can use Zucchini Butter in pasta, smear it on toast for breakfast or lunch, throw it in an omelette, or put it in lasagna. There’s really no bad way to eat Zucchini Butter.
I typically make zucchini butter in the summer, but this past summer was so crazy and the zucchini was out of control, so I shredded and froze it uncooked to get it off my counter. Now instead of finding zucchini butter in my freezer, I have plain shredded zucchini. This week I discovered I can throw that frozen zucchini in a skillet and cook it down the same way I do fresh and it makes delightful zucchini butter. This recipe also works with summer squash, but will require a little longer cooking time to get rid of the extra water. Let no squash go unloved!
Thirteen Years Ago
When you go back to that place or that situation that felt so much like home, you realize that it’s not the same as it used to be. Or maybe it is the exact same as it used to be – it’s you that’s changed. The place or the people that you return to continue to live life the way they have done for so long. But you’ve been exposed to a new way of life. You’ve grown accustomed to a new way of living. You have become a new person – or maybe just a changed person. It’s like putting a square that’s been stretched into a rectangle back into a square hole again … it just doesn’t work the same way. ~From an archived blog post, March 14, 2010
Two Years Ago
She wanted to tell the story of how that farm they found their first year in MA was the first place that felt like home. That farm-fresh food is a large part of why they stayed in Massachusetts three years ago when all she really wanted to do was move back to Georgia. She wanted to tell the story of how preserving food connects her to family who live so far away; how they too spend their summers stocking up whatever food they can, because it’s what her Grandma used to do.
She forgot to tell the story of how she found herself in that farmstand, her garden, and her kitchen that year. She learned how to be creative with the food they were given. She learned to read recipes—and to alter them—and she learned that everything tastes better when you get it from the farm. She learned that her kids will eat anything if she tells them Farmer Jamie grew it. But most of all, she learned that cooking can be therapeutic, if we give ourselves the space to try it. ~ She Forgot to Tell the Story
As the sunshine begins to linger longer in the sky, may you turn your face to the light and remember no cold or darkness ever lasts forever.
Until next time,
I’m no longer active on Social Media, but I am doing all kinds of fun things on The Blog!
Zucchini butterrrrrr. I’m only mad that I must wait until squash season to make this and stick in my freezer. Also please never stop writing about cooking. I savor every word. Pun intended.