Recipe for Zucchini Mousaka

Yesterday I spoke a bit about tending the home garden and peace that comes from growing your own meals. Today, I thought I would share the details of one of the dishes that I grew, called Zucchini Mousaka.

Zucchini is an excellent vegetable to grow in the home garden for a number of reasons. First, it is easy to grow, and quite prolific. A handfull of well tended plants will produce and produce. As a squash, they provide meaningful substance. Essentially the "meat" of the meal. Second, there are hundreds of ways to prepare zucchini, so that life never gets boring. From soups to mousaka. So moving past steamed squash, let's see what we can do with our Zucchini out of the home garden.

One of the most important practices in cooking or preparing food, is to connect with it. Prepare food in a way that meets your mood. Eating is very intimate. You will bring the food into your body, and it will make you, literally. The entire process and form must enhance your life and way of living. Food is not only nutrients. In preparing my zucchini on this day, I chose the Bulgarian recipe for Tikvichki (Zucchini) Mousaka. Since my wife is from Bulgaria, there is a strong emotional connection for her with this dish, a comfort food if you will. For me, who did not grow up on it, it is somewhat exotic and adventerous. This day, I was expecting a visit from a friend down from the San Francisco Bay Area. This seemed like a nice way to communicate our essence through food. Eitherway the connection is there.

In the morning, I went to the garden to collect the ingredients for the dish. I chose 3 sumptuous zucchini. I also picked some bunching onions (these were grown from a gift by a friend), and carrots. In the bowl, there is also sweet basil, and grape leaves. The grape leaves I collected for the Sarmi's, which I will write up at a later time.

An aside about the grape leaves, I have several vines in home garden area. Mostly wine varieties that I planted years ago as an experiment. I have never ever got any grapes out of them. The birds just love grapes too much. Some day I will have to net them. Once I tried, but I did not secure the nets at the bottom, and the little birdies came in from the bottom and cleaned me out. For now, I have resigned myself to giving them the grapes, and eating the leaves (smiles). Maybe next year I will try to make some homemade wine.

Back to the mousaka....

The traditional recipe for Mousaka calls for:

2 lbs. Zucchini

2-4 tbsp. oil

2 eggs

1/2 lb feta cheese.

Then for the topping, you need:

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

Assorted spices including salt, pepper, and dill

I supplied the home grown ingredients as follows:

Zucchini -> from the home garden

Oil -> olive oil from my neighbor's farm

Eggs -> from my neighbors free range chickens. If you live in the area, you can buy eggs from Elizabeth too. Click here for details.

Feta & milk -> ummm, I had to buy this, currently no local supplier.

Spices -> I didn't use salt or pepper (I personally don't like to cook w/ salt). And I didn't have any dill. So instead, I chopped up the carrot tops instead. I also grated the carrots and used those for added flavor.

Preparing the Mousaka

1. I peeled and sliced the zucchini into flat strips lengthwise. Maybe a little finger's width wide. Then I sauteed them in the olive oil until soft. Lightly brush a glass oven dish (rectangular) with olive oil, then place 1/2 the zucchini inside to completely cover the bottom. Then I added the grated carrots as another layer on top of this. Beat the 2 eggs and mix in the feta cheese and pour over the zucchini. Then completely cover this mixture with the remaining 1/2 of the zucchini. Bake for 40 minutes or so at 350 in the oven.

2. Mix the topping ingredients, 3 eggs, milk, and chopped carrot tops. After 40 minutes of baking above, remove and pour this topping over the top, and return to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes or so until the topping becomes firm.

Remove from the oven, and let cool a bit. Then you can cut the mousaka into squares, and add a dollup of mint yogurt sauce (I make this by mixing mint from the home garden, into yogurt that I buy from the store). Serve and eat! Mmmm.

So how did we do on getting everything from the home garden? Well we certainly got most of the main ingredients from the garden, and fortunately I have neighbors that raise olives and chickens. The only other ingredients that I could not supply were the dairy: cheese and milk. There are dishes that do not require these ingredients. We will explore those in the future. After all, food is an adventure.