Creamy Zucchini-Corn Soup Recipe

I bought a huge zucchini for 50 cents and with a bag of frozen corn and half an onion made this quick fat-free recipe--no butter, oil, or cream yet tasting creamy and great. From The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook (2000).

Creamy Corn-and-Zucchini Soup (10 servings; recipe can be halved)

6 cups chicken broth
2 cups diced zucchini (about 2 large)
1/2 cup chopped onion
6 cups corn kernels (fresh or frozen)
3/4 teaspoon salt (if the chicken broth isn't salted already)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
hot pepper sauce (red) (optional)

1. Bring broth to simmer in a large saucepan. Add zucchini and onion; cover and simer 2 minutes. Stir in corn, salt, and pepper, cover, and simmer 2 minutes. Cool slightly.
2. Put three cups at a time of the liquid in a blender and puree.
3. Reheat. Serve with optional hot sauce.

Recipe: Zucchini and Avocado Salsa Salad

This foolproof recipe from The New York Times in 2009, written by Martha Rose Shulman requires no skill, just chopping. Here's the link to the published original. I like my own photo and slightly changed recipe better. It works as salad, salsa, taco stuffing or pizza topping. So good it was chosen for the best 250 recipes from the NYT.

Zucchini and Avocado Salsa Salad

1 medium zucchini, cut into small dice
salt to taste
3 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 or 2 jalapeno or serrano peppers, seeded and chopped
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped cilantro or to taste
1 Haas avocado, ripe but not too soft, cut into tiny dice
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1. Sprinkle the diced zucchini with salt and drain in a colander for 15 minutes. Rinse if it tastes very salty and drain it on paper towels.
2. Combine tomatoes, chilies and cilantro in one bowl and zucchini, avocado, olive oil and lemon or lime juice in a serving bowl. Put tomato mixture in zucchini mixture and toss gently and salt to taste.

I serve this to guests with home-baked tortilla chips along with drinks. I eat it as salad, but in the Midwest you do not serve guests a main-dish salad. They will wonder where the meat is and why you are cheaping on them.

Make this soon or you'll wish you had. It's September and the homegrown tomatoes and zucchini are getting scarcer. And zucchini already feels a little bit passe.

The Best Zucchini Recipe

This side dish looks and tastes so good you'll be sneaking bites out of the pan before it gets to the table. I used orange and red bell pepper. This strangely sexy dish makes a great side but also a wonderful pasta or pizza topping. Chili oil can be homemade by putting several whole dried red chili peppers into a bottle of olive oil.

Chinese Charred Peppers and Zucchini

2 cups of zucchini, chopped into large dice
1-1/2 to 2 cups of red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 tablepoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons wine vinegar
1 teaspoon chili oil, divided
1/2 teaspoon sugar
salt

Chop zucchini in chunks and place in a bowl with a half-teaspoon of salt; toss. Let this mixture sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Then rinse, drain and pat dry. It's important that it not be wet.

In the meantime, make the sauce by mixing the soy sauce, wine vinegar, a 1/2 teaspoon of  the chili oil, and sugar in a small bowl.

Heat 1/2 teaspoon of the chili oil in a skillet on medium-high heat until it smokes. Dump the zucchini and pepper chunks into the pan, stir, spread them around and cook for 5 minutes, stirring and pressing down with a spatula now and then so most pieces get scorched a nice brown. If it's going too fast, turn down the heat. Then turn off the heat. Stand back and pour the sauce over the vegetables. It will bubble and simmer until it's absorbed. Good eaten warm or at room temperature.