Did Anyone Say Zucchini!?

Two Zucchini in Front of the Zucchini Plant

How is it possible that this is my second season of writing a garden blog and I haven't discussed zucchini!? Most gardeners are familiar with this lovely plant and vegetable but have mixed feelings about it because zucchini can quickly overwhelm us with their sheer numbers! I planted one zucchini plant; 1. And I have more zucchini then I need. But I am determined to use up what I am harvesting. So this post is mostly about what to do with all that zucchini and some recipes my family enjoys. Certainly you can give zucchini away. But there comes a point when your friends and neighbors will say no to all your zucchini. There are certainly soup kitchens, food pantrys, and homeless shelters. They would be very happy to have your zucchini. But let's be real about something, size. No one wants a baseball bat sized zucchini unless they plan to fill it with a filling. They do make lovely containers. So bright and green. And actually the large zucchini make great zucchini chips (similar to baked fries but round).

When harvesting zucchini it's important to check your plants daily. Small zucchini, like the small one in the photo, taste so much better than the large bat sized zucchini. I can remember my mother's comment when I brought her some veggies from my garden. She commented that my zucchini was awfully small. Obviously a negative comment. When I explained to her that smaller was better, more tender her following comment was very telling and somewhat funny. She realized that all the baseball bat sized zucchini she got from her neighbor all these years wasn't so great after all! Zucchini isn't the only garden vegetable that tastes better when young, fresh, and small. Think yellow summer squash, green beans, beet greens, cucumbers; even small "new" potatoes are delicious!

So here's what I've made over the past few days with our zucchini of all sizes.

What would summer be without Zucchini Bread? Well here's a bit of a twist on that:
Lemon Zuchinni Bread from Cooking Light magazine (and it's delicious!)

Photo taken from: http://sarahskitchenadventures.blogspot.com/
Mix in a large bowl -
2 1/2 cups flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
3/4 cup sugar - I used a little less and next time I will substitute some maple syrup for some sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (Oh! I forgot the cinnamon!)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I never add the salt)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Mix in another bowl - and turn on your oven to 350 degrees F
1 cup shredded zucchini
1/2 cup milk (I used local raw whole milk)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
2 TBSP grated lemon rind (organic lemon if you can get it)
1 large egg (I always use local, free range)
Now gently mix the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and stir just until moist
Spoon batter into an oiled and floured bread pan
Bake at 350 for 1 hour
For a topping -
Mix with a whisk 1/2 cup of powdered sugar with
1 TBSP fresh lemon juice (from your grated lemon) and drizzle over the hot bread
Enjoy with some nice iced herbal tea!

We also had a surprisingly delicious grated zucchini side dish last night. Taken from The Victory Garden Cookbook
Grate zucchini
Then, to remove some of the moisture, if you want to do that, sprinkle with a tiny bit of sea-salt and let sit in a colander for 30 minutes. Then gently squeeze out the liquid. Here's the funny part; the recipe book says that if you are restricting your salt to rinse the zucchini before squeezing. But I thought that the idea of the salt was to leech the moisture out. Anyone know anything about this?
In a pan saute just about anything you think would taste good with this sauted shredded zucchini. I used what I had on hand. I had a ton of scallions and garlic from the garden so I used that. I also had a few cherry tomatoes so I used them. I considered using chard but didn't want to get away from the zucchini as the main ingredient. So I sauteed scallions and garlic. Added tomatoes and zucchini. Then when almost done I added minced fresh basil. It was really good!

And of course you can always make a stuffed zucchini with just about anything you want in it. The men in my life liked a friend of mine's idea to use some ground sausage. I don't normally cook with meat but we had some local sausage in the freezer so I decided to give it a try. I noticed it was spiced with hot chili peppers so I must admit it smelled really good when cooking. I just mixed the cooked sausage with some cooked brown rice, onions, garlic, and zucchini. (Note: cook sausage first and drain fat!...also then cook onion before adding zucchini and any other veggie you might add such as tomatoes) I added some left over homemade spaghetti sauce to it. Put it all in the zucchini shell; topped with some local cheese and baked until the cheese melted. And they liked it!

Tonight we are trying some Zucchini Oven Chips. If they are any good I'll post tomorrow.

So for now, enjoy your zucchini any way you can!
Mary
PS - Check out this yummy sounding zucchini recipe: http://recipes.rodale.com/Recipe/zucchini-delight.aspx