Zucchini Salad

Yesterday was a fast day for us which mean we severely limit our caloric intake.  I know I've talked about this before.  Yesterday also tied the record high temperature for our area as well.  Given those two facts, I decided that a hot supper was not called for.  I was thinking about something cool, crisp, and light.  Thus was born, the Zucchini Salad.

Go to meals on our fast days are salads in the Fall and Spring, soups featuring Kale in the Fall and Winter, and Zucchini dishes in the Summer.  I've been doing the Zucchini as either spiralized noodles or straight julienned noodles.  I figured that for a cool dish something shorter would be more appropriate.  Given that, I cut the stem off the Zucchini at an angle and used that angle to run the Zucchini through the julienne blades of the mandolin.  That gave nice little 2 - 3 inch long match sticks.  Add some sweet peppers, mushrooms, and pickled beet stems and you have a tasty salad.  To finish the salad I used Uncle T's pickled green tomato vinaigrette.
 
The Zucchini Salad was accompanied by a lightly fried White Bass fillet.  The whole meal came out under 400 calories for each of us.  That could be cut to almost 300 calories simply by seasoning the fish and either baking it or pan frying with some zero calorie non-stick spray.

Quite a meal for under 400 calories

Zucchini Salad, this is a per person recipe.

1 medium zucchini
1 - 2 oz sweet peppers
1 - 2 oz mushrooms
1 oz pickled beet stems
salt
black pepper
Uncle T's pickled green tomato vinaigrette


Julienne the zucchini and put in a deep bowl.  Slice sweet peppers and mushrooms and place on top of the zucchini.  Lay out the pickled beet stems and cut in half to make pieces slightly shorter than the zucchini.  Pour 1 - 2 Tbs of vinaigrette all over.  Toss the salad to mix the components up and evenly spread the vinaigrette.  Plate and add salt and pepper to taste.

A note about Uncle T's pickled green tomato vinaigrette.  I'm not going to give the recipe for this.  One of Uncle T's plans for the future is to be able to market my spice mixes and hot sauces.  The good wife suggested that we should look into the possibility of marketing the vinaigrette also as neither of us has seen anything like it on the market.  You can try to come up with your own but I don't use the normal proportions for making a vinaigrette.

Uncle T's vinaigrette in a cruet that belonged to the good wife's grandmother

Fried White Bass

1 fillet per person
Panko bread crumbs
Uncle T's season salt
Korean fine pepper powder
2 Tbs oil

Put Panko in a pan that is long enough to hold a fillet.  Sprinkle one side of the fillet with season salt and coat evenly.  Place the fillet in the Panko seasoned side down.  Sprinkle the other side with the Korean fine pepper powder.  Shake the pan around to get Panko on both side and press down with the palm of your hand to get some to stick to the fillet.  Put the fillet in a hot skillet that has the 2 Tbs of oil in it.  Let it cook till the edges are dark and turn fillet to other side.  Let that side get to desired doneness and plate.

According to the container, a serving of Panko is 1/4 cup.  The way I do it with these fillets uses less than that for each fillet.  The light coating of  Panko is to give a bit of texture and a slight crunch. 

So, the bottom line, zucchini makes a pretty good salad.  Give it a try sometime.

Uncle T