My favorite summer recipe (Zucchini Skillet recipe)

I know it's only April, but it's been in the 90's for the past three days. So I am feeling very summery.

This is my favorite summer recipe. The basic recipe is four simple ingredients and some spices. However, there are endless variations and additions you can make. I don't think I've ever made exactly the same dish twice with this recipe even though I've been making it for almost 20 years. It's a great recipe to use up leftovers in the frig. Tonight's variation has leftover canned black beans, spanish rice, and black olives.

Here's the basic recipe.


Zucchini Skillet

4 to 6 medium sized zucchinis (or more or less depending on how much you want to make and how zucchini-y you want it to be)

1 16 oz can small diced tomatoes

1 cup frozen corn

1 pound ground beef

Cumin

Chili Powder

Garlic

Salt and pepper

Cook the ground beef crumbling it up as if for taco filling. Add salt, pepper, and garlic to taste. Slice the zucchini into small bite sized pieces. Add the zucchini to the skillet when the ground beef is no longer pink. When the zucchini is about half cooked to desired degree, add can of diced tomatoes with the juice and frozen corn. Season with cumin, chili powder, more garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Feel free to add other spices as well. Cook until the zucchini is done. And Viola!

Here's what I did for tonight's variation.

I was using leftover taco meat, so I started with cooking diced onion and green bell pepper with crushed garlic and leftover diced fresh tomato. After about five minutes I added 6 quartered and sliced zucchinis and some salt and pepper. When the zucchini was half cooked, I dumped in the leftover taco meat, spanish rice, frozen corn, 1/2 can of black beans, 1/4 can of small black olives I crumbled up as I put them in the pot. To that I added more salt and pepper, some garlic powder, powdered thyme, oregano, chili powder, and cumin. There wasn't quite enough tomato for my liking and The Boy likes lots of corn, so I added a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies liquid and all and a drained can of corn. Now there wasn't enough seasoning so I added a second round of all the spices I had already added. I cooked it over medium heat for about 5 minute. Yummy.