Tag: dinner

Yes, you can freeze Zucchini!

A quick weeknight dinner

We’ve all been there, staring at the refrigerator trying to see what to whip up for dinner. Sometimes there’s a plan, and sometimes there isn’t and today was that day!

It was Monday evening and we had chicken. We did not have any fresh veggies so I opened the freezer and saw some zucchini wedges I had frozen from the height of the pandemic.

Decision time

Soy Lime Grilled Chicken is always easy and yummy so I decided on that! I make this marinade all the time so I usually don’t measure.

Here’s my guesstimate!

  • 3/4 cup of soy sauce
  • 1 spoonful of minced garlic
  • 1 spoonful of honey
  • juice of one lime
  • a few shakes of red pepper flakes

Just dump the chicken in and let it sit at least 20 minutes before grilling.

Then I found an inspiration for hibachi style veggies. I was a little worried about the zucchini being frozen but it was the only veggie I had to work with. I heated up a skillet, drizzled some sesame oil in the pan and dumped the frozen zucchini in.

The zucchini started to release a ton of water so I just let them cook until the water started to dry up. After several minutes, the zucchini started to brown. This process took a while so I browned some sesame seeds while I was waiting for the water to cook down.

I tried to resist the urge to stir the veggies so they wouldn’t turn to mush. I mixed together a little soy sauce and squeezable ginger and drizzled it over the zucchini and then sprinkled them with the sesame seeds.

Pulling it all together

Finally, I used some leftover jasmine rice, put about 2 tbs of butter in it and squeezed a half a lime into the rice after I zested the peel into the rice and microwaved it for 3 minutes.

We took the chicken off the grill, the sides were ready and dinner turned out better than expected! I have a lot of friends who have a lot of zucchini coming out of their gardens so YES, you can indeed cut it up and freeze it and still enjoy it months later just like this!

Enjoy!

Summer nights

Oh how I love Summer nights!   Grilling yummy food and enjoying the evening sunset!   My husband and I have been trying to eat healthier…. you know how that goes!  So we recently found this new favorite recipe for Cedar Plank Salmon!  It’s absolutely to die for!

We also found that the marinade works great on shrimp!  We’ll skewer the shrimp after marinating and grill those too!   So incredibly yummy!

You can find Cedar Planks in your grocery store in the fresh fish section – at least you can in ours – and I recommend stocking up.  We only use our boards once.. they are not very expensive and really make the dinner amazing!    We also keep a jar of crushed/minced Ginger on hand so we don’t have to grate it for this recipe AND finally…. If you buy scallions and chop them.. you can freeze what you don’t use and use them for the next marinade.  We’ve also substituted minced onion in a pinch and it works great!

CLICK on photo for recipe!

Now enjoy your evening at home… a delightful dinner… relaxing in your own back yard! Priceless!