A New Way to Avoid Cookbooks, and Giada’s Broiled Zucchini and Potatoes with Parmesan Crust

A few weekends ago, I went to the public library and decided to browse the stacks instead of just making a beeline for the books I had already looked up or placed on reserve.  Not surprisingly, I found myself in the small cooking section of the library, flipping through a good number of the books.  I ended up checking out two cookbooks — Giada De Laurentiis' "Giada's Kitchen:  New Italian Favorites" and Carole Bloom's "The Essential Baker".  And of course, as soon as I got home, I started flipping through these books for recipe ideas instead of opening the cookbooks that I actually own and haven't used yet (I am too embarrassed to give the names of those highly-regarded, never-used cookbooks I passed up for the ones I picked up at the library). 

I have to admit though, I've gotten a few good items out of "Giada's Kitchen" ("The Essential Baker" remains untouched, something that I think will change this week).  The first recipe I used was the Broiled Zucchini and Potatoes with Parmesan Crust, which is also online at:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/broiled-zucchini-and-potatoes-with-parmesan-crust-recipe/index.html. 

I followed the directions in making the dish, though I did make a few ingredient substitutios.  Of course, I used slightly more garlic and perhaps 1/4 cup more freshly-shredded Parmesan.  I also ended up using 3 white new potatoes instead of the 4 1.5 inch-diameter new potatoes called for in the recipe because of what was available in the store.  I boiled the potatoes for maybe 5 minutes longer to compensate for their larger size, but clearly needed to add even more time to boil them because the centers remained a bit hard and undercooked. 

The vegetables turned out pretty well — especially the well-cooked zucchini — but I have to admit that the dish lacked the amount of interesting flavors that I had experienced in other broiled/roasted vegetable dishes.  It could be that I needed to add just a little bit more salt, but I just don't know if that would have made the difference.  So, the bottom line is that I may make this recipe again if I am looking for something to do with zucchini and potatoes in the house, but otherwise I probably won't go out of my way to buy ingredients to make this dish.