Recipe Review: Summer Squash Carpaccio

I was inspired two-fold this morning when I saw my friend Becky posting about squash and my new favorite blogger, Jane Lear, writing about smothered lettuce.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a picnic hosted by my coworker, when I unfortunately had to work right up until the party. In my endless search for easy and impressive cold appetizers, I found the mother load... summer squash carpaccio

Now I love cheese and lemon and chances are that any dish involving a combination of these two is a winner in my book. The recipe is from Food Network and very well may be the BEST recipe I've every taken from their site. Check it  out:

Thinly slice yourself 1 yellow squash and 1 zucchini and arrange on a plate (a mandolin works best, but unfortunately since I am poor/a beginning cook I do not own one. I just thinly sliced circles, but long strips look pretty too)


Drizzle with minced olive oil and copious amounts of lemon juice and sprinkle any combination of fresh mixed herbs (I used basil, oregano, parsley and garlic) and shallots or garden onions.

Season that layer with salt and pepper and grate cheese, like Parmesan or pecorino, over the top.

Let it sit in your fridge. (This is the best part) The lemon juice cooks the zucchini so you can make it 8 hours ahead or 3, and it still turns out wonderful!!

I got a ton of compliments on this dish and so many people asked me for the recipe. Since is was SO easy I didn't give the recipe out because I pretended that it was SO HARD.

...sneaky.

I'm married -WTF.

Has it really been three weeks since my last posting?! Who knew getting married would be so time consuming. Just a little rundown of how things went:

Got married Wednesday, June 29, 2011 on near the Chesapeake Bay on the Tred Avon River. It was nearly perfect (aside from the fact my veil stuck to my false eyelashes the whole time and our niece Lexi screamed through the whole ceremony. She was not having a good time). The reception dinner was the best meal of my life and started a long chain of caloric eating that resulted in five pounds by the time I made it back to Grantsville.

Went to Baltimore on a mini-honeymoon where the first day we went to an expensive Italian restaurant (had a bottle of wine), then went to the Oriole's game (had four beers) and finally came back to the hotel bar where I had four chocolate martinis. Result: newlywed puking her guts out in a four star hotel bathroom...I couldn't quite make it back to room 3606.

Mini moon jellyfish

Next day of minimoon: Managed to make it out of bed by 10 a.m. only to look out my window and see construction workers hanging from some ropes outside my window on the 36th floor. Did I mention that my romper also made it's way to the kitchen section of our suite? Once I got over the shame/hangover, we went to the aquarium. Like usual, several homeless people approached Paul on our way there and 20 minutes of pointless conversation and $5 later, we made it inside. Saw a snake shedding it's skin and my favorite part were the moon jellyfish. Then we ate lunch (Italian obvi), walked around little Italy, changed for dinner and went to the Rusty Scupper for some seafood. It was delicious and our waiter Charlie, who was on his second day at the job, wished us a hearty Mavel Tov on our nuptials and gave us free champagne.


Now I'm just married.