A Ronde de Nice Recipe: Zucchini, Tomato and Pepper Stir-Fry

We harvested our very first Ronde de Nice zucchini on Friday, July 19th. In fact, it's the very first zucchini we've grown completely by ourselves, from seed to vegetable.

It's such a pretty little zucchini. It's shaped almost like a little pumpkin, with dark green stripes and veins of green against a whitish-green background.

Having only one zucchini at this stage, and four people in the family to feed, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it. My sister, however, is going to culinary school at George Brown College and often gets to bring home leftover ingredients. She happened to make ratatouille at school the other day, a dish consisting of zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant, and brought home a large amount of Roma tomatoes.

Inspired by the ratatouille dish she made, I decided to make a zucchini, Roma tomato and pepper dish as our side vegetable for Friday night.

Here's the simple recipe.

Ingredients

• Olive oil 
• 1 red onion
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper 
• 1 Ronde de Nice zucchini (You can, of course, use whatever kind of zucchini you have on hand) 
• 6 Roma tomatoes
• Fresh basil (I used our own cinnamon basil)
• Fresh oregano 
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika

Instructions 

Begin by preparing the vegetables. Peel and dice the red onion. Peel and give the garlic a fine chop. Chop the red and green peppers in to large chunks. Cut the zucchini in to round slices, and then quarter the slices until they are about the same size as the peppers. Slice each Roma tomato in half, scoop the seeds out with a spoon, and then roughly chop the Roma tomato halves. Julienne the basil and chop the fresh oregano.

Now start to cook the vegetables. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Once heated, add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook a couple of minutes until translucent. Adjust the heat if necessary to avoid burning the garlic and onion.

Add the red and green peppers to the pan. Cook them until they are still crisp but beginning to get tender.

Add the zucchini to the pan. At this point, I would add your salt and pepper to taste, and a few generous pinches of paprika.

Once the zucchini is nearly cooked through add the Roma tomatoes to the pan. I did this because I didn't want the tomatoes becoming mush. Also, at the very last minute you can add the fresh basil and oregano. Add more salt and pepper at this stage if you think it's necessary.

Megan