This recipe used to involve eggplant.

Eggplant does not GROW LIKE CRAZY.

Zucchini and summer squash GROW LIKE CRAZY.

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This recipe involves zucchini and summer squash.

And tomatoes (it always involved tomatoes, which GROW LIKE CRAZY).

And potatoes (not the marble-sized guys from our garden…but they needed to get used up…you don’t want to make Ralph Nader cry do you?)

Squashed & Mashed Bake ‘Em Up

• 6 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large pieces
• 3 medium tomatoes
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 large summer squash
• olive oil
• 3 tbsp buttery substance
• 1/8 – 1/4 cup milky substance
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup nu yeast
• 2 tsp herbs d’provence
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp garlic
• half a palmful of rosemary
• salt and pepper to taste

This recipe is pretty simple. You start of by making smashed potatoes:

In a large-ish pot, boil the potatoes until they’re soft. In a large-ish bowl, add the milk and butter, garlic, rosemary, and some salt and pepper. Mash it! Mash it up. You want these pretty thick and fluffy, so don’t overdo it on the milk. I’m serious.

At some point in this process, you should preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Now. Cut the ends of the zucchini and squash. Cut the zucchini into 4 pieces, width-wise. Cut each of these length-wise, so you have wide, thin pieces. Cut the neck off the squash and do the same thing. Cut the big part in half. With a spoon or small skull, dig the seedy guts, if there are any, out of the squash. Now cut each half into thin slices, length-wise. Excellent. You’re almost done.

Spread a bit of olive oil on the bottom of a 14 x 9 baking pan. Spread a layer of squash–enough to cover the bottom of the pan, but not too thick. Drizzle a bit more olive oil on top of the squash, then sprinkle salt, pepper, and half of the herbs d’provence on top. Now spread a layer of zucchini. Drizzle more olive oil and sprinkle on the nu yeast. Fantastic! You’re doing great. One more layer of squash and/or zucchini, whatever is left (this will depend on the size of each). Top with salt, pepper, and remaining herbs d’provence.

Now. Spread the smashed potatoes on top of the squashes.

Cut the tomatoes into thin slices. Remove the tomato-boogers as you go. Spread these (tomatoes, not boogers–unless you normally eat the boogers and throw away the tomatoes) in a layer on top of the potatoes. Sprinkle oregano on top of this. You’re so close, I can taste it. Sprinkle on some bread crumbs, drizzle on some more olive oil, cover with aluminum foil, and pop this beyotch in the oven. After 10 minutes, remove the foil. Bake for an additional 20 minutes. Poke the zucchini with a fork–if it feels tender, you’re all done. If it’s still a bit tough, your oven is a wuss and you need to keep baking for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.

Outstanding!

So. You decided to grow zucchini. Good choice.

But now what the hell are you gonna do with all that zucchini?

This problem will plague you all the way through fall, like a heard of vengeful yeti.

But fear not, dear readers! This is one of many zucchini recipes. You can search for more (trust me, you’ll need more) by clicking on “zucchini” in the tag cloud or going to http://irreverentvegan.com/tag/zucchini/.

Like many of my zucchini recipes, this one was:

1. totally improvised based on what I had on hand (and is this seasonal)
2. will help you use up vast quantities of zucchini
3. involves any number of jokes about pornographs/pornstars/etc

This is a nice summer or fall soup, creamy but light, with that subtle zing of roasted garlic and fresh tomato. The beans, corn, and additional zucchini are all optional, but add something to chew on–essentially moving this from the appetizer soup to meal soup category. Yeti like to chew on things with their massive herbivorous teeth, and this prefer this soup with chewables. And when you’ve got a plague of yeti…best to make them happy.

Summer Zucchini Soup

Necessary

• 1 large (beyond your wildest porno dreams) or 2 medium zucchini, chopped
• 1 large tomato chopped
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 tbsp herbs d’provence
• salt & pepper, to taste

Optional

• 1 ear (or 1/2 – 1 cup) corn
• 2 cups of green beans, chopped into bite-size pieces
• 1 cup of cooked (or from a can) white beans
• 1 additional small zucchini

First things first. Let’s get our garlic on. Man. I really hate “get our X on” expressions. So let’s not “get out garlic on”. Let’s roast it, like normal people. So. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you have a Toast-R-Oven ™, that’s ideal. It’s smaller, thus taking less time to heat up and using less energy. Let’s help keep Ralph Nader’s eyes dry. Chop just the tips of the garlic off, exposing the little holes. Put the head of garlic on a sheet of aluminum foil big enough to wrap around it. Now, pour just enough olive oil to fill all the holes and gaps in the garlic. Wrap er up and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until the garlic is soft.

Meanwhile: sautee the onion in high heat cooking oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add in the celery, then the carrots. Once the soup-base triumvirate begins to soften, add in the (necessary) zucchini. Then, add in the tomato. None of this has to be chopped too fine, as you’re just going to blend it later.

Add in the herbs d’provence and salt and pepper.

Once the zuchinni begins to soften, add in the veggie stock. Let this simmer for 10 – 15 minutes, until the garlic is done.  Once the garlic is done, add it to the mix by spooning out each clove with a knife. I guess that would be “knifing it out”.

Now you’re ready to blend! blend! blend! With your immersion blender or boring regular blender, blend the soup to an even creamy consistency.

If you’re adding yeti-chewables, not would be the time. Leave the heat on medium, cover and let cook about 5 more minutes until reducing heat.

If not, you can reduce the heat to low right off. You’ll want to eat this asap, i.e. before you’re mangled by yeti. Yeti don’t hang with appetizers.

Add water to get desired consistency. Yeti like it thick.

But wait! Isn’t salsa generally vegan? You’d think so, but you’d be amazed how often I get asked “Oh, can you eat X”, when X is something like a potato. So rest assured. Vegans can eat this. I promise.

• 6 – 8 good-sized heirloom tomatoes (I like a variety–at least one darker and one sweeter orange or yellow)
• 3 jalapeno peppers, diced (remove some/all seeds for a milder salsa–use more and/or stronger peppers [habaneros are really hot, fresnos and serranos are also pretty hot])
• 1/2 a medium onion
• 1/4 – 1/2 lime (I like more lime in a mild salsa, less lime in a hot salsa)
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• salt, to taste

While the above ingredients are more or less indisputable (except by cheaters), what to do with them is the subject of some debate. Do you blend them? Or hand dice? Thick salsa? Or thin?

Personally, I like a thinner, hot salsa. If it’s too thick and it’s not hot, then it’s really a pico de gallo.  But a person could make a cause for a chunkier salsa. I, however, am not that person.

The bigger question is whether you want to use a food processor/blender or whether you wan to hand dice. I’ve heard tell that using a blender will bruise your tomatoes and will produce a lower quality salsa. Thus, hand dicing will produce a better flavor. I’ve tried this both ways, and I can’t tell a huge difference. If you are using a blender/food processor, take care not to over-process–this will result in a very water salsa. Also, I’m a firm believer in surgically removing any/all tomato guts in almost all recipes. It’ll just make your salsa more watery.

So. You can choose either path here. Either (a) throw everything in the blender/food processor and blend, or (b) dice live you’ve never diced before. Or (c) try both and get back to me.

Either way, this takes very little time and is better than most anything you can get at the store (which, admittedly, isn’t saying a whole lot). If you’re feeling really ambitious, this would make an excellent foray into canning. Even if you’re not feeling ambitious, this would make an excellent foray in to canning.

Huzzah!