Nothing Was Delivered

It’s week six and I think we’ve all had all the greens-sautéed-with-pasta as we can stand. Today the idea was for something a bit more substantial. 

We decided on fritters. The farmers markets are full of Jersey zucchini, squash, and peppers. Mix those with whatever greens you have on hand, throw in some binder, and fry the suckers. 

The recipe is easy enough. Cut two zucchinis in thin strips. Julienne, as they say. Dice up one green bell pepper and one shallot. 

Blanche some greens. How much? Well, remember that when you cook greens, they’re going to shrink quite a bit, so the rule of thumb is to just way more than you think you’ll need. Clean them, stem them, and place them in gently boiling water for a couple of minutes, until the leaves start getting tender. Then quickly transfer to ice water to stop the cooking. 

Then throw your zucchini, pepper, shallots, greens, and anything else diced or julienned that you feel like (any root vegetable would be pretty great, I thinking carrots next time) into a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg with about 2 teaspoons of water, then pour it over your veggies. Salt and pepper liberally. 

Meanwhile, get a cast iron skillet going with about 1/4 to 1/2″ of oil boiling. fill a dish with about 1/2″ of flour, and season with salt and pepper. Then take a handful of your veggie / egg collaboration and toss it in the flour. Take it out of the flour, form a patty, and pack it down pretty hard. They don’t need to be handled the the velvet gloves that burgers do. Squish them down, slide the fritter into your oil, and let it cook. 

Once the fritter is browning on one side, flip it and cook on the other. That’s about it. You could serve with sour cream or guacamole. We happened to have some pesto mayo made up, so we used that. For a side dish we each had a handful of animal crackers  ’cause we’re grown ups and we can do that, thank you very much.