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Weeknight Meals

Pasta with Zucchini, Corn and Cilantro

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Pasta with zucchini, corn and cilantro

If you follow us on Instagram and/or Facebook, you may have seen the poll asking if you’d like me to post this recipe for pasta with zucchini, corn and cilantro. The majority voted YES, so I’ve written up the recipe below!

I made this delicious pasta with zucchini, corn and cilantro all summer long. It’s also a nice dish for fall. There’s still time to make it before fresh corn is gone for the season. If you’re looking for a quick pasta dish that’s hearty enough for a main dish and also works well as a side, you’ll want to give this recipe a try. It’s adapted from Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Vegetables.

Pasta with zucchini, corn and cilantro

Kids and teens can be unpredictable

We get it! Kids and teens can be unpredictable about the foods they’ll eat. The first time I made this zucchini recipe over the summer, my 16 year old loved it! She also likes the zucchini cakes (in my previous post) when I coat them in bread crumbs before cooking. There have been other times she hasn’t eaten the zucchini cakes. And my 13 year old hasn’t tried them yet.

One reason I love this recipe is because it offers me another quick and easy way to cook zucchini and the kids another opportunity to try zucchini. It’s also great because selective eaters can easily eat around the zucchini. The most recent time I made this dish, my 16 year old did just that. She said she just wasn’t in the mood for zucchini. My 13 year old only eats the pasta. Of course, that could change at any moment!

Making back-to-school lunches

first day of school picture
First day of VIRTUAL school: 8th and 11th grades

Yet another reason to make this pasta is it reheats well. Since school is back in session, I’m back to planning lunches more strategically. And anything that reheats well is considered a win! This summer, my kids fixed lunch on their own fairly often. With the start of (virtual) school, I feel like I need to bring back some of the structure that comes from having me (the parent) plan and make meals for them. Since they have asynchronous learning on Mondays, I’m going to experiment with them making their own lunches on Mondays and I’ll take care of lunches the rest of the week.

I initially thought I might actually pack their lunches even though school is virtual. I haven’t done that yet, but we’re only just into the third week of school. There’s time to adapt if needed!

If you’re looking for simple lunch ideas and tips to make planning and making lunches easier, you can purchase our Lunch E-Book by clicking here. We also have some previous posts with simple lunch packing tips and ideas:

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Pasta with Zucchini, Corn and Cilantro

A simple pasta with zucchini, corn and cilantro that hearty enough for a vegetarian main dish and also make an quick side dish. The recipe is adapted from Vegetables by Alice Waters.

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport

Ingredients

Scale

4 small or 2 medium zucchini 

3 Tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Pinch of red pepper flake (optional)

4 ears of corn, blanched and cut off the cob

3 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup water from blanching the corn

¼ cup chopped cilantro (more or less depending on your taste)

½ a lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

1 lb fettuccine

Instructions

  • Shuck the corn. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Once the water comes to a boil, cook 3-5 minutes. Remove corn from the water. Leave the pot of water on the stove, because you can cook your pasta in it. You’ll also need 1 cup of the water reserved for the sauce.
  • Once the corn cobs are cool enough to handle, cut the corn off the cobs and set the corn aside until it’s time to add it to the pan.
  • Dice the zucchini. (It also works to shred it if you prefer). Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add the diced zucchini and cook for about 5 minutes or until some of it begins to brown. While the zucchini is cooking, peel and chop 2 cloves of garlic.
  • Bring the large pot of reserved water from cooking the corn back to a boil and add the fettuccine. Cook according to package directions. 
  • Add the pinch of red pepper flake, the garlic and the corn to the pan and cook on medium to medium high heat for about another 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Chop the cilantro.
  • After 5 minutes, add 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, the chopped cilantro and the 1 cup of the water you used to cook the corn.  
  • Once the fettuccine is cooked, drain it and add it to the pan of zucchini and corn sauce. Toss with the sauce. Squeeze the half lemon and add to the pan. Taste the sauce to see if it needs more salt, pepper or lemon.
  • Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Notes

Using fresh pasta (I buy it from a local Italian store) takes this dish to the next level.

Wondering What To Cook With All That Zucchini? Zucchini Fritters

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Zucchini Fritters

There seems to be an endless supply of zucchini this time of year. I’ve been serving zucchini in some form or another for years. We even grew it one summer. Yet, my children have never touched zucchini, at least that I can remember, and they’re teenagers: 13 and 16. Kids need to see a food upwards of 20 times before they’ll try it. We’re definitely well beyond that with zucchini! Yes, it’s helpful to offer a food in different forms and I definitely have done that, too. I’ve often felt like throwing in the towel and just assuming they don’t like this vegetable and never will. There have been times over the years that I’ve felt SO frustrated that they haven’t even taken the tiniest taste! It’s hard to resist the urge to coax a child to try different foods and I’ve had years of practice. I feel your pain! 

Pandemic Silver Lining

One of the positive things to come out of the pandemic is that I’ve had much more time to plan meals and cook. The lack of a commute to work, coupled with not ferrying my kids all over to their activities, has left me with the elusive gift of some extra time.

I felt like I’d been stuck in a rut repeating a couple of handfuls of meals and not much new. But with this gift of time, that’s changed! I’m loving cooking so many new recipes, including some new zucchini recipes!

Recently, I’ve made roasted zucchini; fettuccine tossed with corn, diced zucchini, basil and lemon and zucchini fritters. Offering a food in different forms, gives everyone different opportunities to try foods. @smittenkitchen had a zucchini recipe in her feed recently, so I decided I’d give it a try. I’ve never made (or eaten) zucchini fritters. GUESS WHAT???? One of my children ate the fritters and even LIKED them! 

Zucchini Fritters

Zucchini fritters are so simple to make and they don’t take long to cook, which makes them perfect for a hot evening. They also reheat well if there are any leftovers. 

  • grated zucchini
    grate zucchini
  • drain zucchini
    sprinkle with salt and let sit in a strainer over a bowl for 20-30 minutes
  • wring out shredded zucchini

I added feta cheese and some herbs. After I made them the first time, my 16 year old suggested I coat them with bread crumbs, so they’d be nice and crispy. Such a great idea! She was right! I like them both ways with just a slight preference for the fritters coated in bread crumbs.

breaded zucchini fritters

Serve the fritters with sour cream or tzatziki. You could also make the sauce from the original Smitten Kitchen recipe if you prefer. You can serve these as a side or a main dish. I served them as a side with pesto pasta and a salad. I just put them on a plate and placed it on the table with a serving utensil so everyone could help themselves. This way there was NO PRESSURE for anyone to try them. I knew everyone could fill up on other parts of the meal. If there’s no pressure to try a new food, kids may be more likely to try it. 

Zucchini fritters

Just Keep Offering!

The moral of the story here is to KEEP OFFERING! If you read the opening paragraph (no worries if you didn’t! Most of the time I skim blog posts.), you’ll remember my kids are TEENAGERS who had never eaten zucchini. One of them has now eaten zucchini at least 6 times in the weeks since first trying a zucchini fritter! DON’T GIVE UP!

What’s a food you’ve offered for years without anyone trying it?

Sunny Side Up Nutrition Podcast

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Zucchini Fritters

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Simply Recipes.

Makes about 10 fritters

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport

Ingredients

Scale

1 lb (2 medium) zucchini

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/2 teaspoon table salt) plus more to taste

1 teaspoon fresh basil, chopped

½ teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped

¾ cup crumbled feta cheese

1 egg

½ cup all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

Freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for cooking the fritters

*Optional: ¾ cup panko bread crumbs for coating the fritters before cooking

Instructions

  • Wash the zucchini and trim off the ends. Grate each zucchini on the large holes of a box grater. 
  • (Or you can use the grater blade on a food processor). Place the grated zucchini in a mesh colander set over a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt and mix with your hands to distribute the salt. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. (The salt will draw the water out of the zucchini).
  • While the zucchini rests, chop the basil and oregano and mix together with the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl.
  • Once 20 minutes has passed, wring out the zucchini by squeezing handfuls of it at a time. (This is a fun activity for kids if you have them). You’ll get a lot of water out! Give each handful of zucchini a few really good squeezes.
  • Taste the zucchini to see if it needs more salt and add more if needed. 
  • Add the wrung out zucchini to the flour and herb mixture. Add the egg and crumbled feta along with a few turns of freshly ground pepper and mix gently until combined.
  • Add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a frying pan (I used a cast iron pan) over medium high heat. While the pan is heating, form the mixture into small cakes and set aside on a plate. (You can also just drop about a ¼ cup at a time into the heated frying pan if you don’t want to form them into cakes). 
  • Cook on each side until golden brown (3-5 minutes each side). Remove the fritters from the pan and place them on a paper towel lined plate for a few minutes. If you’d like to keep them warm while you finish cooking all the batter, place them on a ¼ sheet pan in a 250F oven. 

Notes

*If you’d like the fritters to be extra crispy, you can coat them with panko bread crumbs just before frying.