By Julia

In our fourth box, there were greens.

That’s lettuce, collards, Swiss chard, scallions, and komatsuna. There are also some cousa squash and one lonely yellow summer squash, for variety.

As much as I would love to say that I lovingly prepared the greens in regionally-appropriate fashion (smothered the collards with black eyed peas and ham hocks, shredded the Swiss chard in fondue, lovingly crafted komatsuna bento) I really just chopped them all up together and sauteed them with olive oil and garlic. I think I am destined to be a greens underachiever. They were delicious, though, and made a great addition to my week’s lunches.

I had a better plan for the squashes- a healthier adaptation of eggplant parmesan.

I sliced them up as thinly as I could, then breaded and baked them. I served them over pasta I’d tossed with canned tomatoes and herbs and a big scoop of cottage cheese. I call this recipe ‘NotSagna’.

Squash (or Eggplant) for NotSagna

2 large zucchini, summer squash, or eggplant
1/2 c bread crumbs (I like whole-wheat), seasoned to taste
1/4 c grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
2 egg whites, or 1 beaten egg thinned with water
Pan spray (I only ever use pressurized oil)

Slice the vegetables as evenly as you can. I like to cut away a piece of the skin so that the squash lies flat- it makes it easier to get uniform slices. If you have a mandoline then I am jealous of you.

Mix the grated cheese with the bread crumbs on a plate. Pour your egg whites or beaten egg onto another plate. Swipe the slices through the egg mixture and then dredge them through the crumbs. I usually have to do this twice so the entire squash slice gets covered. I also do the center slices first, in case I run out of crumbs before I run out of squash.

Lay the breaded squash out on sprayed cookie sheets. If you have the kind of pan spray that is pressurized vegetable oil, lightly spray the slices of vegetables. Bake at 375º for twenty minutes- the tops of the veggies should be starting to brown- and then flip each slice over. Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the slices are soft. Serves 4.

Calories 200, Fat 9g, Saturated Fat 3g, Sodium 450mg, Carbohydrate 21g, Fiber 4g, Protein 10g (for ingredients given in recipe, not in picture!).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Blogs, What's In the Box. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.