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.

The $4 Steak Plate

Why dine out when you can cheaply home-cook and plate yourself some grilled London broil and fresh vegetables? Sliced cucumber I got from gardening: free. Tomato came free, a bonus from the farmer I buy eggs from. Lettuce is one-half of one-third of a package of three organic romaine heads, which means what's on the plate cost 70 cents. London broil got on sale, 18 ounces for $7.47, is 41.5 cents per ounce. That times the six ounces you see here is $2.49. That's $3.19 total. Add in the onion and the cup of cooking wine that went into the marinade, and the homemade steak sauce (recipe follows), and the meal cost around $4. Optional: a Stella Artois whose green bottle and red label matched prettily with the meal. It's a clean-tasting beer good for summer, with a great buzz factor. It came from a six-pack, so it cost $1.16.

Easy Homemade Steak Sauce. Very simple and you'll never want store-bought again.

1/3 cup raisins (Yes, raisins. You'll see.)

1/3 cup boiling water

1/4 cup ketchup

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons mustard

2 tablespoons plain white vinegar

salt and pepper

• Pour boiling water over the raisins in a bowl and let them sit 5 minutes until they're plumped. Then pour the raisins and their water into a blender with the rest of the ingredients except salt and pepper, and then puree until smooth. Salt and pepper to taste. Makes a little over one cup. I discovered that this sauce freezes well if you want to make it ahead.