Recipe Test: Late Summer Tomato-and-Roasted-Pepper Salad

This recipe appeared in our local newspaper, the Oregonian FoodDay.  It's a good time of year for tomatoes, although ours here in Oregon are only just now starting to ripen.  I have almost no ripe ones in my garden; but thankfully, Erik and Mae have an abundance in theirs and they've been sharing them with us.  I really enjoyed this salad.  It has a nice combination of flavors with the garden tomatoes, capers, roasted red peppers (I used the jarred ones), and chopped green olives.  I added a chunked up avocado to mine too because I happened to have one in the refrigerator.  Generally, I'm not a big tomato-eater, unless the tomatoes are home grown ones.  This salad was good enough for second helpings, and it's a good way to use lots of tomatoes if you have lots to use.

And . . . in keeping with my 1,001 ways to use zucchini, I repeated a recipe I've made before:  Lowfat Zucchini-Onion Frittata.  This is a lower-fat version of a recipe that first appeared in Southern Living magazine in March, 2006.  I tried to find the link to it online, but apparently the lowfat version is not available at this point.  The Southern Living version now has higher-fat ingredients.  This version is simple to make and delicious.  What you don't eat for dinner, you can have for breakfast the next day.

I salted the vegetables before adding the egg substitute, although the recipe doesn't specify that.  So, here it is--another way to use up the zucchini you have from your garden

Zucchini-Onion Frittata

1 tablespoon  butter
2 medium zucchini -- thinly sliced
1 medium onion -- cut in half and sliced
1/4 cup  grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 15 oz. carton garden vegetable egg substitute (or use 8 eggs)
1/4 cup  lowfat 2% milk
1 teaspoon  salt
1/2 teaspoon  pepper
1/4 cup  chopped fresh basil
Garnish:  chopped seeded plum tomatoes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter with oil in a 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat; add zucchini and onion and saute 12-14 minutes or until onion is tender.  Remove from heat, and stir in 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese.

Whisk together eggs and next 3 ingredients until well blended.  Pour over vegetable mixture.
Bake for 13-15 minutes or until set.  Sprinkle evenly with remaining 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese and basil.  Garnish, if desired.