Barbecued Zucchini Rollups With Miyoko's Vegan Cheese

Zucchini rollups for your next tapas party!

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Great Appetizer or Tapas
In our quest to use all of our garden zucchini, Doug and I created this delicious rollup. This combination uses Miyoko's Winter Truffle vegan "cheese" but you can use any of your favorites or, if you eat dairy, it would work well with a goat feta.

Since Doug loves roasted red pepper, we included that in the rollup but I can envision a schmear of pesto or hummus or olive tapenade. Use your imagination and your favorite ingredients - the combinations are endless. But they all begin with this BBQ'd zucchini. Here's how to do it.

First, make some basting sauce by mixing together the following:

Basting sauce Ingredients:
1/4 cup veggie broth
1/4 extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions
Use medium size zucchini (not giant ones) and slice vertically into 1/2-inch slices. If they are extremely long, first cut them in half vertically. 

Sliced zucchini and basting sauce

Heat the grill on medium and scrape off any residue from previous use. Reduce the heat to low. Place the zucchini on the grill.

Generously baste with the sauce.

Cook very slowly, turning and basting occasionally until nice and brown.

Cook until nice a brown

Even though they are brown and a little crispy, they will be pliable. Remove from the grill.

Get your fillings ready. For our "cheese", we selected Miyoko's Winter Truffle.

Lay the zucchini on a plate, put a dollop of "cheese" on the bottom and place a strip of roasted red pepper along the zucchini, or whatever other filling suits your fancy.

Roll it up and up a toothpick to hold it together. I placed a halved cherry tomato on top but you can also use an olive or a marinated artichoke heart.

Enjoy!

Sweet And Spicy Vegetarian Baked Beans With Green Chilies And Jalapenos

One of my favorite brands of ready-made vegetarian baked beans.

Very Easy Vegetarian Baked Beans for a Crowd

When throwing a summer party, baked beans are always a favorite. They obviously aren't as healthy as having plain beans because of the added sugar, but once in a while it's worth the indulgence. Beans are high in fiber which helps you lower your cholesterol and stabilize your blood sugar levels.

This is one of the dishes on my Summer Solstice Party menu that we served at our family gathering last week. When you are feeding a crowd, it's nice to have a dish that goes together quickly. I've made baked beans from scratch but it's a lot of work and I've never been able to duplicate the taste of using Bush's beans in this recipe. After adding just a few additional ingredients I generally let the beans simmer in a crock pot all day but you can also make them on the stove. If you are feeding fewer people, cut the recipe in half. If you are feeding a larger crowd, double the recipe. Baked beans make great leftovers. My daughter loves to eat them along side scrambled eggs.

Are Canned Vegetarian Baked Beans Considered Vegan?

Some products, like Amy's organic vegetarian beans, state that they are vegan on the label. Although Bush's does not, they replied to this question by stating that they are "free of meat and meat by-products" and that all of their products are "dairy and casein free". Their ingredients do however include "sugar" (although most of the sweetness is from brown sugar) and they do not specify whether it's cane or beet. Some cane sugar refineries use bone char in the filtering process which discourages many vegans from using cane sugar but many refineries do not. Brown and beet sugar does not go through this process.

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Sweet and Spicy Baked Beans with Green Chilies and Jalapenos

[makes 12 servings]

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

Two 28 ounce cans of vegetarian or vegan baked beans

2 ounces mild diced green chilies (1/2 of a 4 oz. can)

1 tablespoon chopped jalapeno (fresh or canned, more or less to taste)

2 tablespoons unpacked brown sugar

Crock pot recipe:

Sauté the onion in oil for 5 minutes. Drain most of the juice from one can of beans and use all of the juice from the other. Put the onion, the beans and the rest of the ingredients in a crock pot and simmer on low all day or on high for 4 hours or more. Get a big slotted spoon and serve your guests from the crock pot.

Stove top recipe:

Using a 5 quart Dutch oven, sauté the onion in oil for 5 minutes. Add all the rest of the ingredients and simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, until the beans are thick and bubbly. Serve.

Per serving: 151.3 calories, 1.2 g fat, 0.2 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 6.1 g protein, 31.8 g carbohydrates and 5.3 g of fiber.

Grilled Zucchini and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich - What To Do with a Giant Zucchini

Slices of the giant zucchini filled the entire grill.

This Could Happen to You

My daughter-in-law's sister lives nearby. The other night she sent me an email. "I've left something at your door", she wrote. I've eaten all that I could but no one else in the family eats zucchini. I thought you'd know what to do with it". I went to the door and there it was, leaning up against the side of the house. It's August and I shouldn't be shocked as these things can get this big this time of the year. It was chopped off at the top where the poor dear tried to eat her way down the mutant zucchini that her neighbor left for her. At least two feet of it remained. I cut it in a few sections so that I could fit it into the refrigerator as I needed a day to figure out what to do with this thing.

The next day, after much deliberation, my husband Doug and I decided we should try to grill it. We just bought a big Webber BBQ and Doug is really handy at this type of cuisine. I had some nice roasted red peppers, goat cheese and red onions in the house and fresh basil in my garden. We picked up a fresh loaf of seeded sourdough at the local bakery. After carving off some of the bottom which seemed a bit tough, I cut the zucchini into 26 thick slices. Luckily the seeds had not yet matured so the inside was still fleshy enough to eat. The skin wasn't too thick either. The giant slices, each measuring at least 4 inches in diameter, filled the entire BBQ and Doug patiently brushed each slice with a 1 to 1 mixture of balsamic vinegar and olive oil with some garlic powder and salt. He flipped them over several times until they were nice and brown. Finally, the moment of truth came and as luck would have it, the slices were tender enough to eat!

We brought the warm zucchini slices into the kitchen and prepared the first sandwich. A little spicy mustard was spread on one slice of bread and soft goat cheese on the other. I put down a layer of roasted red pepper, then three slices of zucchini, a slice of red onion and a few leaves of fresh basil. A little freshly ground black pepper to top it off and the sandwich was complete and turned out to be very delicious. More importantly, we saved this poor overgrown zucchini from the compost pile. Of course we still have 20 more slices to eat before I can comfortably declare victory.

Be Prepared

We were lucky to save this one. Many of these baseball bat sized zucchini simply are too tough to eat. But if you have neighbors with gardens, you'd better be prepared. Either you must keep your doors locked and stop answering the phone until the fall or keep a few sandwich ingredients around and the BBQ handy. It wouldn't hurt to watch over the fence and remind your neighbor that there's a nice, tender, young zucchini ready for picking.

Coconut Chili Lime Corn on the Cob—For Your Vegan Friendly BBQ

Happy 4th of July!

Corn on the cob is a favorite this time of year, especially as a side dish for your 4th of July BBQ. Unfortunately, it is usually drowning in butter. For a healthier and vegan friendly way to serve this popular food, try this easy recipe.

Instead of butter, the fat used in this recipe comes from virgin, expeller pressed, unrefined, organic coconut oil. This type of coconut oil has been extracted by methods that do not use harmful chemicals or high heat and is readily available at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or your local health food store.

There is much debate and even more confusion as to the health benefits of tropical oils. Coconut oil is high in saturated fat but has no cholesterol. Being saturated, it is a stable fat which makes it less likely to form harmful trans-fats when heated. Although there has been much negative press in the past about tropical oils, (much of it sponsored by the American Soybean Association and the Corn Products Company), the places in which coconut and other tropical oils are consumed on a daily basis do not have a high incidence of heart disease. Coconut oil is high in lauric acid, a medium chain fatty acid which the body converts into monolaurin. Monolaurin has antiviral, antibacterial and antiprotozoan properties.

That being said, coconut oil is high in calories and should be eaten in moderation. I get a bit concerned when I see the quantity of coconut oil used in raw food dessert recipes. In a recipe like this, however, a few tablespoons is a good alternative to butter.

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Coconut Chili Lime Corn on the Cob [serves 4]

4 medium ears of corn, each cut into 4 equal pieces

2 tablespoons virgin, unrefined, organic coconut oil

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice, room temperature

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon Himalayan or sea salt

Gently melt coconut oil (put on low power in microwave for 10 seconds or more). Mix with lime juice and salt. Put all 16 pieces of corn in a large bowl. Pour the lime, coconut mixture over the corn and with your hands, thoroughly coat each piece. Sprinkle the chili powder evenly over the corn and place on a BBQ grill at low heat. Cook on all sides for a total of 10 to 15 minutes.

Per 4 piece serving: 139 calories, 8 g fat, 6.5 g saturated fat, 0 g cholesterol, 3 g protein, 17.6 g carbohydrates and 2 g of fiber.