Zucchini pasta with pistachios and capers

It was a weekend of records around here. There were, for example, my backup dancer's personal best swim meet times in the 50-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard individual medley.

And then there was the collection of vinyl records we found abandoned along the side of the road on Sunday. Someone discarded Sonny & Cher, George Gershwin, and more. They were warping in the hot sun. No one got you, babe.

Finally, there was dinner on Saturday night, which had to represent a new personal record for how long it takes to get a dang pasta dish on the table. I made "Zucchini Pasta With Crispy Capers and Pistachios" (NYT Cooking). The recipe stated that the cooking time was 50 minutes; it took me more like two hours, even though I took a couple shortcuts. By the end of those two hours, I was thoroughly hangry, my kitchen looked like I'd staged a food fight, I had grease splatters on my shirt, and I had lit a paper towel on fire by placing it too close to a burner.

Whoops.

My greatest problem was that the zucchini wouldn't brown, even when I put it over high heat. The thin slices took about 20 minutes to get any color. The chunks never browned at all.

Note the lack of browning. And the mess on the stove. Sigh.

I can at least report that, despite the very considerable aggravation, the final product tasted good. But then again, with that much frying, what wouldn't taste good? I will never make this dish again.

I'm not losing sight of the fact that vegan dishes like this are good for the planet, because raising animals for food contributes disproportionately to agriculture's share of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Those gases trap too much heat around the earth, turning a homeless 1960s Sonny & Cher record into something even groovier.

But don't torture yourself as you chose plant-based foods to fight global warming. This blog describes many stellar vegan recipes that do not take two hours to make. If you have a particular hankering for zucchini, go to my 2021 post where I listed tried and true zucchini recipes, both vegetarian and vegan: https://gomeatlessmarch.blogspot.com/2021/08/zucchini-and-more-zucchini.html