Hi! Today we’re chowing down on an unusual gluten-free recipe. In place of croutons, this charming Mexican-inspired salad has popcorn! Yes, popcorn. How clever is that?

Charred Summer Salad — gluten-free
and a great idea for using up a bumper crop of zucchini

You’ll find the recipe for  Charred Summer Salad on page 55 of the free PDF version of “Good and Cheap”, which you can download at leannebrown.com. And if you’re working with a print copy, it’s located on page 39.

Ingredient Notes
This salad is nice and simple. It takes:

• zucchini
• corn
• olive oil
• feta cheese
• popcorn

The dressing recipe takes:

• olive oil
• lime
• chili powder

How Did It Taste?
I didn’t change any of the ingredients (although I did use frozen corn instead of shucking my own) and taste-wise, I thought that this one was pretty good. With a little bit of practice and some fiddling, I think it could be really good.

But I’m not totally sold on the idea of popcorn in a salad. Sorry! It sounded so fun that I really wanted to like it.

I’d never tried charring vegetables, and I think I need some practice to get the zucchini and corn properly charred, which will enhance the flavour. (In fact, the next time I make this, I’ll focus on the zucchini and just heat up the corn in the microwave.) And I’m willing to bet that if you skipped the broiler and grilled the vegetables on a barbeque, you would wind up with some mighty fine charred zucchini.

Time and Money
It was easy to cut this down to a half-recipe, which made a generous supper for one adult. Although the salad took me about 38 minutes to put together, I’ll predict that the next time will be quicker — as I perfect my blackened-vegetable skills. And the total cost was $3.37.

Edible Footballs
This is a good time of year to feature a zucchini recipe. Zucchini will grow almost anywhere, which makes them ideal for the Zone 3 climate in my hometown of Edmonton. It’s been a hot summer and my co-workers are already bringing in their excess zukes, which are as big as regulation-size footballs.

So if your backyard is populated with these giant green bad boys, try out this recipe or the very yummy Chocolate Zucchini Muffins, which appear in the breakfast section of “Good and Cheap”. 

And that’s it for today! Next up, we’re going to try out Wilted Cabbage Salad, which strikes me as a very curious name for food. See you then!