shelley on Aug 13, 2009 in appetizers and snacks, recipes | 19 comments Posted byonin

As some of you may be aware, Mark Sisson is running a Primal Blueprint Health Challenge throughout the entire month of August. Every day he is posting a new primal-related contest on his blog. Some contests simply require that you post a comment. Others are a bit more involved. Recently he posted a contest for the ‘best’ primal recipe video. I’ve been busier than planned this month with a variety of projects and haven’t been entering most of the daily contests, but this one caught my attention. It’s been fun coming up with new primal recipes over the past several months so I figured this would be a good way for me to get more involved in the Primal Challenge.

Digging around in the fridge for inspiration, I noticed that my supply of summer squash was getting out of hand. I still hadn’t finished up last week’s share from my CSA box and received another big share that morning. It was going to be hard for just Dave and I to eat all of these (in addition to the massive amounts of other vegetables from the CSA that we fervently work through each week without the help of the children. I decided to appeal to their love for shredded foods and make summer squash fritters.

The first step was to whip up an experimental batch to get the ingredient proportions ironed down. I substituted almond flour for the usual wheat flour and played around with some additional flavors. In the end I was very pleased and the girls wolfed them down! They are pretty garlicky, though, so keep that in mind if youre not so fond of that flavor.

Once Dave arrived home we put together a video of me making another batch. I always feel a little awkward watching myself on video, but what the heck, we can’t all be Rachel Ray. If you watch the video, you’ll notice there are lots of kid and dog sounds in the background – no avoiding that around here. At some point I’ll figure out how to enter it in Marks primal recipe video contest. The prize I checked on that this morning and found that the winner gets a food dehydrator, a pair of Vibrams, a t-shirt, The Primal Blueprint book, and a supply of Marks supplements. The whole time I thought the prize was some cooking oil!

Heres the video. Recipe follows.

Garlicky Summer Squash Fritters These are delicious with sour cream or topped with chopped avocado and tomato. You could also serve them on a small bed of dressed greens. Coconut oil is my preferred oil for this type of frying. If you don’t like the taste of coconut, fear not. I have never noticed that the oil ever makes the final product taste like coconut. Oh, and you can substitute zucchini here same thing, really. 1 lb summer squash

1 tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

2 cloves garlic, chopped, pressed, whatever

2 tbsp parsley, chopped fine

tsp chipotle chili powder

1/2 cup almond flour

pepper

c. coconut oil, plus a little more as needed for frying Grate the squash through the large holes of a cheese grater and combine with the salt. Let sit for 10 15 minutes to allow the salt to draw the moisture from the squash. By the handful, squeeze out as much of the water from the squash as you can and spread on a paper towel or absorbent kitchen towel. When youve squeezed all the squash, use the towel to press more liquid from the squash. Transfer the squash back to the bowl and combine with the egg, garlic, parsley, chipotle chili powder, almond flour and pepper. Heat the coconut oil in a large pan until hot. Drop 3 to 4 large spoonfuls of the squash mixture into the oil and press down gently to form little pancake shapes. Let cook for a minute or so until the fritters brown around the edges and are sturdy enough to be flipped over without too much trouble. Flip them over and continue cooking until nicely browned another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Transfer to a paper towel and repeat with the remaining squash, adding more oil and adjusting the heat as needed. Yield: 8 10 fritters

This post is participating in Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade