Zucchini Wedges and Intellectual Wellness

An Abundance of Zucchini

‘Tis the ime of year when there is an abundance of many garden vegetables-zucchini being one of them.  There are so many things to do with zucchini. I’ve been having fun challenging myself to create ways to share them with you.  I realy like these Zucchini Wedges.  They can be be made using any herb or seasoning for endless flavor choices.

Fresh 10-12 inch zucchini

Zucchini is pretty versitle.  It doesn’t have much of it’s own flavor, but takes on the flavor of things its surrounded by.  That’s why it works well in both savory side dishes and sweet breads, cakes and desserts.  It makes for a nice filler, keeping things moist.  They are also fairly inexpensive right now.  If you know someone with who grows them, you may find them on your doorstep, mailbox or other places people can ‘gift’ them to you.

Zucchini makes the perfect pasta substitute without all the starch.  I just cut them up into bite-sized chunks and stir fry them with the rest of the vegetables, add them to casseroles, or in plcae of lasagna noodles.  I’ll also use a spiralizer, making ‘spagetti noodles’ out of them.  Using 10-12 inch (or smaller) zucchini makes it easier, too.  The seeds are soft enough you don’t have to take them out.

My dad likes to bread & fry zucchini, while my mom made breads and cakes out of them. I used to make and sell a zucchini bread with chocolate chips at the market.  I have fond memories of fried zucchini hot off the stove, and warm zucchini bread fresh from the oven.

These wedges, however are more like the potato wedges a friend of mine taught me to make.  They are super simple and make a great side dish.  They won’t be crispy or be as dense as a potato, as zucchini is soft when it’s cooked.  You can’t beat the burst of flavor these wedges hold, though.

Video Editing – Expanding my Horizons

Maybe you’ve noticed I’ve been adding videos back in for some of my recipes.  When I first started Good Food Connections, my tech-savy son helped me out & did some video editing for me, then I had a local high school student help me out.  I finally decided to purchase the software so I could experiement with the videos myself.

I enjoy learning as long as I have enough time to learn the skill or concept and don’t encounter too many obstacles.  Intellectual wellness is one of the eight dimensions of wellness people don’t think of-especially outside the formal academic setting.  It’s important to keep expanding our knowledge, challenging our brains to learn new things.  We get bored if we don’t.  We might learn something that makes our lives a whole lot easier.

Zucchini Wedges ready to enjoy!

Life-long learning doesn’t have to occur through books or classes, either.  Researching things on-line (use credible sources, though!), talking with others who can share a different perspective, way of life, or solution to a problem, experimenting with differnt ways to do things are all ways to foster intellectual wellness. The main thing is to be open to learning new information.  Whether you apply it to your life or not is your choice. The information may or may not work for you and your circumstances, but at least you found out about it.

Video editing has definately been a learning curve.  The first two videos took over 8 hours to edit.  I was tickeled when this one took less than 5 hours, though.  I don’t know if I’ll be as fast as my son (30-45 minutes), but it has been fun to see what I can do.  I’m definitley more mindful how I shoot the videos to make editing easier.  Video editing also spurred my creativity and motivate me to do more.  My hope is the video shows just how simple and easy these recipes can be.

Let me know what you think-

What did you season your Zucchini Wedges with?  How would you experiment with it next time?

Enjoy!

Zucchini Wedges recipe