Original subtitles

GEOFFREY: Today on "The Kitchen,"

we're cooking up delicious Southern comfort food

like juicy lemon lime flavored canned grilled chicken.

This is delicious, perfect carving.

ALEX: A Chicago-style hot giardiniera.

It reminds me of a great bite of real quality giardiniera.

GEOFFREY: A refreshing summer veggie pasta.

Anybody would want a summer vegetable dish.

They would love this.

ALEX: An Iron Chef technique for juicy burgers.

Just spoon a little bit of that over it like gravy.

GEOFFREY: A pop of sweet with pineapple zucchini bread.

This looks so good.

ALEX: And some fun summertime meals and memories.

Our comforting summer show. Today on "The Kitchen."

Hello and welcome to another family-style

edition of "The Kitchen."

I'm so happy that, well, we are all smiling.

Actually, we're always, always smiling.

But today we are making recipes that are gonna make you smile

and feel all warm and fuzzy.

It's our favorite summertime comfort food.

Ooh, ooh. So, Sunny, you're up first. Let's get us started.

Oh, yeah, GZ, I can't wait for this.

You know, I'm out on the grill.

I'm gonna show you a fun and easy way to roast

the entire chicken on the grill.

Let's do this.

All right, here we are, it's summertime and today

is all about summer comfort.

Well, to me, comfort is all about easy

and a nice, cool drink.

And the cool drink we're gonna work with today is in a can.

I'm gonna show you how to make something really,

really fun and simple and also flavorful.

It's my citrus can chicken.

Now, you've heard of beer can chicken.

I'm gonna use a different kind of alcoholic beverage,

but it is a can and you've seen it.

You know, the chicken is, you know,

on top of the beer can.

It goes into the grill.

That flavor from inside of the can infuses into the chicken

and also makes it nice and moist.

Plus it's fun.

So I'm gonna show you how to make my citrus can chicken.

The first thing I want to do is show you how

to make the actual syrup and the glaze that goes on top.

So inside, I've got a lemon lime

or a lime malt liquor beverage in the can.

If you can't find lemon lime, do the orange,

do whatever kind of citrus, the fruit they have

and then you can add like some orange juice

instead of the lemon juice that I'm adding now.

You can also add lime juice.

In addition, some thyme from my garden,

gonna add in some Worcestershire sauce.

A little bit of salt and pepper,

lemon zest, and some honey.

Now, let me get some lemon juice into the game plan.

And this is gonna be what we brush on the chicken

every 20 minutes while it cooks or so.

Just stir that up and you're gonna let it

reduce down to like a syrupy consistency.

It's not gonna be like a thick glaze.

It should be able to run and drip

all around your chicken.

Now, listen, if you don't have fresh thyme

and you really love rosemary, drop that in there.

That'd be a lot of fun as well.

But I feel like thyme is my place that I go to.

All right, so we've got our bird here.

Nice normal roasting size, six, seven pounds.

I'm gonna rub this. Now it's very dry, all right?

I dried this like crazy with paper towels

and then just salt and pepper all over.

Rub that in,

you've got a seasoning blend that's not gonna get

in the way of your malt liquor flavor,

whether it's lime or orange.

Go ahead and do that.

All right, now, here comes the can.

Remember I poured some of this out

to start making that syrup?

Got a little bit aluminum foil on it right there,

clean off the can, obviously.

Gonna put it in there, through the back end.

I want to get this on to my grill.

It's at about 325 degrees.

This is the side of the grill that I have the heat turned on.

So I'm gonna put it over here on the indirect side.

All right.

Let's see. [ Laughs ]

Just closing.

All right, I'm gonna wash my hands,

every 20 minutes or so,

I'm gonna get in there, hit it with the syrup.

And just for about an hour, hour 15 minutes,

depending on the size of your bird.

And when it's time to carve,

I'm gonna get it off of the grill,

tent it for about 10, 15 minutes and start eating.

And now the chicken has rested under its tent of aluminum foil

and I'm ready to carve it.

Get this baby right here

on to my cutting board.

I really love cooking with beer, this is malt liquor today,

but you've seen me do it on "The Kitchen" before.

I love it.

On a Philly cheesesteak, you know, you kind of glaze it,

you baste it, beer just comes through

with so much flavor.

But look at this bird.

I can already tell just from feeling it,

nice and juicy and tender.

Look at this bird.

Just gonna get in here and go into this baby.

I gotta tell you, cooking with beer or, you know,

even if it's like some malt liquor in a can...

[ Laughs ]

It's deliciousness.

And, you know, who doesn't love a beer in the summertime?

Look at how juicy that is.

It's all in the resting, you got to rest that chicken.

Get those pieces onto a plate.

Now, normally, I would just eat this with my fingers,

but I know GZ is watching so...

[ Chuckles ]

Big old piece.

First of all, so juicy.

And that flavor, it's not super in your face,

so don't worry about, it's not like gonna be eating

a drunken chicken.

It's just a really nice way

to get that caramelization on the outside and the sugars.

And if you're just using beer, still the same results

with that tender juicy chicken on the inside.

This is delicious.

Perfect carving or shredding into a nice salad.

Okay, I'm done with this.

Up next, a summertime condiment favorite --

giardiniera.

Guess who's using it? [ Laughs ]

GEOFFREY: And later, Alex shares her technique

for a saucy and juicy burger.

Hey, everybody, welcome back.

Today, we are sharing our favorite

summertime comfort foods,

and I am doing one of my favorites.

That is right.

My favorite comfort food in the world

has to be hot giardiniera, right?

I talk about it all the time. I use it all the time.

But my summertime twist is I'm grilling it

and turning it into a big bountiful salad.

That is right. So what is giardiniera, right?

It's floating in oil.

All these brined, fermented pickled veggies.

So these are the main vegetables that we're gonna use here

that you find in every jar of Chicago style giardiniera.

So we got some cauliflower here

we're gonna use.

We got some carrots, of course, some celery,

and some nice, these rainbow bell peppers.

We're gonna keep them whole, usually serrano chilies,

but at the market, they did not have serranos.

So I got some red long peppers here.

How fun are those?

As always, Sarah is on camera, so we're gonna keep all

these whole except for this cauliflower,

which we are gonna turn into steaks.

I got my grill really, really hot

because we're just gonna char these vegetables

really quickly about five minutes

and then pickle them overnight.

Okay, so we'll get to that in a second.

Let's start with all these vegetables. No oil.

So you find cauliflower in all great giardinieras.

So we're gonna grill this, but I'm gonna keep this

stem on here, peel back those leaves, discard them,

and this will keep it into that steak formation.

So you have something

that's not gonna slip through the grates.

So we'll slice these nice and thick.

We want to get that char flavor on them.

That was kind of the goal with this.

So no oil, no seasoning.

The only thing we're not grilling that

you find in giardiniera is celery.

So we're gonna keep that fresh and vibrant

and let that kind of get nice and crunchy in the brine later.

So we'll start with these guys

and we're gonna put them directly on the grill.

Sarah, super close up.

You see how we kept the stems on?

Keeps those florets nice and intact.

Easily grillable, right?

Without falling through the grates.

Next come the carrots.

Now, I like to do these

right on there, not across horizontally.

You get a lot of nice contact down there.

Again, we don't want to cook this.

We just want to char it.

And those beautiful rainbow peppers,

we're not cutting, we're keeping them whole.

So easy.

This grill is piping hot, guys, but that's what you want,

and those long peppers are serranos or jalapeños.

You can get crazy, use habaneros,

but keep it somewhat tame, all right?

So these are gonna get a nice char, quick char in there

and look at this melange of lovely vegetables.

Let's start cutting this celery.

I'm gonna use the celery tops on top of this salad.

A little something fun.

You know, we're not wasting it, so just kind of pick those off

of each stalk of celery,

and we can pick through that later.

I'm gonna turn these guys really quick.

Let's see, hon.

Da, da, dun, dun!

[ Humming ]

♪ We're grilling cauliflower ♪

Look at that. Beautiful. I'm taking them off.

These are perfect. All right.

I got a nice wire rack sheet pan here,

ready to go.

Just to kind of help cool it down

before we chop it up a little, right?

But I want to try to keep it whole.

Look at that beautiful char.

So I got a couple rules here for

what to each giardiniera on.

People ask what are the what, where and whos of giardiniera.

And the what is you could put it on everything.

We put it on pizza, on pasta. It's great on scrambled eggs.

It's great in an omelet.

We put it on turkey sandwiches. We put it on Italian subs.

What do we do? -Chicken.

Chicken, it's so good on.

And with whom do you eat the genre with?

Now, that's a trick question.

Obviously you think I'm gonna say the familia,

but no, it's best to eaten alone,

right out of the fridge, right?

Using a little fork and you dunk it in the jar

when no one's looking and you take a bite clean.

All right, let's start chopping these celeries here.

And I'm just gonna give them a nice kind of biased cut.

Right, because I want to think visually with this salad.

I just don't want it little pieces.

I want kind of forkable hunks here.

So we'll just kind of line these up like that,

take that, you can throw that in there

and then just do these nice, sharp, dramatic bias cuts.

You're not gonna lose the texture

by chopping it too small.

Great.

I'm gonna throw these right in a resealable bag

and I got my brine ready, which I already made earlier

and let properly cool down here.

I got some herbs in there, Italian herbs,

oregano, dried oregano, peppercorns,

four cloves of garlic, lightly smash,

some white wine vinegar, plenty of that.

About 2 cups because you need a lot

because there's a lot of vegetables,

a little bit of water, some sugar, and some salt,

a typical, you know, pickling liquid or brine.

It's gonna be really perfectly balanced for this,

and since we're only really aiming for overnight

in the fridge,

it's gonna give it plenty of zing in a short amount of time.

Great and I like to kind of build on layers in here,

so we'll keep that right here.

And next, the carrots, right?

These have had a nice chance to cool down.

So the carrots, we're gonna lop off

the ends there and then little cuts

what I like doing with carrots, right?

Bias cut, but then turn it.

So you get almost these I don't know what you call this shape,

but it's like a rhumvoid, a rhombus?

Almost like a rhombus.

So you got these kind of sharp, funky little things I love that.

It's a nice little touch.

In another layer right in there, trying to keep these in layers.

So now let's do some of that cauliflower.

So we're just gonna cut around the perimeter here

so those large florets stay intact

and we could toss that woody stem.

You don't want that.

Right in there.

Those peppers, we're gonna keep whole, those rainbow peppers,

and those long peppers, those serrano, keep whole,

because if we cut these right now,

all that spice is gonna go in there

and you don't know how spicy these are until you bite one.

So you don't want it to permeate throughout

during the pickling process.

Now, we're gonna pour the brine in here.

We're gonna put it in the fridge

like you could do three hours if you're in a pinch.

Please just do overnight, it's worth it,

pickling does take a little bit of time,

this will really make the difference

in the fridge overnight.

You can even give it a toss.

You can do halfway through and you wake up in the morning

before you serve, you do a little flip-a-roo,

but it'll kind of settle down

and make sure all those are submerged.

All right, I got one ready to go here.

So I took this out of the bag, right.

I reserved the pickling liquids.

We got the rainbow peppers,

some cauliflower, some carrots, of course.

Look at those beautiful peppers,

fresh crunchy celery.

So, oh, man, I tell you, that smells so flippin' good.

And look at that, you see all the charred bits,

little peppercorns in there,

all those fresh, I mean, those dried Italian herbs.

Little Dijon to help emulsify it.

And then a little good olive oil as we whisk it.

So about 50/50 ratio,

this has got, you know, 3/4 cup of the brine,

3/4 cup of the oil.

So it's nice and smooth.

Give it a little pop of some salt and pepper

that I have in a combo

always outside in my workstation.

And I'm gonna drizzle this all over these vegetables.

All right, and then some garnishments here,

some black olives,

you find a lot of olives in giardiniera, right?

And I like it because it's a nice little blast of fat.

And then, remember those celery leaves, those little tops?

We're gonna kind of put them all over.

Individual leaves, something fun, right?

And then some ricotta salata, because it is a salad

and I love a little cheese on my salad.

What's happening, boss?

-How are you? -How are you doing?

WOMAN: Hi.

And now we can shave that directly on there.

[ Whistles ]

Lolo! Give me a small plate and a fork, please.

He's not camera ready. -I did not style him.

Sarah did not style him,

but you're getting what you're getting, folks,

'cause this is the Mauro life.

We're very real here.

Oh, you look good. Your hair looks nice.

Say hello to everybody.

-Hello. -Oh, Lord.

Thank you, son. As always.

So I'm gonna get a little bit of each here on a plate.

We dressed it in that vinaigrette, which is great.

And you can use all that pickling, extra pickling liquid

to make a big batch.

Look at that, look at that cornucopia of freshness.

First ever grilled giardiniera salad.

This did not exist before I thought it up.

Oh, my God. I am starting to sweat

as you can see, I took a bite of that pepper,

which kind of gives you that necessary hot giardiniera heat.

But the braininess, the little sweetness

in the brine kind of rounds it all out.

It reminds me a great bite of real, real quality giardiniera.

This is so, so good. Make a big batch of it.

Have it all summer long. You'll never regret it.

Thank you, guys.

Coming up next, we have Geoffrey Zakarian

making a summertime pasta fit for an Iron Chef.

Don't go anywhere.

More summertime comfort specialties coming up.

Welcome back.

Now you can't have a comfort food show without pasta.

I'm gonna show you a delicious summer pasta dish,

spaghetti with garden fresh zucchini

right from my garden with walnuts and basil.

This light pasta really lets the veggies shine.

And I'm the kind of person that I like summer pasta,

but I like veggies more.

So we're gonna sort of reverse things

and put more veggies, less pasta.

So much better for you, just as delicious.

And it's a real comfort food.

So we're just gonna come over here.

We have our water boiling

and, you know, we say this all the time.

Plenty of salted salt in the water.

The water should be as salty as the sea for this preparation

because we're not gonna use a lot of water in the sauce.

If it was a sauce that's based on the pasta water,

which has all that starch, as you know,

we would put a little less salt

and make it as salty as a bouillon.

So in goes our spaghetti.

You can use anything you want, but I love spaghetti.

Have a ton of it at the house in goes that.

While we are making our pasta cook,

we are then gonna add our beautiful zucchini to the pan.

We have extra virgin olive oil.

Normally I don't use extra virgin olive oil

while I'm cooking, but I like it for this application

because you need all that flavor.

So in goes the squash. A nice sizzle.

On top of that, I'm adding some corn. Again, fresh corn.

I didn't grow this corn, but I did go down the street.

They have a beautiful farm and a beautiful stand

and I got that.

I'm gonna put that in there.

And then on top of that, I'm gonna add some garlic

and pepperoncini.

Now, some people would say it's a little bit out of order,

but if you put the pepperoncini and the garlic in first,

you risk burning it.

And I don't want to burn this

because it's a fresh summer pasta,

so it's gonna be softened versus brown.

Let's show a few vegetables some incredible people

have shared with us today.

So Julia, first shared this fresh summer pasta

with a no-cook tomato sauce.

I really love that. Look how delicious that looks.

So Megan shared this summer pasta with chili,

tomatoes, garlic, and bacon fat.

A great idea to enhance the flavors.

Really, really good.

All right, so our pasta is done.

It's al dente which is perfect a little bit of a bite.

It tastes great. The salt really got in there.

I'm glad I added the right amount.

If you can come in here and just see how the corn looks.

See, it's not seared. It's roasted lightly.

The zucchini still looks like guess what? Zucchini.

Has that beautiful color. It's soft. That's what you want.

You want it soft.

I'm gonna put the pasta right into the zucchini.

Now the fire is off.

I'm gonna put it right in the middle like that.

The fire is off.

Now, notice the amount of pasta I'm putting in. Not a ton.

I'm putting in about 60% is veggies and 40% pasta.

That's what I'm talking about. Lightening the dish up.

To this, I'm just gonna add the tomato.

Why not cook the tomatoes?

Well, you remember that uncooked tomato sauce.

The tomatoes are ripe. They just came from the garden.

They're gonna give up their sweetness.

You don't have to cook them. They're beautiful.

A little bit of walnut.

And like always, in general,

you always want to put the cheese off fire,

so we're just gonna top it like that.

And you can actually right now

bring it to the table and serve it just like that.

You don't have to stir it. It's perfect.

I like to put a touch of olive oil on top.

Look how beautiful that looks, okay?

This is the perfect summer dish,

all those vegetables just sitting like that

and you can just stir it around if you like.

But look at the highlight.

The highlight is on the vegetables, very important.

So I'm just gonna mush it together a bit.

I'm not gonna go crazy.

I think that looks gorgeous just at the table.

So gorgeous. It needs a little bit more cheese.

And then the finish is some fresh basil, again,

from the garden.

You don't want to cook the basil. You want it fresh.

This is about the summer pop of the vegetables.

That is a beautiful dish. Let's taste, okay. I can't wait.

I get to taste this all myself today.

Margaret, I'll give you I'll give you some.

Don't worry. Okay.

So look how beautiful that looks.

Oh, man, the veggies,

the veggies are the star right from the garden.

Now you can see that anybody would want

a summer vegetable dish, they would love this,

this is something you can serve as a main course.

Let's go in.

Oh, boy.

I mean, I can tell you it's gonna be good

because everything in it is good anyway.

So it's just up to me to mess up the cooking of the pasta,

which I don't think I did.

Hmm, it's so, you know, I know these are simple ingredients,

but it's so surprisingly delicious, the pepperoncini,

the garlic, the zucchini is just perfect

and the cheese in the pasta

together with the olive oil just at the end and the corn.

I mean, it's a magical marriage of everything from the garden.

We'll be right back.

Coming up next, Alex is gonna share her secrets

for a saucy, juicy burger.

Welcome back, everybody.

I am just loving all this summer comfort food

that we're cooking up, it is right up my alley.

Sunny showed us a whole chicken on the grill that looked divine.

Jeff brought the giardiniera.

I would expect nothing less.

I mean, I'm missing giardiniera because I don't see you anymore.

And you used to feed it to me all the time.

I'll send you a case.

Good.

And GZ made that summer veggie pasta.

Mm, mm, mm. Yes.

And Alex, you're up next. What you got for us?

Well, I've got a little spin on a turkey burger.

It was actually my fiancé who schooled me on how to make

a brown, delicious,

and also juicy turkey burger.

And I'm gonna share it with you right now.

So I am making my juicy turkey burgers with onion jam.

So I start with a pound and a half of brown turkey,

which I just put in a bowl.

And actually, whenever I'm seasoning meat for burgers,

meatloaf, meatballs, I actually move the meat

a little bit up on the sides of the bowl

because the more surface area you show,

the more you can really get whatever seasoning

into the meat.

You don't want to overwork the meat.

And I'll just season it with salt, some kosher salt,

nice and even all around.

And then I'm gonna add

that kind of iconic steakhouse classic,

a little bit of Worcestershire.

So I'm adding to 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey,

2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce.

We'll just mix that together ever so gently and again,

be gentle, you know, when you make cookies or you bake a cake

and you don't over mix the flour, do the same.

Okay, so I'm just gonna divide the meat into four even patties

and I'm just gently making the patties.

Now, I will pop these in the refrigerator

and give them at least 20 minutes

and up to an hour or two to chill

and let that Worcestershire sauce

and salt meander through the meat.

I'm gonna wash my hands and pop these into the fridge.

Okay, so here are my four preformed burgers

that I let chill up in the fridge

and they're all ready for searing.

Now, normally I sear this in a cast iron skillet.

You can also sear it in a heavy bottom, stainless steel skillet.

Anything that can take a lot of heat.

I've actually put on my mom's old copper pan.

I just love how roaring hot it gets

to get a really good sear on these burgers.

So let's get searing.

Okay, so you can see I've got my pan on a pretty high heat

and it's starting to even smoke a little bit.

I'm gonna add couple of tablespoons of canola oil

and just swirl your oil around on the bottom of the pan.

As the oil gets really hot, it will start to thin out

and move towards the sides and we want that.

You want to make sure before you drop your burgers

that you've got a nice even coating of hot, hot oil.

You see it smoking on the bottom of your pan.

We're gonna drop the burgers in as far apart

as we can from each other to encourage browning.

Turkey has a lot of water in it,

and if you put your burgers close together,

they're gonna steam each other

with all that water coming out.

[ Sizzling ]

You can hear that sizzle.

Listen to that.

You hear that sound?

It's my fiancé, Michael,

that actually taught me something new

about cooking a burger and I think it's great.

And I posted this on Instagram, this very burger method.

And I got so many great responses from all of you

about the little things you do to keep your burgers juicy.

So I've been searing these for maybe two,

three minutes on their first sides,

and I think we're ready to flip them.

Want to see the first side?

So pretty. You ready?

Look at that.

Beautiful brown crust.

Put them on their second side

and you can see we've got that that beautiful brown crust

that we want, we want that just for flavor, right?

Okay, so I also have here

a little bit of simple red onion jam.

This is just some caramelized red onions

with a little bit of brown sugar and a little bit of red vinegar.

So how did I make this?

I simply peeled, halved,

and thinly sliced three medium red onions.

I got them cooking in about a tablespoon of canola oil.

Nice and easy over a medium heat.

Of course, I season them with salt and I let them cook.

Then I add a tablespoon of brown sugar

and let them cook until they're completely tender

and browned, 20 to 25 minutes

over a medium low heat.

And then right when they're finished,

I stir in one tablespoon of red wine vinegar.

I just let that mix in a little bit

for one more minute and then I cool it.

This is the part that makes them extra especially juicy.

I'm gonna take a cup and a half of chicken stock

and just pour it right --

actually, shut off the heat and pour it right in the pan.

Nice and easy.

Okay, so once I've added the cup and a half of chicken stock,

I just simmer these gently over a medium low heat,

most of that stock will cook down, it will emerge,

but it also finishes cooking the turkey burgers.

When the burgers are firm

because we want the turkey burgers cooked through,

just that last minute or so that we're cooking it,

you can see we've got the liquid simmering a little bit.

Nice and easy.

Just shut the heat off, take the cover off,

and put the cheese on top and put an American cheese

in case you're asking.

The steam from the liquid

will melt the cheese and we'll just let this

sit a minute or two with the heat off.

So after letting these sit for just a minute or two,

you can see that the cheese melts

just beautifully around the burgers.

I have some toasted buns. I'm partial to the seeded ones.

I like the texture of the seeds and the taste.

Now I'll take the burgers out of the pan,

just put them on a plate.

They can always stand a minute or two to rest.

And if you're worried about the doneness

or testing the doneness,

you can pop a meat thermometer in the middle of these

and they should be 165 in the center

the way you would cook a chicken.

So we have this stock and a little bit of meat

drippings and cheese and whatever else.

I'll just cook that down

and we'll put that over the burger

almost like a little homemade gravy.

Take the burger.

I always pick the biggest one with the meltiest cheese.

Put it squarely on top.

Tiny pinch of salt,

just that surface salting that we always need.

And now it's time for that onion jam.

Now, this is a batch that I made earlier.

The other great thing about this onion jam is it acts like glue

if you want other things to stick inside there.

And in this case, I just cut some cornichons

actually, lengthwise.

So they're kind of bigger hardier pieces of pickle.

And I just stick those on my little onion jam tree.

You can see you cooked that down.

Mm, really smells like turkey, too,

and just spoon a little bit of that over it,

like gravy enough to add that last bit of juiciness,

but not so much that the bun is super soggy.

Babes, you want to come taste? -Oh, yeah.

Yeah, she's waiting in the wings.

I feel like Geoffrey Zakarian cutting a burger in half.

I feel like he would cut a burger in half

and then, you know,

put a beautiful branded toothpick in each side.

Look at that. -Oh, wow.

Really a comfort food to me, you know? It does.

-All right? -Sure.

You ready to try?

All right. Let's do it.

Get in there.

Mm.

-Really good. -Yeah.

Stock really ensured that the burger is moist

and really good -- -[ Speaks indistinctly ]

I like that the patties are thick.

I hate when patties are like that thin.

Yeah, you can't have a comfort burger

if it's not thick. -Right.

-Say it's juicy. -Really juicy.

Really great. Awesome.

Juicy turkey burger, easy as that.

Little bit of stock

and a little bit of love from my daughter.

We'll be right back.

Hey, everybody, welcome back.

Summer is the season for zucchini.

I don't know about you, but I feel like

I always have it.

It's at the farm stands.

If you've got a garden, it's probably taken over.

And I like using it not only

for savory dishes like my zucchini pasta,

I also love to make something a little sweet with it.

I'm talking about zucchini bread.

My grandma made the best zucchini bread

and hers had a little secret to it.

Canned pineapple, which keeps it really nice and moist.

And she put a lot of great spices in there, too.

So let's get making it.

I've got my bowl of flour here.

3 cups of flour.

Now that sounds like a lot,

but we're actually gonna make two smaller loaves of this.

All right, so flour and I've got a teaspoon

and a half of cinnamon going in there.

And then 3/4 teaspoon of nutmeg,

1/4 teaspoon of allspice.

You know, this kind of smells like you're making gingerbread

cookies or something.

There's almost a little hint of holiday to it

and some salt.

And then, I've got over here baking powder and baking soda.

I'm gonna do 2 teaspoons of baking soda

and one teaspoon of baking powder.

Now, you all out there with your home grown zucchinis,

we got some great photos of everybody with theirs.

Look at all these cute little kiddies with the big zucchinis.

Those are giant, they're as big as they are.

That's like, I have an app that tells me how big the baby is

and it always is a vegetable.

I don't think the baby's as big as that zucchini.

[ Laughs ]

And then we've got this one. I love this caption.

It says, "Picked straight from my parents' garden

and pretending I actually helped"

with a little wink emoji.

At least she's honest. [ Laughs ]

All right, so I whisked all this together.

I must set it aside now

and move on to my wet ingredients.

So I've got 1 1/2 cup a sugar here.

Yes, this is sweet.

If you want it a little less sweet,

you can cut it down to a cup of sugar.

My mother would probably cut it down to a half a cup of sugar

and I'm gonna add to it three eggs.

So I've got three large eggs here.

I usually -- when I'm baking, let my eggs sit out

for about a half hour to an hour before I get started,

just so they come to room temperature.

All right, get rid of those.

And I've got some vanilla extract.

I'm putting in 2 teaspoons.

So we get a lot of that good flavor.

And now I'm just gonna use my hand mixer

to get this really nice and beat up.

I like to mix this,

so I want to really whip it, get some air in there.

And because I forget everything,

I forgot to put the oil in here, very important,

a cup of vegetable oil.

I meant to do that, I meant to beat the eggs first.

Okay, that looks good.

Just gonna put these in the sink.

And time for that zucchini.

So I've got my zucchini set up

over here with my food processor.

So I've got my grater blade on here.

A lot of times these sit around

and we just kind of don't know what to do with them.

I had it on upside down,

so it's a good thing I checked it.

If you don't have one of these. Just use a box grater.

It makes it so fast to grate up zucchini.

And that's it. Pretty simple.

And I'm gonna take it out

and I need 2 cups of this zucchini,

so see how nice and grated that is?

If you have one of those big zucchinis,

this is the time to use it,

because when you use those for a dish like,

say, like a zucchini pasta,

they're just gonna have a lot of water

and they're a little bit more bitter.

So I really like them for a recipe like this.

All right, 2 cups going straight in

and then whatever's left in here,

I'm gonna sauté up with some eggs.

I love zucchini and eggs.

All right, put that off to the side.

Saving it for later. And now my canned pineapple.

So this is my grandmother's little trick. Crushed pineapple.

My grandma was the best cook, in my opinion,

and she passed away this summer.

So I like making her recipes

and feeling like I have her near me.

Now I'm gonna bring over my dry ingredients

and add this to that.

Just goes right in.

All that nice sweetness,

we get the sweetness from the pineapple,

from the sugar,

all of our nice spices are gonna go so well with that.

And I like to add a little dried fruit to it.

So I'm putting in a cup of raisins.

You could also do dried cranberries

or you could chop up some dried apricots,

or if you're not into it, just leave it out.

You could also put nuts in it, if you like,

and then just gently stir it until it all comes together.

It's important not to over mix

because then you'll get a tough zucchini bread.

We've made so many zucchini recipes on "The Kitchen"

that are great.

If you go onto the Food Network Kitchen app

and search our zucchini recipes,

you'll find them.

My number one zucchini recipe is my zucchini pasta.

Don't you love that, Ryan? -Oh, yeah.

He had no choice but to say that he loves it.

All right, I have got my pans all sprayed back here.

I'm using disposables.

But of course, you could use a regular one.

I wanted to use a disposable so I can just wrap up the extra

to give to my neighbors.

And I'm just gonna divide it between the two.

And then my oven is preheating at 350.

There we go.

Yeah.

And between the zucchini and the pineapple,

this is sure to be a really

moist, tender zucchini bread.

All right.

All right, here we go.

350 degrees for about 50 minutes.

Halfway through, I'm gonna rotate them

so that they cook evenly.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

I've let it cook for 50 minutes.

Tested it with the toothpick, came out clean,

and then I cooled it completely on a wire rack,

took it out of the pan,

and put it on this pretty cake stand

because I'm fancy like that.

So let's cut into it.

I'm gonna cut the end piece off, save it for later.

Look at that. Doesn't that look so nice?

See, it has a good crumb to it.

It's dense.

Mm, mm, mm, mm.

Cut myself a slice of this.

It's gonna be the perfect little afternoon snack.

This is also great for breakfast.

And I'm gonna go relax in my rocking chair.

I'm just gonna sit here living my best life,

having my cup of tea,

my zucchini bread with my built-in TV tray.

Let's go for this. This looks so good.

Mm.

Mm, mm, mm.

Mm, mm.

I love those spices in there.

The cinnamon, the nutmeg,

the allspice, the sweetness of the pineapple,

the little chewy raisins

and of course, the zucchini.

This is delicious. I'm in heaven.

I'm gonna sit here and enjoy this.

And we'll be right back with more of "The Kitchen."

Welcome back, all right, so today's "The Kitchen"

was all about summer comfort food,

so I thought today we'd cap off the show by each sharing

either something comforting

or maybe another bite or drink that we like

that has really helped us out through the summertime.

I got to tell you, for me,

I'll start, every single night if I can catch it,

it's the sunset outside of the front porch of my place

on what I call Rescue Mountain.

They're just spectacular, beautiful and soothing,

to say the least.

So that's my comforting moment. What about you, Jeff?

I like to pour a cup of coffee in the morning

and sit on my back porch and bird watch.

Okay, I've seen a lot, goldfinches,

red-headed woodpeckers, blue Jays, everything.

But yesterday, I swear on a crowded street, right,

night, right by my house, I saw a baby blue and white parakeet,

which was obviously, I think an escapee from someone's cage

in their home so I hope he's doing all right,

little -- I named him Petey the parakeet.

-[ Laughs ] -Petey the parakeet.

Alex, what about you?

I've been, like, hauling out, like, watermelons

and filling them and making cocktails.

This giant watermelon I have here serves one.

And I have a beautiful little watermelon vodka cocktail.

-Oh, wow. -Oh.

Zip right through you. That watermelon is like the Ina Garten cosmopolitan.

-Yes. -Serves one.

-Yes. -[ Laughs ]

Yeah. GZ, what's up?

I've been doing something whole also,

but I've been doing tons of whole fish.

I found this online place to get fantastic fresh fish whole.

Comes right to you in the mail.

Those things are so great to grill.

And I've had a blast grilling all kinds of fish whole,

arctic char, sea bass,

whatever they can get, branzino, a little lemon,

a little olive oil.

You know the drill, grill it, eye turns white, it's perfect.

No mess. So delicious. So good for you.

And just so easy you don't want to get dirty. No.

Katie, what about you?

Well, you know, mine has to do with eating something.

That's all I'm doing these days is eating.

So I'm taking advantage of stone fruit,

which is really at its peak right now.

I'm having so many peaches and nectarines and apricots

and, you know, I like my carbs.

So I turned it into a French toast sandwich.

Check it out. I cut it in half so you can see the layers. What!

So I used challah bread. -Oh, my God.

I put in some whipped cream cheese, Sunny,

I know you like that and then sliced nectarines. Yes!

Made it a little sandy,

dipped it in the French toast batter.

Cooked it up.

It's got that nice little toasty bits on it.

Don't you wish you could have a bite of that? Mm-hmm.

That's diner eating right there.

-Mm, mm, mm. -That is unbelievable.

And one of the most underrated sandwich ingredients

is powdered sugar, by the way.

So kudos to you, Katie. -I agree, Jeff.

Good job, A-plus from the sandwich king,

that is I'm gonna steal that idea

and make it this weekend for Lorenzo.

So I hope you guys make

all these wonderful summer comfort food recipes.

You can find them all on the Food Network Kitchen app.

We love you all. We'll see you all next week.

Take care.

♪♪