Summer Cookin'

As I said in my last post, I am in a Long Beach, Ca. with my oldest son and Mr. SS., as they are doing an addition and remodel of a friends kitchen. We are staying in an old trailer park in our RV.  My son Scott is really good at BBQ, so Monday night, I marinated some pork chops and he BBQ'd them while I fixed one of my favorite summer veggies....Zuccini.

I started fixing zuccini this way when my boys were growing up. Veggies went down a little easier with either Ranch Dressing or Salsa ( or so my boys told me). My middle son Eric,still claims the only food I cooked that he liked growing up was tacos.  One night, I fixed zuccini and he poured on the salsa and ate it.

This is how I have always made zuccini since. It helps that I have more fresh baby zuccini from Avila Barn like those I bought at the Farmers Market in Arroyo Grande.

Start with the zuccini, a fresh clove of garlic, green onions and salsa (If I don't have homemade, my favorite is Santa Barbara Salsa found in the deli section of your grocery store.

Slice the zuccini (1/4" or smaller slices), chop the green onions and garlic.

Saute the veggies in a little olive oil (or use cooking spray) tossing until you see a little brown on the zucinni.

Add about 1/3 cup salsa.

Stir, cover and simmer until the zucinni just starts to turn translucent (don't overcook)

Add salt and pepper to taste (remember salsa usually has salt in it already).

Serve and enjoy!!

A little funny story to leave you with:
We always have applesauce with porkchops because of a Brady Bunch episode ( I know, you have to be of a certain age to know who the Brady Bunch are) where one of the boys says "Pork chops and applesauce" when they are having dinner. My boys always say that in the same way when we have pork chops.
Anyway... the funny part is, even though I wore my boys out on applesause, Mr. SS still  loves his applesauce and loves it with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on it (liberally)
After eating most of it, he said, "Taste this applesauce, it tastes salty"  I did and ran into the trailer and tasted the mixture I had made earlier to sprinkle on his applesauce....ugh....salty.
To conserve space, I often put things in ziplocs to bring in the trailer.  I had grabbed one of these thinking it was sugar and added cinnamon. (So proud that even camping, I would have applesauce like he likes it)
You guessed it, didn't you...note to self...always mark those ziplocs.

One of the reasons I love my Mr. SS so much is that  he will eat almost anything I make. I am a pretty good cook, but I still have those "Why did I make this" moments and he is always a good sport and tries to eat it.
Even "salty" applesauce.