What Do You Do With Your Zucchini?

I remember back in June our zucchini looked like this. I was thinking at the time, "will I get any zucchini?" HUH! Will I get any zucchini?! I was flooded with it! Soon the monster plants produced monster zucchini and I was freezing and eating it as much as I could. I steamed, I froze, I ate it raw and gave it away. But it kept coming. I realized I needed to cook it into something. As you all know, and if you don't, I am not fond of cooking. If it wasn't a necessity I wouldn't be doing it. But I can say I am a pretty good cook, when I put my heart into it. Actually I prefer to bake. And that is what I started with...zucchini bread.

So in late June I made my mother-in-laws Zucchini Bread. It was so yummy, she liked to put a lot of cinnamon in her recipes and it works very well. I later snuck in some whole wheat flour, about half the flour needed, and my family still liked the bread but I couldn't slip it past my husband too many times. He grew up with this bread and wanted me to stop messing with the recipe. I proceeded to find a whole wheat recipe and make variations on this classic bread. I made it with brown sugar and honey, just honey, just brown sugar, butter or oil, loaf of bread or mini-muffins. Every variation was very tasty.

I froze some of the bread for later consumption and moved onto more serious recipes like kitchen sink cookies. This recipe came from The Classic Zucchini Cookbook, that I got from the library but I am thinking of buying, used of course. These were a hit. They have everything a good cookie has-sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate chips-but also goodness for your body-whole wheat flour, oatmeal, zucchini. The recipe called for dried fruit but I knew my kids had nothing to do with that.

Now that I had gained 3-5 pounds eating all these yummy baked goods, I thought I would get more serious with the zucchini. Now came zucchini pizza, zucchini goulash, zucchini cheddar cheese soup, and soup starter. All pictured below and all from The Classic Zucchini Cookbook. I have yet to grill, saute and deep fry it. Every recipe I made we loved and would make again. (The last 2 pictures are before and after for soup starter. The veggies are sliced and sauteed then chopped in the food processor to save for starting soups.)

I had a lot of fun with my zucchini this year. I know, the season is not over yet. But my plants are starting to slow down their production so there may not be much more going on here.

If you have a favorite book or recipe you like to use for your garden gifts let me know. Beth, I know you like Putting Food By, I already ordered it. My library didn't carry it so I ordered it used based only on your expert advise.