Iron Chef: Zucchini

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Clockwise from top: Zucchini stuffed with lentil-walnut pate (vegan cheese topper); string beans in vegan cream of mushroom glaze, cucumber-zucchini-corn salad, boca slider, and zucchini-mushroom-olive-jalapeno pizza.
We've canned, frozen, pickled, sold, and eaten fresh hundreds of pounds of food this summer already; but to celebrate our recent abundant harvest of zucchini and other fresh veggies (aquaponic lettuce, anyone?!) we decided to host an "Iron Chef" cookoff Friday at Better Farm.

With zucchini as the secret ingredient, we tasked contestants with coming up with dishes featuring the flavorful vegetable. Here's what they brought to the table:

The Menu
  • Zucchini-Cucumber Salad with Lemon Juice and Corn (Holly Boname)
  • Zucchini Stuffed with Lentil-Walnut Pate (Nicole Caldwell)
  • Sliders featuring Locally Sourced Beef (or Boca burger), Aquaponic Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cucumber, and Zucchini Slices (Nicole Caldwell)
  • Homegrown String Beans in Vegan Cream of Mushroom Glaze (Matt Smith)
  • Zucchini, Jalapeno, Mushroom, and Olive Pizza (Nick Bellman)
Every ingredient came directly out of Better Farm's gardens (exceptions: lemon juice, lentils, walnuts, mushrooms, soy milk, homemade pizza dough, cheese and olives). Here's the spread:




It was too tricky to pick a winner, so we just ate until we couldn't take another bite. Stay tuned for the next round!

For any of the above-listed recipes, e-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.
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Nicole Caldwell

Nicole Caldwell is a self-taught environmentalist, green-living savant and sustainability educator with more than a decade of professional writing experience. She is also the co-founder of Better Farm and president of betterArts. Nicole’s work has been featured in Mother Earth News, Reader’s Digest, Time Out New York, and many other publications. Her first book, Better: The Everyday Art of Sustainable Living, is due out this July through New Society Publishers.