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Flexible side dish stars zucchini and corn

Recipe: Stir fry is a variation on succotash

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED JUL 26, 2020

Fresh zucchini and corn get some pop from red onion, garlic and basil. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Into every vegetable gardener's life a little zucchini will appear. Or a lot. Even if you don't grow it, you wind up with it anyway -- hey, did someone leave that on the porch?

Zucchini bread, sure, is a great way to use it. (Have you tried making the blog's famous chocolate zucchini bread ?) And grilled, stuffed, etc., all have their place. But the search for more ways to use summer squash is a ubiquitous summer pursuit, so the side dish here is really handy. It also makes great use of fresh corn. Think of it as a modern take on succotash.

I came up with this a few years ago. It's a no-recipe recipe, in that the list of ingredients is just a suggestion. Vary it any way you like, with whatever you grow or find at the farmers market. But this particular version is really, really good.

Note: I included the green beans because I had them. Diced bell or hot pepper is another option. Lima beans aren't on my list of likes, but if fresh ones are available, try those, too.

Onion slice, zucchini, basil and ear of corn

Simple, fresh ingredients make this side dish a winner.

Zucchini-corn side dish

Serves 4 (easily doubled, or more)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/3 to 1/2 cup diced red onion (from one large slice of of a large onion)

1 8-inch zucchini, trimmed, cut lengthwise into quarters and then sliced thin.

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ear fresh corn, kernels stripped off the cob

1/2 cup green beans, lightly steamed or blanched, optional

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Handful of fresh basil leaves, cut chiffonade or torn

Instructions :

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Cook the red onion for a minute or 2, stirring. Add the zucchini, continuing to stir for a minute or so, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.

Just a few minutes of stirring are needed.

Reduce heat to medium and add the garlic. After another minute, add the corn kernels, and the green beans, if using. The goal is texture like stir-fry, crisp-cooked without getting too brown.

Taste and adjust seasoning. Just before removing from heat, stir in the basil, saving a leaf or two for garnish. Serve alongside grilled meat and caprese salad.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes summer cooking gardening Sacramento summer vegetables backyard produce produce management zucchini summer squash summer

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Food in My Back Yard Series

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Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch-to-1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.

* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.

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