Zucchini Pancake Pizza

Our weekly brunch date was canceled this week. It tends to be the only time I make something breakfasty, but this could easily be a dinner sidedish. The zucchini in the garden has been raging, so I'd been plotting on how to use it. This started out as zucchini pancakes but they weren't holding together when fried so I moved onto plan B.

Zucchini Pancake Pizza

2 cups shredded zucchini

1/4 diced red pepper

1/2 minced onion

2 minced cloves of garlic

3 slices chopped bacon

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

2 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme

1 cup instant mashed potato flakes

2 beaten eggs

1/2 cup shredded hard goat cheese (I used "Sooty Clementine" by my local Oak Moon Creamery)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup shredded Havarti

1 thinly sliced tomato

Brown bacon in a large frying pan

add onion and garlic towards end

in a large bowl combine zucchini, peppers, herbs and drained bacon mixture

add half of the Havarti cheese, the goat cheese, eggs and potato flakes

stir until blended

pour mixture back into frying pan (if you don't have a metal handled pan, go for a pie pan or casserole dish)

broil on low for about 20 minutes or until the edges start to brown

crank up to high to brown the top, turn off oven

once browned, cover in remaining cheese and tomato and put back into the oven to melt

slice like pizza and dig in!

We also had:

Citrus and Mint Smoothie

1 cup homemade roasted peach ice cream

1/2 a mango

2 tablespoons fresh chopped mint

1 cup orange juice

6 ice cubes

blend mint with juice and mango in blender

add ice cream and ice

blend until fully combined

garnish with mint sprig

Tangy Confetti Pepper Relish

So the garden here is relatively small and simple. I've been spending what's left of my creative brain thinking about how to preserve things like peppers and herbs (which is about half of what we're growing).

I haven't come up with anything amazing. But, I will say that adding cracked peppercorns and red pepper are now going to be staples in the pesto mix I'm working on. Today it was an experiment in pepper relish. It could have gone better. I think I'll try a vinegar reduction for the next go round. My friend Tessa provided a bunch of serranos and I had some banana peppers. I kept coming across canning recipes that involved salting them and leaving them in a cool place for anywhere to a few hours to a full day. I decided to do it quickly and use a palm full of ice cream salt. This was a terrible idea. Although I rinsed them a bunch of times after an hour, I just couldn't get enough salt out. So after finishing the simmering, I had to dump out all the stock solution and re-do the vinegar base. Here's what it came out to:

Tangy Confetti Pepper Relish

1 cup minced red pepper

1 cup minced serrano peppers

1 cup minced sweet banana peppers

3 cloves minced garlic

1/4 cup minced onion

1/2 lemon

3/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup balsamic 

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon celery seed

teaspoon ground mustard

hearty pinch of allspice

1 tablespoon hot mustard

toast cumin seeds in bottom of larger saucepan

add vinegars and spices and whisk together

zest lemon half and squeeze lemon into stock

add peppers, onion and garlic

simmer for 20 minutes

let cool and transfer to another container or boil in pint jar