The Balanced Kitchen

Time for food. Time for Life.

Zucchini & Eggplant Pie

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When I was a kid my godmother had a picture up in her kitchen of a woman being attacked by zucchinis. They are flying at her from all directions and she is covering her head in panic. I was always fascinated by that picture and when I asked her why she had it, she explained that a friend had given it to her as a joke, knowing how much she hated zucchini. When I asked her why she hated zucchini so much, she said it was because it didn’t taste like anything and there were always everywhere.

At this time of year I always think back on that picture as I struggle to come up with more and more ways to use up the zucchinis which seem to breed like rabbits in my refrigerator drawer. I start to throw zucchinis into everything—bread, pancakes, pasta sauces, I even roast them into chips. Luckily, this works for just the other reason that my godmother doesn’t like them: they are bland. Zucchinis will soak up whatever flavors you put next to them, they are a sponge. And so, instead of seeing the blandness as a bad thing, I am trying to see it as an opportunity for experimentation.

This Zucchini & Eggplant Pie is the outcome of just that sort of experimentation. My friend Darci shared her favorite zucchini and corn pie recipe with me. I didn’t have corn, but did have a ton of baby eggplants, so I decided to play. I used the basic technique she shared with me, simplifying it to one pan instead of two, and decided to add spices and flavors that would compliment the eggplant—Middle Eastern spices and feta cheese.

The outcome was awesome! My 9-year-old exclaimed, “I can’t believe how good this is!” and my 7-year-old, who was incredibly skeptical since he is not a fan of zucchini, ended up eating almost his whole serving, even after filling up on bread. This dish is very simple to pull together and makes a nice summer dinner. It would also be great for a brunch or served cold for lunch. So if you are drowning in zucchini like I am, give this one a try.

And now I’m off to make zucchini bread…

Zucchini & Eggplant Pie
 
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Recipe type: Dinner, Brunch, Lunch
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ½ yellow onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 large or 3 small zucchini, thinly sliced (1/4 inch or thinner), about 4 cups
  • 1 small eggplant, thinly sliced (1/4 inch or thinner), about 3 cups
  • 5 eggs, beaten
  • 4 oz shredded mozzarella, plus a little more for the top
  • 4 oz crumbled feta
  • ¼ cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 Tablespoon Za’atar seasoning (or ½ Tablespoon dried basil and ½ Tablespoon dried oregano)
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 375.
  2. Slice the onions, zucchini, and eggplant. In a large, deep oven-safe skillet (cast iron works well here), melt the butter over a medium-high heat. Add the vegetables and sauté until soft, about 8-10 minutes. When you put the vegetables in the pan will be very full. Don’t worry, they will shrink down as they cook.
  3. While the vegetables cook, mix together the spices, cheeses, egg, and flour.
  4. When the vegetables are ready, take the skillet off the heat and pour the egg mixture on top. Stir gently to make sure everything is covered in the mixture. Sprinkle a little extra mozzarella on top. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil and place in the oven.
  5. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the lid or foil and turn the oven to high broil and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the cheese on top is starting to bubble and brown. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold.

 

Grilled Fennel and Red Onion Salad

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Over the past year or so my sons have shown little to no interest in what I choose at the farm share each week. This has been a source of disappointment for me for two reasons: 1) I love walking through the selections with them and talking about their favorites as well as about new fruits and vegetables they (or we) hadn’t tried yet and 2) I felt like somehow this weekly ritual that I consider to be such a privilege and treat just seemed commonplace to them. Then this week I realized that I was seeing it all wrong.

My older son was playing at the nearby playground while I was picking out our food and I called him over in the hopes that he would help me pick out one last vegetable. He came trotting over, I told him what I had already picked out and asked him to pick out one more vegetable. He walked around the table, looking at everything that was there, and then reached for the fennel. As we walked back to the car he asked if he could munch on a stalk of fennel as we drove home, which of course I happily agreed to, and in that moment I realized that the magic of the farm share had actually been working the whole time. You see, not only did he enjoy fennel (which I did not know even existed when I was his age!) to the point that he couldn’t even wait to get home to eat it, but all those years of weekly treks to the farm share had gotten him to a point where he was able to recognize everything on the table and make an informed decision that was truly exciting to him!

So in honor of his appreciation of fennel I wanted to share with you a favorite grilled salad that helped me to learn to enjoy this vegetable that I was not crazy about when I first tried it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with fennel, when it is raw it has quite a strong anise (black licorice) flavor to it, but if you roast or grill it the flavor changes completely and it become subtle and sweet. This salad can be made on the grill outside or on a grill pan on your stove and it is a great summer salad to serve with grilled meats or veggie burgers. It is light, refreshing, and wonderfully crunchy.


Grilled Fennel and Red Onion Salad
 
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Recipe type: Salad, Side
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 small red onions
  • 2 small bulbs of fennel
  • 1 tablespoon crumbled feta, or more to taste
  • 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves, or more to taste
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • half a lemon
  • salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat your grill or grill pan and set it to a medium heat.
  2. While the grill is heating, cut the onion into ½-inch thick slices. Then cut the stalks off of the fennel bulb so you are left just with the bulb. Cut it in half lengthwise and then, like the onion, again into ½-inch thick slices.
  3. Brush the onion and fennel slices with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, on both sides.
  4. Lay the slices on the grill let them cook for 3-5 minutes on each side, or until they are just starting to soften.
  5. Place them on a platter and top with thyme, crumbled feta, a drizzle of olive oil, and a good squeeze from the lemon. Add more salt and pepper, if desired.

 

Arugula and Radish Mini-Frittatas

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A while back I shared about my realization that one of my sons really, really needs protein in the morning in order to make it through until lunchtime and I shared some of my protein-packed breakfast items that were fitting the bill. That list has served us well, plus a good deal of eggs/egg sandwiches, breakfast sausages, and bacon. But I wanted to throw something new into the mix as we launch into the summer when the protein will be important for those active camp days… these arugula and radish mini frittatas are perfect!

I want to be honest with you, a year ago these frittatas would likely not have been a success in my house because both of my boys were very skeptical of radishes, but this year they have discovered the joys of a crunchy, fresh radish, which has made salad-making a lot more fun recently and has made these frittatas an easier sell. So, if you’ve got a kiddo who is giving you a rough time about the seasonal produce that you are so excited about, all I can say is stick with it, keep introducing it in different ways, without pressure, and one day you may turn around to discover a little person crunching on a radish they plucked from the dinner salad as they were setting the table. Miracles do happen!

The main reason I am really loving these mini-frittatas, though, is that they are the perfect make-life-easier cooking project. They are quick and easy to make, freeze well, include another dose of vegetables, and can be used for any meal—serve with toast and you’ve got a quick breakfast, add some breakfast potatoes and you’ve got brunch, serve with a side salad or grain salad and you’ve got lunch or dinner. So, please, while arugula and radishes are at their peak (now!), make a batch or three of these to stash in your freezer for your next crazy morning or what-am-I-going-to-make-for-dinner-tonight?! evening. You will be so glad you did.


Arugula and Radish Mini-Frittatas
 
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Recipe type: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Brunch
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 3 radishes, diced
  • ¼ yellow onion, diced
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cups arugula, roughly chopped
  • 8 large eggs
  • ⅓ cup feta, crumbled
  • ¼ cup milk
  • ½ teaspoon dried basil
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼-½ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 and grease or spray a muffin tin.
  2. Dice your onion and radishes.
  3. Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized skillet over a medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, but not smoking, add the onion and radishes and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onions and radishes are starting to brown, around 5 minutes.
  4. While the onions and radishes are sautéing, wash and roughly chop your arugula.
  5. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk until well combined. Stir in the feta, milk, basil, salt, and pepper.
  6. When the onions and radishes are ready, add them to the egg mixture, along with the arugula, and mix well.
  7. Divide the mixture up evenly in the muffin tin, a little less than ¼ cup per cup.
  8. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until they are slightly firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes. Run a small knife around the outside of each frittata and remove gently to cool on a plate or cooling rack or serve right away.

 

My Favorite Summer Picnic Recipes

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This morning, as I was driving home after dropping my kids off at school, I heard an interview with Samin Nosrat who just wrote a book called Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat*, which I am SUPER excited to read (just got it for my birthday, woo hoo!). In the interview she was recounting a memory from her childhood in San Diego of coming out of the ocean after hours of swimming, ravenous and then greeted by her mother’s perfect beach snack—cucumbers and feta wrapped in lavash bread with frozen grapes or watermelon slices on the side. As I listened to her recount this wonderful, summer memory, I was myself taken back to my own favorite beach meal memories from childhood. How amazing those sandwiches my parents made tasted, even with the sand mixed in, how sweet and juicy the fruit seemed to be, and also how those meals shared over a towel on the sand always felt so special.

So in honor of Memorial Day Weekend and the official start of summer, I thought I would share some of my favorite summer picnic foods:

Flexible Granola Bar

Simple Grain Salad

Savory Zucchini-Corn Muffins

Simple Roasted Chicken and Vegetable Medley Sandwiches

Smoke Salmon Frittata

Roasted Summer Vegetable Dip

*This page contains an affiliate link. If you purchase a product through these links, your cost will be the same but I will receive a small commission to help with operating costs of this blog. I only link to products I personally use, trust, and love. Thanks for your support!

Mediterranean Spinach Dip

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“I received free samples of Sabra Hummus mentioned in this post. By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by Sabra and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.”

Sometimes the best things are simple. Super simple. That was a lesson I was reminded of as I worked to develop a recipe for this Sabra hummus recipe contest organized by The Recipe Redux. You see, I kept trying to come up with some innovative, creative, blow-your-mind-surprising use of hummus. Hummus croquettes and sweet potato toast towers were two of the almost-blogworthy recipes I worked on. Both of them were good, both of them were kind of fun, but as I sat down to write about them I just couldn’t get inspired. And then yesterday it kind of hit me: I was just trying too hard. I was making things more complicated than they really needed to be. So I pushed those two recipes aside, perhaps I’ll come back to them at another time, and decided to keep things simple.

Honestly, when I stop to think about it, making things too complicated has been kind of a theme in my life recently, as well as the hope that I can instead simplify (please tell me I’m not alone in this struggle). This recipe was a wonderful reminder for me that simple is often better. That sometimes we have to let go of our over-inflated expectations for a more balanced reality that will actually make us happier, as is the case with this rockstar, super simple dip.

So in honor of National Hummus Day on May 13th, I give you my Mediterranean Spinach Dip. A super simple, vegetarian, plant-based protein powerhouse of a snack that takes all of 5 minutes to make. Everyone in my family went nuts for this one and an added bonus is that it is another opportunity to get vegetables into everyone’s diet without cajoling or reminding. It works really well with crackers or chips, but also with crudité. My husband also recommends using it as a spread in a sandwich. Haven’t tried this yet myself, but it sounds amazing! Enjoy!


4.0 from 1 reviews
Mediterranean Spinach Dip
 
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Recipe type: Appetizer, Snack
Serves: 8
Ingredients
  • 3 cups frozen spinach, thawed and drained
  • 1 cup Sabra Classic Hummus
  • ½ cup crumbled feta
  • 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon thyme
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
  1. In a food processor, blender, or with an immersion blender, blend all the ingredients until smooth. Serve with vegetables, tortillas chips, or pita chips.

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Recipe Roundup: April Edition

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This month is kind of a wacky month for my recipe roundup because three of these recipes come from one cookbook: Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem: A Cookbook*. I have a complicated relationship with this cookbook. I love it because everything that I make from it comes out so well, the pictures are beyond beautiful, and the recipes are truly inspiring, but I also find it challenging because many of the recipes include obscure ingredients that, truthfully, I am not willing to drop lots of money on to possibly use just once before they go bad. So I have started adapting when I use the book and so far that has worked out pretty well!…

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Potato Skin Crisps and 4 Easy Ways to Reduce Food Waste

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This month’s The Recipe Redux challenge is one that is near and dear to my heart (and actually a topic that you may have heard me talk about before):

In honor of Earth Day on April 22, we’re challenging ReDux members to show how they reduce food waste. Whatever you would normally toss, use it up. Share tips for reducing food waste in meal planning, prep or using up scraps.

There are so many reasons, from environmental to financial, why reducing food waste is a great goal and if I am being totally honest, it is an area that is still a work in progress for me. While I almost never let cooked food go to waste, I struggle with what to do with all of my vegetable scraps since I don’t have a yard big enough for a compost bin. Some of them I store in gallon-sized freezer bags to use when I make vegetable or chicken broth, but often times those bags (yes, there is more than one) reach capacity and so then I end up tossing peels, ends, and cores—and feeling guilty about it every time. Not very productive, I know.

So, if you are like me and throwing food away makes you crazy, here are some ways to at least start reducing food waste that have worked for me. And, please, please, please share your tips and tricks in the comments so we all can benefit!…

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Honey Greens: A Taste of Spring!

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Early spring is by far my favorite time of year. I love it when the colors start to creep back in—the grass becomes more vibrant, the evergreen leafs get brighter, and the buds on the trees start to come to life. And then there is always that one day when it all suddenly POPS! As I was driving my kids to school yesterday I suddenly noticed how GREEN everything was looking and I realize that it was that POP day!

That green showing up everywhere always gets me thinking about and craving green vegetables. Sadly, though, salad greens are kind of tough and lame at this time of year, but the sautéing greens, such as kale, mustard, and chard, are all great, so I figured now is the perfect time to share my tried and true honey greens recipe with you!

Honey Greens

This is a spin off on a recipe my brother introduced me to years and years ago that used brown sugar instead of honey. Before having his version I had never really enjoyed chard or mustard greens, but once he put these sweet and sour greens down on my plate I was hooked! This is a recipe I often share with clients who are skeptical of greens and is also a side vegetable that I can (usually) count on my boys to enjoy with gusto. If you have lots of mouths to feed and will be doubling or tripling the recipe, I am a big fan of a mix of chard and mustard greens, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them!


Honey Greens
 
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Recipe type: Vegetable, Side
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • Dash of cayenne (optional)
  • ½ cup onion, chopped
  • 1 bunch of kale, mustard, or chard greens. Stemmed, rinsed, and torn into bite-sized pieces.
  • 1 tablespoon rice or apple cider vinegar
  • ½ tablespoon honey (or more, to taste)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. Heat the oil on medium-high head in a large frying pan and add a dash of cayenne (if using).
  2. When the oil is hot and shimmering, but not smoking, add the onion and cook until it is translucent.
  3. Turn the heat down to medium and add greens, stirring constantly. When the greens have turned bright “army” green, turn off the heat.
  4. Add the vinegar and some salt and pepper. Stir to mix and then drizzle the honey over and give it one last stir. Serve immediately.

 

Moroccan Sheet Pan Chicken

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I developed this recipe for a fellow blogger, Raquel at Sincerely Nourished, but wanted to make sure you all got to see it to! This is a super simple recipe anyone can throw together for dinner and is so packed with flavor you will feel like you are on vacation in North Africa!

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Recipe Roundup: March Edition

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I’m back with another edition of The Recipe Roundup! This month’s recipes were super successful, so I am excited to share several quick, easy, and tasty recipes to add to your rotation!

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