Saturday, Part 2: Appetizers in the form of Zucchini Keftedes

Last weekend, Adam's parents took us grocery shopping.  This will always and forever be an amazing treat because eating well can sometimes be extremely expensive. I picked up lots of fruits and vegetables and made a very conscious effort to use everything before it went bad and base our dinners off whatever we had, buying whatever we needed along the way.  So far so good!  The mushrooms we bought last Saturday were starting to fade, so when I was making turkey stock on Friday, I threw them in there, along with the leek ends I had saved from the chicken and leek stew earlier this week.  Take that!

I knew I wanted to try a bunch of recipes from Bon Appetit's latest issue because it got me that excited so I picked up a bunch of zucchini and dill so I could make the Zucchini Keftedes yesterday.  My girlfriend was coming over for a Harry Potter marathon, and she doesn't cook a lot at home, so I like to try out new recipes on her.  She is also one of those people who has said she will try anything once.  Good, because I know Adam and I won't.

I started prepping for the keftedes, or fritters as I called them, right after I put the Impossible Pie in the oven.  While holding a bunch of mint, I hacked into my finger nail.  Terrible.

After you grate a bunch of zucchini, you sprinkle it with some salt, let it sit for about an hour on a dishtowel, and then squeeze the hell out of it to get the water out.  This proved more difficult than expected because I was scared my fingernail was going to fall out, so I squeezed more delicately than normal, but I still got a lot of water out.

Mix up the zucchini with dill, mint and scallions!   GREEN! MY FAVORITE!! Oh, and lemon zest, garlic and pepper. 

Gently mix in a beaten egg and a cup of panko, and then even more gently fold in a cup of crumbled feta (not pictured).

Assemble into baby patties and let them sit in the fridge for a few hours.  This is crucial because they were starting to get pretty soft, and if you tried to fried them, they would just fall apart.  I think I left mine in the fridge for three hours.

I panfried them in an iron skillet with some canola oil.  However, at first I automatically threw in olive oil because it was right there, it's what I use the most, and then I realized I picked the wrong one.  I had so many keftedes to make that it was fine, eventually, but who the hell pan fries with olive oil?  NO ONE.

They were fucking delicious.  Definitely not a weeknight thing, but perfect for a nice Saturday with friends.  Also, that little bit of lemon zest?  Perfect.