— Katherine Collard

So the first thing is, I am Italian American, and zucchini are sort of like a base food in anyone's kitchen. So what I like to do is I like to cook zucchini in batches. And right over here you can see these. These are two zucchini, and they were medium-sized. I prefer a larger one because you can get a better thickness and you can get more slices out of it. But I roasted these in my oven at 425 degrees, and I love them because they caramelize beautifully. And if you wanted to fill them with rice or hummus or vegetables or whatever, they roll up beautifully and make a nice presentation. So if you are a griller, I would suggest to steam them first for about two to three minutes, however you like to steam them, and then pat them dry, and then season them how you like to season them. So the advantage of cooking in bulk is I could make some Italian, I could make some Mexican, I could make some Indian, I could make some French so that there's not one whole batch that is marinated with one specific spice or marinade. So if I were to tell you what I think the best way to marinate them is, if you go to the Rouxbe section on oil-free dressings, the lemon Dijon dressing makes a perfect marinade, and it grills beautifully, and I think that you would greatly, pardon me, enjoy the flavor. I think that sometimes people get stuck in that things have to be followed a certain way on a diet, and if you're watching cooking shows, the new expression is rather than saying eyeball it, I hear people saying that they cook with their heart. And I think that that is such a beautiful expression because the way that you might add ingredients might be the way your grandmother added ingredients, or the way that your mother did, or you want to try something different. So I'm suggesting to batch cook a bunch of zucchini, and steaming them is probably the best way, and then keeping them in a container in the refrigerator so they make an easy go-to. So tonight you wanted to barbecue with some red sauce, spaghetti sauce, to have with maybe some pasta that you might be having so that you kind of expand what it is that you like to do. So the funny thing is, and we'll talk about this really delicious Thai sauce I made. But I thought it was so interesting, today at the grocery store, I found a roasted ground coriander, and the flavor of it was so much richer than just using plain coriander. So you might want to head to your favorite spice store or spice outlet. And I know that there are some grocery stores that will allow you to buy an ounce or a half an ounce, and they have little plastic bags so that you can take home a spice and try it out and see if you like it, rather than buying a huge, gigantic jar and trying it out. So experiment. Garlic is always our friend, onions are always our friend. And I will also say, the sauce that you make in the unit on baked tofu, that is also a very good marinade because it has hickory sauce in it. And so it gives it a nice barbecuey flavor. So batch cook. And one last thing , I grew up in a house where you always squeezed out any extra moisture in eggplant or zucchini. So after you slice the zucchini into planks or whatever you want to call them, you're going to lay them on a tray with some towels on them, and then you're going to put another tray on top of that and something heavy. This was my grandmother's method for taking the excess water out of eggplant. And so this way you don't have a soggy zucchini at the end of your barbecuing or whichever you choose to do. So I hope that answers your question. Remember that using grated zucchini are perfect for making veggie burgers or just cutting them into coins is perfect for putting them into a soup or a stew or whichever. I find them very versatile and they grow beautifully in my garden, and I try to have them grow as big as they can so that I can get so much out of them.