HEALTHY, YUMMY, WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK?

This makes a delicious hot lunch, and the wonderful aroma will tempt the most ardent zucchini-avoiders to dig in. The fact that it's low calorie, vegetarian, and cheap fades to irrelevant against the outstanding flavor. The following recipe serves two adults or one teenager.

HOT ZUCCHINI SANDWICHES

2 6-8" good crusty rolls (the rest of this lunch costs very little, so splurge on these)

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil or PAM

1 medium zucchini, cut into 3/4" cubes

2 mushrooms, sliced

1 clove of garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

sprig of fresh oregano, chopped fine (optional)

1/2 cup spaghetti sauce

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1 tablespoon Parmesan

sprinkle of garlic salt

Turn on oven to 375 degrees. Spray 2 12x12" chunks of foil with Pam and set aside.

Heat a medium skillet over medium high heat. Add oil or spray and then zucchini and mushrooms. Stir frequently until zucchini starts to brown. Add in garlic and continue to cook until you smell the garlic. Add pepper flakes, spaghetti sauce, and oregano and stir a little longer until all is hot.

Split rolls almost all the way through. Ladle in the zucchini mixture, top with cheeses and the garlic salt. Wrap up in the foil and put in oven to melt the cheese and crisp the rolls (about 15 minutes).

The Famous, Infamous Costco Chicken

So every grocery store has its 'signature' roasted chicken, just waiting to become your new best friend. I'm convinced that the Costco bird is a feather or two above the flock for its size and succulence, but any freshly cooked chicken can be a treasure for a hungry last minute cook. The problem, however, is the size of the bird when you are cooking for just one or two. When just plain chicken and chicken sandwiches have lost their appeal, here is a really yummy salad, which uses ingredients you may already have. If not, pick up the missing ones when you buy your chicken.

CURRIED CHICKEN SALAD
2 tablespoons dried diced onions
1/4 cup mayonnaise or light mayo
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup cooked chicken, cut into small bites
1 stalk celery, cut into 1/2" pieces
2 tablespoons dried onions
1/2 cup grapes, cut in half if large
2 tablespoons softened raisins (let stand in a little boiling water for several minutes and then
drain)
1/4 cup chopped pecans, zapped on high for 30 seconds

Start putting the ingredients in a bowl in the order given, mixing as you go. Serves two generously.

HABITS

At the end of it all, it's not our occasional great deeds, our frequent misdeeds, our talents, our flashes of brilliance or our fleeting physical attributes that define us. It's our habits. We all know gifted people who never accomplish anything. Shot-in-the pan, one act wonders, big talkers with little or nothing concrete to show the world. In the end the habit of getting up, getting at it and getting it done will far outweigh sheer gifts. Perhaps it is the most precious gift of all.

So I leave a challenge: pick out one good habit and develop it for the month of February. Be it making your bed, working an hour a day on the next great American novel, saving ten percent of your income, or planning and cooking a month of good food, habits form a solid base from which the remainder of our existence can spread.

Food is an important part of my life. Planning, shopping, cooking, enjoying and even cleaning up nurture bodies and strengthen family bonds. Some of my best memories of my mother come from the hours we shared while I dried the dishes she washed and we practiced singing harmonies (actually she mostly sang the harmony while I struggled to stay faithful to the tune!). Some 46 years of cooking and cleaning later, I have developed a good habit for getting nutritious food to the table. It starts with collecting recipes. I scan and print from magazines and library books, download from the internet, and even copy things which catch my eye from my own considerable collection of cookbooks. These get stashed in the back of my huge three-ring binder. When it comes time to go to the grocery store I pull out three or four recipes from my stash which represent a wide variety of main dishes: some quick to cook, some requiring more preparation or a stay in a slow cooker. To these I add three or four side dishes. Some days the main dish and the ever-present salad are enough, some times very simple entrees need more help. Then I add two or three entrees from part of my four-decade repertoire which need no written recipe. On the computer I type menus down the left hand column and list ingredients which are beyond what I consider staples in the right column, even if I have them on hand at the moment. I staple recipes and menus together and make a shopping list which reflects items from the right hand column I need to purchase as well as breakfast and lunch items which are low. This process takes about an hour. BUT, everything I need to fix dinner for a week is right at my fingertips, it's easy to thaw whatever is needed for the following night's dinner, and when the week is through, the menu/recipe/ shopping list gets hole-punched and included in the front part of my three ring binder. On a week when an hour is not available, I can grab a completed menu from the past and be out the door with a completed grocery list in five minutes! Try my method as your habit for February? I think you'll be glad you did.

BASIC CHICKEN PARMESAN

My go-to choice for a first visit to an Italian restaurant. I figure if they can't make good Chicken Parmesan, the chances are pretty good they can't make anything else, either. Sometimes the CP is soooo good, I never investigate any other menu items. (Rosa's Italian Restaurant in Pismo Beach, California, has an excellent CP.)

This recipe doesn't pretend to equal theirs, but you can feed a family of four for less than ten dollars with it, and there won't be any complaints, either! Try it with the brined, frozen breasts which have recently appeared in my market for chicken which is really moist and tender. And it's a great way to use up a little bit of spaghetti sauce. If time isn't a problem, the sauce can be enhanced by adding sauted finely chopped onion, mushrooms and green pepper and simmering for 10 minutes or so, but even without the veggies, this is a flavorful dinner.

BUSY COOK'S CHICKEN PARMESAN

4 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts or
2 of those genetic monster breasts, cut in half
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups prepared spaghetti sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
.
Sprinkle the breasts with bread crumbs, using more if needed to get an even, light coating. Heat the oil in a large pan until a light haze forms. Gently add breasts and cook over medium high heat for four minutes, or until nicely golden. Turn and cook on the second side for another four minutes.

Spray an oven-proof shallow pan (large enough to accomodate the breasts in a single layer) with Pam, spread out a thin layer of the sauce and top with the chicken breasts. Spread them with remaining sauce, mozzarella, and parmesan cheeses.

Bake for 20 minutes. Check for doneness with a meat thermometer or by cutting into the center of the largest breast.

WHERE, OH WHERE, DID THE ZUCCHINI GO?

It's January, and even the most ardent zucchini gardener has been reduced to (gasp!) buying zucchini. And it's over a dollar a pound. Here's a way to stretch a single medium sized zucchini into a side dish for four or a main one for three (Use 12 ounces of pasta for a main dish). It's equally as good with yellow crookneck squash, and as the first crop comes in next spring, the zucchini quotent can be expanded. Don't cook the zucchini too long -- mushy is not good. Here's a savory main dish that will come together in the time it takes to boil up a pot of pasta. Just put your cutting board by the saute pan and keep adding and stirring as you chop.

Tuscan Spaghetti

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/2 pound mushrooms, diced
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped fine or pressed
1 zucchini, diced into 3/8" dice
1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts, chopped
12 kalamata olives, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or 1 spring of fresh, chopped fine
3/4 pound whole wheat pasta
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Start a large pot of water to boil.

In a medium skillet over medium heat, saute the mushrooms, pepper and garlic until the pepper starts to soften (about five minutes).

Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook to al dente (five to eight minutes).

Add zucchini to vegetables, stir, and add in artichokes, olives, and oregano. Cook just until some of the zucchini starts to soften.

Drain the pasta, mix in the vegetables, and top with cheese.

CHUTNEY: MEMORIES OF FRESH PEACHES

Some of the best things in life are unexpected, undeserved and unexplained. A peach tree appeared in our back yard about four years ago. At first we weren't certain it was a peach, although childhood memories pretty much ID'd the unique shape of the leaves. Three years ago it sprouted some very peach-like blossoms, two years ago it had about a dozen peaches, and last summer we had a bumper crop of small but extremely delicious free peaches!

We ate peaches three meals a day, gave away peaches and froze peaches. Then I thought of chutney. If you've never had Indian food, chutney is a condiment served along side curries to enhance them and abate the fire. It also is an excellent side dish for meat, turning a not-so-spectacular chop into something to write home about. Mangoes are the most familiar base for chutney, but even in California mangoes are not free. What follows is a very good, quite cheap variation. You can go to the trouble of canning this, but while it will never quite freeze solid due to the sugar content, it will keep for months in the freezer parcelled out in ziplock baggies.

PEACH CHUTNEY

2 cloves of garlic

2 1/2 cups chopped apple (peeled if skins are tough)

1 cup chopped onion

2 1/2 cups peeled, chopped peaches

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped dried apricots

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cloves

Chop all the fruit into approximately 1/2" chunks ( it will all cook down, so precision doesn't count for very much here, except for the apricots which tend to keep their shape). Put everything in a large pot, bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium low. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve warm or chill or freeze. Makes about 5 1/2 cups chutney.

If you wish to can the finished product, process in 1/2 pint jars in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes.

EAT POPCORN, GET VEGETABLE CREDIT!

Okay, so it only tastes like popcorn, but I dearly love this hominy-zucchini recipe for its great flavor and nutrition (not to mention its service to zucchini overpopulation problems).

MEXICAN ZUCCHINI AND HOMINY

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

2 teaspoons salad or olive oil

2 or more cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped

1 larger or several smaller zucchini (or half a monster, peeled and seeded) chopped

1 can (14 ounce size) hominy, drained and rinsed

1 can (14 ounces, again) chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon or more (taste along the way and keep adding) chili powder

In a big skillet over medium high heat, cook the onion until it starts to soften, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and zucchini and stir to blend the flavors. Dump in everything else and cook over medium heat, uncovered, approximately 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the

zucchini is tender but not limp and soggy.

Serves 4

Variation #1: Stir in a drained can of black beans and call this a complete meal.

Variation #2: The next morning, put left-overs in a skillet with just a little oil in the bottom. Break 2 eggs/serving on top, put on a lid, and cook over medium heat until the eggs are as done as you like. Great breakfast.

Variation #3: Push the Mexican envelope by adding a minced jalapeno pepper with the onion and a teaspoon or more of cumin with the chili powder.