zucchini parm

Everybody's got a soft spot for food that reminds them of the good times. Some people get a bite of risotto into their pie hole and are brought back to the day of their wedding; that's a classic Pavlovian response to a previously established physical cue.

People like me who will never have an opportunity to bond emotionally to another human for the rest of their lives don't necessarily have to miss out on all of the fun; there are plenty of positive things an anti-social outcast, like myself, can experience as a mortal being on this earth. When I was a freshman in school, I was working on set a lot and will generally agree that most of my best memories as a youth come from that period of my life. Incidentally, for some reason, a lot of the people I was working for happened to be hippies, so, in a bizarre, cosmic twist of faith, I ended up getting introduced to many types of vegan cuisine for the first time on those gigs, as well. I had my first vegan mac and cheeze in the middle of a public park while sitting on an M18 case. It was terrible. But still a powerful experience, nonetheless.

The dish that comes immediately to mind for today's recipe is a vegetable lasagna I ate during a school-sponsored production when I was like nineteen. I've #zucchinified it to match this week's theme; let's get involved.

one zucchini

one bunch of spinach

six mushrooms

half of a block of tofu

polenta meal

spaghetti sauce

corn flour

olive oil

unsweetened non-dairy milk

nutritional yeast

pistachios

italian herb mix

garlic

salt

pepper

I don't think this dish technically qualifies as a "parm" of any variety. Fuck off. Let me reminisce in peace.

Slice the zucchini lengthwise into thin boards. After letting it sit there for a few moments, pick one up and take a closer look a the inner flesh's surface.

Do you notice anything unusual happening? If your zucchini is anything like mine, it should be weeping tiny little droplets of water. Those excretions will only set you up for disaster in the oven, so let's do a little bit of preventative work before we move on to the other ingredients.

Lay them out onto a paper towel and then place another sheet on top; keep doing this until all of your pieces of zucchini have been incorporated into the tower. Find a heavy baking dish, a bowl, and the three biggest things in your pantry. We're about to give these fuckers a nice squish.

I know this looks ridiculous. I went through a brief phase where I was drinking a shot of apple cidar vinegar first thing every morning before work. I used up my last fucking email address replenishing my supply on Thrive only to drop the ritual frivolously and for no reason only days after it arrived. Women are fickle. Focus on science.

After a good twenty minutes of pressing, the zucchini should be ready to go into the trash bag. I just drizzled on some olive oil and tossed in the corn flour. Close enough, am I right?

Once they're covered, get them all onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and put them in at 375° until they're toasty.

While that happens, I highly recommend getting a head-start on your tofu ricotta. This part of the recipe was my own original stroke of genius; something that vegans should be more open to is the idea of using pistachios to emulate the flavor of salty cheese either instead of or in conjuncture with nutritional yeast. I have no idea how nutritional yeast because the poster-boy for down-home vegan cooking. I chose to use both here, mostly because I wasn't sure if the pistachios would actually work. Spoiler alert: they did. Try it at home and thank me later.

Get it all into your blender-cup, adding just enough non-dairy milk to keep things moving. Adjust salt levels to taste. If you used enough pistachios, you certainly won't need much.

Slice the mushrooms to about the same thickness as the zucchini. By now, our friends under the coil should be more than ready to join the rest of the party. Oblige them. Remove the tray from the oven and let them cool for ten minutes before assembly.

Here we go. Shots like this always get my blood pumping; they trick my id into thinking we're about to put together a god damn zucchini parm, at six-thirty in the morning. Not quite, brain. Maybe tomorrow.

Once you've made it to this point, it's all gravy. Get yourself to work building each layer; I added a generous sprinkle of italian herbs over each helping of sauce. My preferred pattern of approach? Polenta on the bottom, sauce, mushrooms, ricotta, spinach, sauce, zuchinni. Then maybe some more tofu, then mushrooms again, then zucchini, and then another layer of spinach. I think. I don't remember exactly what went down on this particular day. Preheat your oven to 350° and stick the dish in for half an hour or so.

Presentation? A four, at best. All I had left after building this monstrosity was a dollop of tofu, six mushroom ends, and an extra slab of baked zucchini. I did what I could. I was honestly so focused on the inside that I completely forgot that I would also be responsible for decorating the outside, as well.

Cross-section. To the layman, this probably looks quite underwhelming, but beauty is only skin-deep and looks can deceive. Do you see those layers? I was really shooting for the stars in terms of the number of layers I installed into this pie. The entire time I was convinced it would come out of the oven a sloppy mess, yet here she is, prim, proper, and structurally sound. It all worked out in the end. Life isn't so bad sometimes.

I got my fork right in there almost immediately after this photo was taken; I ate a bite, closed my eyes, and all of a sudden I was twenty years old again and still had a bright future ahead of me. These are the moments I live for now that I'm a washed-up failure with no potential as an individual.

In the tags, this recipe is classified as a "dinner," but as an insider I can tell you that this also makes a devilishly good breakfast. There's something about the heartiness of this dish that gives me the courage I need to leave my house in the morning. Pair with strong coffee and see for yourself.