Making zucchini pancakes 🎶

A day late! But just as fresh.

Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we keep chugging through our CSA box. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.

Zucchini and scallion pancakes (shortcut okonomiyaki!) at home

You can make it in your kitchen, too.

Remember how it used to be a common cultural trope that your neighbor wouldn’t stop giving you zucchini during the peak of summer? There’s even a National Sneak Some Zucchini into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day, which now seems incredibly quaint, because it implies I even have a porch or a charmingly antagonistic relationship with my neighbor instead of living in a studio apartment with no natural light and hiding from other human beings at all time. Anyways, the good news is that whether or not you know who your neighbors are, peak zucchini season marches on, with no regard for mankind. My favorite thing to do with zucchini is to make zucchini pancakes, sort of a shortcut okonomiyaki. All you need to do is to grate one super big (or two small) zucchini, sprinkle with salt, and squeeze the liquid out. Then grate in a lot of ginger (maybe an inch), season with more salt and pepper, beat in an egg, 100g (⅓ cup) flour, 1 tsp (5 grams) baking powder, and 1 chopped scallion. Fry dollops in veggie oil, flipping once, until nicely browned and crispy on both sides. Serve with a dipping sauce of 1:1:1 kewpie mayo, oyster sauce, and ketchup. I like to eat half the batch for dinner and the rest cold for lunch the next day.

Eggplant square slice at Made in New York Pizza

421 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10024

I have this theory that the reason NYC is the Pizza Capital of the World (which it is, fight me), is not because the really hyped up places are worth the hype (they may or may not be, I hate standing in line so I’ll never find out), but because at even a mediocre pizza place, you can find at least one really good slice. Now, I’m not saying Made in New York Pizza is mediocre, because it’s actually very good, but what I am saying is that the minute I walk into a pizza shop I can sweep my eyes over the counter once and know exactly what slice calls me the most. That slice is the Eggplant Square slice, which is a glorious, focaccia-like concoction topped with perfectly acidic chunky tomato sauce, a thin layer of melted mozz, and a big fat slice of roasted eggplant. It’s a feast of a lunch for less than $5.    

Mini Mint Ice Cream Mouthfuls at Trader Joe's 

Available at your local Trader Joe’s.

Now that I’m going back to the office again, this newsletter once again threatens to become a Trader Joe’s Ice Cream Review Blog. But how could I not write about Mini Mint Mouthfuls, which answer the eternal question: What if Oreos were filled with ice cream? The answer is that they would be absolutely delicious. Not only are these little sandwiches adorable, they’re mint-flavored, so they make an excellent after-lunch snack to freshen the breath. To top it off, they even snuck some tiny chocolate chips inside.

Plum wine and lemon spritzer at home

Or at the beach.

If last week was all about mocktail, this week we’re all about spritzers, drinks that keep it cool and refreshing with just a touch of alcohol. I love to make a umeshu plum wine spritzer, which tastes like Sprite but better, less sweet and with a dash of smoky sour plum flavor. I simply pour 2 oz of Choya plum wine (you need to get the kind in the big bottle with actual plums in it) in a rocks or wine glass over ice, top with 5oz of club soda, and a fresh slice of lemon.  

Honey berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream at home

In your kitchen, this weekend.

If you are eating berry cobbler and are not warming it up and topping it with vanilla ice cream so that the ice cream melts and pools into warm puddles of berry goo, I am sorry, but you are eating cold biscuits on top of almost-jam. There is nothing wrong with that except that everything is wrong and you are not letting the cobbler live up to its true potential. Also, it is very important that berry cobbler not be secretly cake on top of berries but lightly sweetened bubbling warm berries with buttery dollops of topping. The Chez Panisse blueberry cobbler is a good jumping-off point. To jazz it up, I used honey instead of sugar for the filling, because I was inspired by Sohla. Oh, and absolutely pair the warm cobbler with a really nice rich premium ice cream, like Van Leeuwen, none of that light stuff. 

Stay cool,

Soph

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