Grilled Summer Zucchini Salad

This morning, I saw the best quote ever on Pinterest... 

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit

Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

As you may have guessed from my many posts on tomatoes (tomato-based summer sides anyone?), or my roasted tomatoes post, which waxed philosophical on my love of that particular fruit/vegetable, I use tomatoes in...a lot of my dishes. Mostly every side I make, actually. 

So recently, I purchased Williams Sonoma cookbook (on discount off Amazon, obviously) called Cooking From the Farmer's Market. I also borrowed my cousin's book The Essential Vegetarian. My goal in reading these was to get more ideas for side dishes that do not rely on tomatoes--and if I learned new vegetarian main courses in the process of reading, even better.

This past week, I put a new recipe to the test. The original was actually called Zucchini Carpaccio and called for raw zucchini. I, sadly, am not a huge fan of raw zucchini. Nor is my family, so I doubt I could have gotten any of them to swallow a few bites, except maybe for my parents who would do it just to make their daughter happy (say it together folks, awwww.) So, being the expert food blogger that I am (which in my mind is the equivalent of being a restaurant chef. I never said I was sane people! Just kiddingggg), I decided to tweak the recipe some. 

The best part: the recipe remains extremely simple, which is the perfect thing for a hot summer night. The result was delicious and the entire salad was gobbled up...mostly by my brother's girlfriend, because I made this on the Fourth of July and she doesn't eat burgers or hotdogs. Basically, she had only a couple of options, but I'll take it as a compliment nonetheless. Thanks girl!

Grilled Summer Zucchini Salad

Ingredients:

2 zucchinis
2 summer squash
block of Parmesan cheese (or Pecorino Romano)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Slice the zucchinis and summer squash vertically into thin strips. Brush olive oil on both sides of all strips. Salt and pepper both sides. Grill until softened.

2. Once the zucchini is grilled, allow to cool. Since we were on a tight time frame, I actually stuck the entire tray in the refrigerator to bring the temperature down. It is ESSENTIAL for the zucchini to cool.

3. Once cooled, slice strips off the block of Parmesan cheese. If the zucchini is too warm, the cheese will melt, which is...gross.