When Martin eats egg for breakfast (this morning: duck egg cooked with broccoli sprouts in hemp oil, sheesh), he likes to have “French fries,” too. Martin cannot eat white or red potatoes, and his sweet potato intake is limited. So his French fries are usually butternut or acorn squash, cut into fry shapes, misted with olive oil and sprinkled with salt or seaweed flakes, and baked at 450°.

This morning I had no winter squash. I improvised. The result was a big hit with both Martin and Adrian. Henceforth these will be known in our home as “zucchini seed fries.”

½ of a large zucchini, peeled and cut into “French fry” shapes about 1/8” thick
sunflower (or another) oil
sunflour
sea salt

Place the zucchini fries in a bowl and drizzle them with oil until they are more or less coated, stirring as necessary. Put a small amount of sunflour into a shallow dish. Use one hand to pull a fry from the oil, shake off any excess oil, and transfer to the other hand to coat in sunflour from the shallow dish. (This helps to prevent the sunflour from getting too caked with oil, although I still needed to change it midway for a fresh dish.) Place on a baking sheet and salt to taste. (No need to oil the sheet.) Bake at 400° until browned and sizzling.

The resulting fries have a pleasant nutty flavor and are quite substantial. Note that they tend to break easily and so are better eaten with a fork than as a finger food.

This morning Martin had his favorite grain-free pancakes, made with duck eggs instead of chicken eggs. He did not seem to notice any difference. Samara tried the pancakes and said they were as tasty as always but that she was having trouble getting past the idea of eating duck eggs. Whatever eggs you use, these pancakes are protein-packed and deliver a hefty serving of vegetables, too. In terms of the vegetables, this morning I pureed a yellow summer squash. I have also made these pancakes with butternut squash, acorn squash, and cauliflower; I find that with those more wintery vegetables, it helps to dice and steam them before pureeing. No steaming is necessary with a tender vegetable like summer squash. This recipe is adapted from one I saw on Pecan Bread.

1 cup pureed vegetables
3 chicken eggs or 2 duck eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
coconut or macademia oil

Mix all ingredients other than the oil well. If you are using a food processor, put the eggs in last and don’t let them get too foamy. (Usually I puree the vegetables in the food processor but whisk the eggs by hand and then mix everything together by hand.) Heat the oil in a large skillet and pour in batter a few tablespoons at a time. Cook until the pancakes until they are firm on the bottom, then flip them and cook for another minute or two. They come up oily, so I usually drain them on a paper bag before serving. As a bonus, especially when cooked in coconut oil, these pancakes leave a delightful sweet smell lingering for hours in my kitchen.

I’m going out tonight, so I just threw this together and left it, unbaked, in the refrigerator. Samara, who is staying late, will just have to bake the dish for Martin to have a fresh dinner. This is adapted from a recipe I saw once on the Pecan Bread site. One nice facet of this recipe is that, whereas nothing is actually fried in oil, and the baking temperature is not too high, you can use a variety of unrefined oils. Today I used walnut oil.

1 cup sunflour
1/2 cup finely grated squash
1/2 cup finely diced celery
2 tbsps minced turnip (used to be onion, but we lost onions on Saturday)
1 tbsp minced celeriac (used to be bell pepper, but we lost peppers on Saturday)
1/4-1/2 cup minced fresh herbs
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 cup vegetable juice (I used squash juice, another creation of my nighttime activities)
1 egg, whisked (today, a duck egg, thanks to the detective work of Adrian)
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp kelp granules or triple-blend seaweed flakes (I often use in place of salt)

Mix all ingredients well and pat into a lightly oiled rectangular glass baking dish. Bake 25 minutes at 350º and cut into patties.