This is right out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two.  It is surprisingly tasty.  My Sweet Lady Wife - who is not a zucchini fan - raved about it.

And it was easy to make.  With the grating disk in my food processor it took all of about 30 seconds to grate all that zucchini.  

Because you are adding salt to the zucchini after grating in order to draw out the moisture, it's probably best that the butter at the end be unsalted.  My favorite unsalted butter is Life in Provence  Unsalted Butter, produced in Ré in Poitou, South of Brittany.

Sauté of Grated Zucchini and Chopped Spinach

2 lbs zucchini
1 lb fresh baby spinach
3 Tablespoons Olive oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, pressed or mashed
3-4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Sale and pepper

Cut the stem and tip off each zucchini and grate them.  Toss the grated zucchini with 2 teaspoons of salt. Let drain in a colander for several minutes.  Take one handful of the grated zucchini at a time and squeeze out most of the liquid.  Place the zucchini on a paper towel.

Drop the baby spinach leaves into boiling water and leave them there just for a minute or so until they are limp.  Drain and run cold water of the spinach to stop the cooking.  Let it cool and drain a bit.  One handful at a time, squeeze the liquid out of the spinach and then coarsely chop it.

Put the olive oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat.  When the oil is hot, add the zucchini and garlic.  Stir frequently.  When the zucchini is almost tender add the spinach and mix together well.

Put a lid on the pan and turn the heat to low and let it cook until the spinach is tender, stirring frequently.

When it's ready to serve, remove form the heat and stir in the butter. Salt and pepper to taste (I added neither)

A well-known local French Bistro charges $29 for Dover Sole Meuniere. I created double-portions for two (my wife and I each had TWO filets) for $6.54. It takes about 10 minutes to prepare Sole Meuniere. Granted, there's comes with three vegetables. We're eating a little lighter these days and so my version was served with one veg: Braised Leeks.

Never had braised Leeks, you say? Oh you are in for a melt-in-your-mouth treat. Factoring in the price of the leeks, I spent $14.01 on the ingredients for this exquisite meal.

Sole Meuniere

1-2 boneless, skinless Dover Sole filets per person
3-4 Tablespoon clarified butter or ghee
1/2 Tablespoon chopped fresh parsley per filet
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter per filet

Pat the filets dry, lightly salt and pepper them.

Set the saute pan over high heat and add the clarified butter. Let the butter get hot but not to the point where it starts to brown. Quickly dust each filet with flour and lay them in the pan. Don't crowd them. My 12-inch sautee pan holds four filets comfortably.

Let them saute for a minute or two and then turn them over. Be careful: sole filets are thin and fragile. It helps to have a spatula designed specifically for turning fish. When the filets have cooked a minute or so on the second side remove them from the pan to a warm plate, sprinkle with parsley, and cover with foil.

Drain the butter from the pan and use a couple of paper towels to wipe the pan clean. Put the pan over high heat and add the unsalted butter. When the butter has melted and is bubbling, pour it over the filets.

The leeks, you say?

Shuna Fish Lydon's exquisite leek recipe can be found here.

I keep a folder in my browser full of bookmarks for interesting recipes and I started thru it for fish. I found this recipe that I bookmarked over three years ago: Roasted Salmon on Braised Spinach. Simple; Uses spinach which the garden is producing in abundance; Most of the ingredients were on hand. Sold.

Not only did it taste good, it was one of the prettiest meals I have made in a long time.

Roasted Salmon on Braised Spinach

2 Salmon fillets, skin on
1 teaspoon chopped fresh dil
1/4 teaspon paprika
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Enough spinach to loosely fill a 4-qt mixing bowl
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 500F

Lay the salmon down on a foil-lines rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with dill, paprika, pepper, and a spritz of lemon juice. Set aside for the moment.

Heat a large non-stick saute pan over medium-high heat. Saute the shallots in the olive oil for 3-4 minutes, until they begin to brown. Add the spinach a handful at a time, toss. When the spinach wilts, add a spritz of lemon juice. Salt and peper to taste.

About half-way through the process of cooking the spinach, put the salmon into the oven. I used a thermometer to check doneness (135F, 18-10 minutes). When the salmon is done, remove from the oven.

Place the spinach on individual plates. Pull a bit of the salmon skin away form the filet, grab the skin with some tongs, and slide a thick spatula between the filet and the skin to neatly remove it. Place the fillet on top of the bed of spinach and serve

It was just as good.

The internet abounds with sauteed Swiss chard recipes - I wanted to try something a little different. Could I come up with an all-in-one dish? My Sweet Lady Wife is a meat-and-potatoes gal, so I needed to figure out how to put those in there as well.

Time for an experiment. No recipe. Totally winging it. TIme to put on the helmeet, goggles, and parachute. They don't call me the Fumbling Foodie for nothing.

And for added measure, I decided to live stream this experiment via ustream as well as record it. 'Why?', you ask. For the same reason they have a camera on the EOD guys when they work: If something went wrong, at least someone might figure out what it was. Unfortunately the sound volume is a little low. Next time I'll fix that.

The results were outstanding. We loved it. Here's the recipe. SInce I didn't really measure anyting, the quantities are approximate:

Enough Swiss Chard leaves to fill an 8qt bowl
2 slices applewood smoked bacon
1 small boneless sirloin, filet mignon, or other high-quality beef
1 garlic clove, sliced
1 can low-sodium beef broth
3/4 pound Dutch baby potatoes, peeled.
1/4 cup white wine
1/8 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes.

Slice the beef into very thin strips.

Wash the Swiss chard. Cut the center stalk out of each leaf and then tear the leaves into chunks about 2-inches square.

Fry the bacon in a sauté pan over medium-low heat. When the bacon is crisp, remove it from the pan. Add the garlic. Let the garlic sauté just until it starts to brown, then remove it from the pan and discard it. Add the beef strips. Cook for about 2 minutes then turn each strip over and cook for one minute more. Remove them from the pan and set aside.

Add the wine to the pan and deglaze. Add the beef broth and potatoes. Bring the broth to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook the potatoes until they are tender when pierced with a fork. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook off almost all the remaining broth.

Begin adding Swiss chard a handful at a time. As it wilts down, add another handful. Repeat. When you have two handfulls left, add the beef and bacon back into the pan. Add the sun-dried tomatoes with the last handful of Swiss chard.

Serves about 4

Bethesda, MD:
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(A large portion of this list was contributed by OnlineRestaurantMarketing.wordpress.com, many thanks.