Zucchini Salad

I hate to admit this. As a cook, everyone expects you to, well, cook all the time. But in the summer, the last thing I want to do is come home and heat up my house by turning the oven on, or cooking something on the stove. More often than not, I'm just slicing up some fruit, cutting up some good cheese, add some bread, and voila! Dinner.

I've been known to take some shortcuts with summer veggies too. For instance, your squash and zucchini from the garden - why cook, grill or saute your veggies when they are great on their own?

This is one of my no-recipe recipes. I take some stuff and toss it together depending on what I have in the pantry. But, here's a quick outline. Use more/less of each of these depending on your own taste.

Ingredients
1 zucchini, use a peeler or mandolin and shave the zucchini in long slices
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
Shaved Parmesan cheese (maybe 10 shavings?)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp. lemon juice
salt - to taste
pepper - to taste

Toss together the zucchini and pine nuts. In a small bowl, add about 2 tsp of lemon juice (I just juice 1/2 of the lemon), salt and pepper and then whisk in the olive oil maybe 1/4 cup total. TASTE! You can add more olive oil if you like it a little more mellow, or little less if you like a little more lemon.

Add the dressing and toss together with the zucchini and pine nuts. Top the salad with the shavings of Parmesan cheese.

Simple.

Want to spice it up? Add some fresh parsley, mix it up with fresh squash, try another hard cheese like a Romano or sharp provolone with the zucchini.

Enjoy!