Frozen Sauce Bases: Zucchini Peel Sauce

Sauce bases have turned out to be a really great way to freeze and later make use of some of the random veggie parts I cross paths with when I take home a bag-o-veggie scraps from work. I recently made a spinach and daikon stew from some slightly wilted spinach I took home and pureed and froze as a future soup base. I added the mandolined daikon leftovers from work to this base and tweeked it a bit with the addition of feta and millet and minced ginger and garlic. Not bad. I actually really loved the mandolined daikon addition, which we use at Licious Dishes as the noodle part of our rawvioli's. In the soup it still reminded me of noodles, especially once it was cooked and softened up. Try it. I recommend.

Then tonight I made a cheese sauce out of the zucchini peels I blended up and froze last week. I added to this the pureed basil stalks and some leftover thyme, plus about three dollops of sour cream and a handful of feta cheese (yes, again with the feta). I also put some garlic, oregano, and salt and balsamic vinegar into the sauce. Turned out really yummy. Put the sauce on top of whole grain pasta and garnished with pine nuts. mmm. Healthy aaand delicious. I'm saving the leftovers to use as a cheesy garden dip.

So, challenged by how to put up food fast before it spoils, just based on whatever I 'harvest', I think next time I will have to explore culturing or pickling some veggies. Kimchee, miso, kraut, pickled fruit, here I come!