Fried Zucchini

Lately I have been obsessed with making fried zucchini. I made some soup and instead of buying bread to have along side it, I decided to get some zucchini to fry up. It's really simple and super delish! I try to slice the zucchini so they are all the same thickness, dip them into an egg mixture (egg, mustard, and a splash of water), and then into Italian style bread crumbs. I like to fry them in EVOO over medium heat until both sides are a nice light brown color. Don't cook them too long or them will get super soggy. This sometimes happens when you cook them on low heat instead of medium. Don't cook them too long or the crumbs will burn. The true secret to the yumminess of the zucchini is the mustard in the egg mixture. Now I've never liked mustard before but yet I love using it when I'm breading and frying things. It doesn't really taste like mustard, just gives it a little extra zing!

Veggie Lasagna

Coming from a half italian family, I love pasta. I haven't gotten the chance to learn how to make any homemade macaroni from my grandmother yet, but I still like to mingle around with boxed macaroni and different concoctions to make. For Valentine's Day I planned an evening with some girlfriends and decided to cook some dinner. This is the perfect opportunity to cook something different and maybe more unique cause we have each other to help out. I asked if we could do a lasagna and between all of us we had pretty much all the ingredients we needed. This was my first time making lasagna and I was very excited. My grandmother makes a plane cheese lasagna which is amazing. I am a meat eater but for some reason do not prefer to eat meat in my lasagna so we chose to try a veggie lasagna with roasted veggies. Normally you would select a pan, 9x9 or 9x13, and then boil the amount of noodles needed. We however, had no boil noodles so we just selected a pan and moved on to the next step. We chose our veggies, cut them up, salted, peppered and oiled them and broiled them. In the mean time we combined a large tub of ricotta cheese, 1lb mozzarella cheese, and 2 eggs until smooth. Once the veggies were done we just had to assemble: noodles, sauce, veggies, cheese. End with noodles and sauce on top. For the sauce we just used a can of garlic and basil. We then baked it at 350 for about 40 min. Served with a caesar salad, garlic bread, and wine and it was a great dinner!

Sushi

I have only tried sushi a few times before and never really had any luck with it. It just wasn't my thing. But I always wanted to like it. I like eating various foods from different nationalities. So far though, my attempts at sushi have been with prepackaged stuff which is never any good. Recently I tried it again though. Still prepackaged, but I realized it wasn't the taste of raw fish that turned me off, it was the seaweed that it is wrapped in that bothers me. We then ventured out to a good sushi restaurant in Seattle, next to the water, fresh fish, made right there as you order. It was suggested to me by some friends that I try sushi with soy paper instead of seaweed if they offer it. That then should be more appealing to my palate. The restaurant was able to swap the paper for whatever rolls I liked. I got the yummy roll, tempura shrimp, cream cheese, avocado and cucumber I believe. With the soy paper it was amazing. So good. I tried someone else's with soy paper and it was also amazing. I retried one with seaweed again, fresh not prepackaged, and still didn't like it. At least I know what the problem is now. Sushi with soy paper, yum! Soy paper all the way!