Our cousin in Canada shared a recipe for oven-fried zucchini on her facebook page, and it looked good, but it called for some packaged stuff I am not a huge fan of, and it seemed to really want folk to ‘share’ on fb – kinda like how all those farmtowns and crushing candy things are.
I don’t have time for that (hi, Gabe!).
I did, however, have time to do a little research, and come up with this tasty – and pretty much good-for-you alternative…
INGREDIENTS
•1 zucchini, sliced into sticks
•1/2 cup flour
•1/2 tsp seasoned salt
•1/2 tsp black pepper
•2 eggs
•2 tbsp milk
•1 tsp Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Pepper Sauce – or your favorite hot sauce
•1-1/2 cup panko crumbs
•1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 425º.
Line a baking sheet with foil, then place a rack in the pan and apply a little cooking spray.
Whisk the flour together with the seasoned salt and pepper in a wide shallow bowl.
Whisk the eggs together with the milk and hot sauce (I used my immersion blender) 
and place in another wide, shallow bowl next to the seasoned flour.
Combine the panko with with Parmesan in a a third wide, shallow bowl and place next to the other two bowls.
Dip a zucchini stick in the flour, shake off any excess, then dip in the egg mixture to coat.
Let any excess run off, then coat in the Panko and Parmesan mixture and arrange on the rack in the baking pan.
Bake for 15 minutes, then flip the zucchini and bake for another 10 to 12 minutes, or until crispy.
Note: I baked mine on the lowest rack in my oven, and after turning, mine took at least 20 more minutes to crisp up nicely. Perhaps, as specified in some recipes I looked at, I should try baking them on the middle rack? And perhaps, next time, I will run the panko through the food processor to get a slightly smaller crumb.
Irregardless, they were quite tasty, and not, as my husband likes to describe zucchini, slimy at all. I had some with some of that lovely ranch dressing for dipping, some barbecued boneless beef ribs, and my favorite cucumber salad for dinner.
One nice bonus to oven ‘frying’ is that the leftover zucchini sticks were just as good reheated the next night for a dinner of nicely spicy pineapple barbecued meatballs (the secret is to use my barbecue sauce) over rice.
It was all good.