Shredded Zucchini and Onion

I picked up some zucchini yesterday with the idea of trying something new. I am way overdue for making risotto, and hope to make a butternut squash risotto soon. While we were visiting Italia in October, our friend near Milano who hosted our first and last night cooked risotto with shredded zucchini, which gave me the idea to make a simple dish hilighting the flavor of zucchini (I'll also probably try a zucchini risotto).

My idea was to simply shred the zucchini and cook it briefly with onion. I started with thinly slivered onion and a little garlic, and sauteed in a roasted garlic-rosemary infused olive oil till the onion was nicely browning. Then I added the zucchini. I didn't want to make anything like hash brown potatoes, though sometime I think I'll experiment with just that and make zucchini fritters. But I sampled and decided that I wanted to work additional flavors into the dish that was turning out to be rather bland. I added some hot sauce, fresh oregano from my garden, dill weed, salt, pepper, and some more onion (once in a great while when I include sauteed onion in a dish, I add some additional fresh onion shortly before the dish is done to get two different flavors and textures of onion).

I also served Lundberg Farms Black Japonica short-grained black and medium-grained mahogany rices, sauteed tempeh dabbed with hot sauce, a simple salad with roasted tomato, and avocado. We enjoyed the meal! The zucchini was spiced and flavored just right, we felt, and was filling and tasty.