Right now I’m channeling Sly and the Family Stone. The lyrics to “Hot Fun in the Summertime” are rolling through my brain. This is the time of the year when gardens are loaded with all kinds of good stuff. And one of the most prolific things out of the garden and loading down the vegetable bins of the grocery store is zucchini.
For some reason we’ve gotten into a love affair with zucchini year. We put it on pizza and we put it in salads and slaw. I’ve even managed to get it into stir fry. And today I’m featuring it in a pasta dish that really has some Mediterranean influences to it.
This is the first time I’ve cooked this particular dish and at the end of the recipe I’ll share a couple of “lessons learned” and “tips” to make this dish just a little bit better than my first “results”.
So, I got to thinking and talking to Mrs. CB about our zucchini thing and thought that it’d work really well with spaghetti. But the recipes I came across were all kind of bland so I decided to, as Emeril says, “kick it up a notch” and added some ingredients for better flavor. Onion. Tomato. And BACON! It’s a winner! So here’s the recipe:
Recipe: Spaghetti With Zucchini and Other Good Stuff
Summary: This tasty Mediterranean inspired dish features zucchini and is easy, tasty and cheap.
Ingredients
- 1 lb spaghetti (long, fettucini, etc.)
- 2 zucchini (each 6-8”)
- 3-4oz Bacon chopped
- 2/3 cup diced onion
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 ½ Roma tomatoes chopped
- Dried Red Chili flakes to taste
- Salt
- Cumin
- Grated Cheese (your choice–parmesan, romano, feta)
Instructions
- Get out your spaghetti pot and a big sauté pan. Get out your chef’s knife, cutting board and 3 small bowls.
- Cut the zucchini into discs about 1/8” thick and put in a bowl.
- Dice the onion and put in a bowl then chop the tomato and put into its own bowl.
- Chop the bacon slices.
- Put water in the spaghetti pot and add 1 tbsp salt. Put on burner to bring to heat (it can sit there and bubble if necessary until you’re ready to add the spaghetti).
- Put sauté pan on stove’s large burner and turn to medium high (about 5 o’clock). Add bacon when pan is heated and brown.
- Remove bacon to plate covered with paper towel to drain.
- Add zucchini to the sauté pan. Immediately add salt and red chili flakes. Cook zucchini down so that the water in it is cooked off and the zucchini starts to brown,
but not burn—careful, this is a pretty thin line. This may take about 15 minutes. - After zucchini has been in pan for about 5 minutes or so, add the onion and garlic and stir in.
- Add the bacon back into to the pan and then the tomato.Drop the spaghetti into the pot and turn down the heat on the zucchini pan to medium-low (about 10 o’clock). Taste, then add salt to taste and cumin plus more chili flakes if you want.
- When the spaghetti is al dente, drain it and either add it to the pan with the zucchini mix or remove both from the heat and plate with the zucchini mix on top of the spaghetti—whatever your preference.
Preparation time: 30 minute(s)
Cooking time: 20 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
This is actually pretty simple and is really tasty. Top with some grated cheese and serve with some good, crusty, fresh Italian or French bread and enjoy.
Tips and Hints:
1. Zucchini has a lot of water. You can either do as I did here and “cook it out” which takes a bit of time or after slicing the zucchini, spread it out on a cookie sheet that has 2-3 paper towels on it and then sprinkle salt on the zucchini. Finish the rest of your prep cutting (about 10 minutes) then take a couple of paper towels and “blot” the zucchini before putting it in a bowl. This will reduce your browning time.
2. One of the mistakes I made was I used too much oil. I actually added some cooking oil to the bacon fat in the pan. Using a large sauté pan all you need is either the bacon fat left over from browning the bacon or drain that out, wipe the pan and then add about 3 tbsp cooking oil or “EVOO”. That’s plenty of oil.
3. For a bit more “Mediterranean” flavor add some sliced olives—kalamata or green–when you put in the bacon and tomato.
The Cheap Bastid Test: This is actually pretty reasonable. The spaghetti cost me $.70 and the zucchini was another $.70. The tomatoes cost $.50 and the bacon was $.65. The cheese was about $.25 worth and the onion was about $.15. Total cost: $2.95. That’s really good eating, cheap. This will feed 4 a light meal or 2 a big meal with leftovers.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
This sounds delicious and simple. Also looks really tasty!