Zucchini carpaccio

It's that time of year when the courgettes (zucchini) are coming out of the garden by the bucketful (ok, maybe about three per day) and we're always on the lookout for different ways to eat them. The easiest way we've found so far is to just slice them, season them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and other spices, and put them on the grill. Yum. But sometimes you want a something a little different.

We used mint and feta, but you can also use capers and peccorino or parmesan.

Thanks to reader angiemanzi for inspiring us to make this dish: zucchini carpaccio. It was a breeze to make and delicious! I used the mandolin to make very thin slices of zucchini to which I added a thinly sliced shallot. That got sprinkled with the juice of one lemon and left to sit for an hour or two. I chopped some fresh mint from the garden and sprinkled that on, then cubes of a feta-style cheese. To finish, I added freshly ground pepper and drizzled olive oil over it all. It was a fresh and tasty first course on Thursday. We'll definitely do this again, and the variations are endless!