Mrs. Bentley's Best

What says summer more that zucchini and fresh garden tomatoes?  Grill ’em!!  That says “SUMMER” even more!

Ingredients:

• 2 medium zucchini
• 2 medium yellow summer squash
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil for tomato relish, plus 1 more tablespoon for zucchini
• 2 teaspoons rice vinegar
• 2 teaspoons chives, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
• sea salt and pepper to taste

For the relish:

Quarter the cherry tomatoes.  If you use larger tomatoes, do a small dice.  Mince the chives and add to the tomatoes in a medium-sized bowl.  Chop the fresh basil and add to the tomatoes and chives.  Gently toss, add sea salt to taste and drizzle with about 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Sprinkle the rice vinegar over the vegetables and toss one more time.  Let hang out to rest while you prepare the squash.

For the squash:

Preheat gas grill on high.  Wash and trim ends from zucchini and yellow squash.  You want thin slices of squash to grill, but you don’t want a slice that has the outer skin.  So, trim a sliver of skin from each squash, lengthwise, on either side of each squash.  Then you can thinly slice, lengthwise, each squash into grillable pieces that only have skin around the edges, not an entire side.

Lay the squash slices on a platter and sprinkle with salt.  Let rest for one half hour if possible.  This allows the moisture to be pulled off the vegetables.  Drain the liquid from the platter.  Drizzle olive oil on the squash and re-season.

Place each slice on a hot grill.  To get great grill marks, place the slices on an angle on the grill.  After about 3 minutes, using tongs, reverse the angle of the slices.  Think of making an X, the first angle is to the right, then reverse each slice to make the other leg of the X, to the left.

Once you have the great grill marks on one side, flip each squash slice over and grill for only 2 minutes more.  No need to have beautiful grill marks on both sides! 

Serve the squash slices with a dollop of tomato relish on top.  Tastes just like a warm, sunny summer day!