zucchini ribbon salad with pine nuts and goat cheese

• fresh zucchini
• pine nuts
• crumbled goat cheese
• white wine vinegar (I had some Chardonnay vinegar, but any would work)
• olive oil
• fresh ground pepper

Cook whole zucchinis in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Rinse under cold water until they are chilled enough to handle. Using a vegetable peeler, slice strips of zucchini until you reach the seeded center. Combine zucchini strips, nuts and cheese in large bowl. Whisk together olive oil and vinegar and pour over salad, toss to coat. Season with fresh pepper and serve chilled.

The dish: If you live in the sunny Mid-Hudson Valley, one sure way to know that the summer is right at the halfway mark is to look for the Orange County Fair to come to town. The OC fair combines the elements of an old time farm fair with modern amusements and enough of a sleazy element to keep things interesting. I'm a regular visitor and long about March I start looking forward to my annual day of eating fried foods and hanging upside down on a ride that dubs as a truck trailer. After I've eaten my annual allowance of trans fats and my stomach can't take anymore of giving gravity the finger, I know it's time to settle down for some games on the midway. The best and fairest of the amusements is a game called "Jone's I Got It", or "bingo with a bounce" if you're a regular. The concept is pretty simple; 10-25 players sit on stools about 3 feet away from bins that have grids of holes. In front of the players is a reservoir filled with little rubber balls (think the kind in the red vending machines in the front of the supermarket that you'd beg your mom for and then throw once and realize it was like watching your allowance bounce down the street) and when the announcer calls it, you have to toss the balls into the bin ahead of you and be the first to get 5 in a row. There's really no skill to it and it's only $.50 a game, so it's a great way to spend some time. We usually play long enough to win at least a few games, which means we can visit the illustrious Jone's prize table. They do a good job of making the junky prizes seem high end, keeping the table surrounded by a velvet rope and a having a prize official in a Jone's polo shirt to help you pick out your loot. We were on a pretty good streak this year and got to choose from the second tier of prizes. I saw the plain glass serving tray pictured above and knew I had to have it (really, I didn't just scoop the zucchini salad onto my counter). It was a little awkward carrying a platter around the fair while everyone else had stuffed bears and such, but it was worth the effort. I took it home and after scrubbing the fair funk off it (it was sealed in a package, but still) realized what a great tray I had. I do my best to keep things in a healthy rotation around here, but I'm sure you'll be seeing more of it in the future. Let's just hope that in 2010 I'm really lucky and can get that lighted picture of the New York skyline I've been eyeing.

warm zucchini salad

• 1 lb whole wheat pasta
• fresh zucchini, cut into bite sized pieces
• balsamic vinegar
• 1 red onion, chopped fine
• dried red pepper flakes
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• grated Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions. In a swirl of olive oil, saute onion over a medium high flame for 3 minutes, add zucchini and pepper flakes, reduce flame to medium, stirring occasionally. After about 7 minutes add a few splashes of vinegar. Once pasta is cooked, drain and add to the zucchini, tossing to coat, adding parsley and more vinegar as needed. Serve immediately with grated cheese on top.

The dish: As Yogi Berra said, "it's like deja vu all over again". At first glance, it might look your faithful blogger hit the post button one too many times, but I beg you to read closer. If these two dishes were served in succession, I think you'd be amazed at how different they wind up tasting just by altering a few basic things. Although they were cooked as two different meals (really, look the pasta is different) this could have been a planned-over. Simply serve warm for dinner and then you've got a great cold lunch for the next day. Between the whole grain pasta and the bulk of the zucchini, you'll be amazed at how far this dish goes, which makes it easy on the wallet. Saving a few bucks in these tight times is important for all of us because as Yogi also said, "a nickel just isn't worth a dime anymore".

zucchini saute

• fresh green and yellow zucchini (or summer squash if you must be a pain in the ass), cut into small pieces
• olive oil
• coarse salt
• fresh ground pepper

In 2 swirls of oil, heat the zucchini over a medium flame until slightly tender. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

The dish: My in-laws live in a rural town that makes most of Norman Rockwell's paintings seem downright urban. It's the type of town with one store and no traffic lights, where everybody knows everyone and you can comfortably leave your doors unlocked fifty weeks of the year. When the townsfolk are are reaching for their keys when they enter their homes, you can be sure of one thing; it's zucchini season. Being that the population density is about 1 person per square mile, pretty much everyone has an active garden and zucchini is easy to grow, yields a bit and apparently isn't too popular for dinner. Under the guise of being kind-hearted, folks will leave squash in their neighbors cars and foyers, often to be found by people with their own harvest surplus. I'd love to have such problems, as zucchini is one of my favorites, but when I left my door open all that happened was that my stereo got stolen (well, not really, but I didn't get any squash either, dammit). Fortunately, Kim visited her mother recently and returned home with a zucchini the size of my leg. Between that and the good folks from our favorite farm, we've had a bit of squash to work through. If you're getting tired of reading about it, then lock your doors, you're probably not the only one who feels that way.

grilled zucchini

• fresh zucchini
• olive oil
• coarse salt
• fresh ground pepper

Cut zucchini in half lenghtwise, season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil, or better yet spay some on if you have a Misto. Grill over a medium flame for about 10 minutes, turning once.

The dish: So it finally happened, the rain stopped for about 7 minutes and I was able to unwrap my grill from its cover and fire it up. For those of you who don't know me, I have a beautiful condo (technically my wife has it, she's just cool about letting me crash here) with a balcony about the size of an unfolded newspaper. There's no chance of me fitting one of those behemoth grills that seem to be so popular, and here in sunny New Windsor our elected officials have nothing better to do than dream up inane laws that prohibit me from having any bbq. All grilling that appears here is done on the down low using a grill that's about the size of a large shoebox (hey, like Bob Dylan said, if you're gonna live outside the law then you have to be honest). If you don't like zucchini, then try it grilled, it takes on a whole new flavor. It becomes crisp and moist all at once and begins to taste like the flame without overpowering the natural taste of the zucchini. It's one of my favorite veggies on the grill and I recommend trying it even if it means chancing a visit to the local kangaroo court.