Zucchini* *(tried to find a somewhat relevant word that alliterates with "zucchini" and realized that I couldn't)
Oh, I do love alliteration but sometimes searching for succinct alliterating sounds stretches the imagination and strains the staunchest of support in searching for such sounds.
One thing I love way more than alliteration is growing vegetables in the garden, picking them, and then finding ways to make the eating of the vegetables more enjoyable. Particularly in this season of personal change- kids going to college and worldwide devastation- man made mistakes that have caused and will cause persecution, torture, the loss of religious and women’s rights in Afghanistan and natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes- it is comforting to see something basic yet life affirming like the result of planting a few seeds in the ground months ago. Grateful for tiny seeds that grow into seedlings that grow into plants that bear vegetables.
This was the first year that I have grown zucchini. It will definitely not be the last year. I have not grown zucchini in the past because zucchini has never been a favorite veggie of mine or of anybody in the family. But, I knew that zucchini grow well/ easily here in Ohio and I needed a garden "win" after a couple years of less than stellar garden produce. So I planted a few seeds in the spring and hoped for the best. I was pleased to see healthy plants emerge as spring gave way to summer and then in early August, begin to pick ripe zucchini from the plants.
The first week that we had a ripe zucchini in the garden coincided time wise with a request from Alyssa's cross country coach about donating muffins. The junior high, high school boys and girls cross country teams were doing a two mile time trial on the first Saturday in August and the coaches wanted to treat the athletes after the run with muffins and chocolate milk- ergo requests for muffin/ milk donations. I signed up to bring muffins and that big ol' overripe zucchini sitting on my kitchen counter practically begged to be grated, ensconced with sugar and spices and other things nices and baked into muffins.
I found a recipe for double chocolate zucchini muffins online and decided to make those for the runners. I thought a little healthy combined with a little chocolaty goodness would be a winning combination for the athletes. The muffins turned out well, I thought. Nary a hint of vegetable taste in them and a good chocolatey taste made these winners. Alyssa, not a big muffin fan, tried one and liked it. Donnie liked them, too.
Here is a link to the recipe that I used:
Here are a few pictures:
SO green- here is the grated zucchini.
Here it is added to the chocolatey mixture.
The final result- no green color and no veggie flavor. Just a baked good that, while you couldn’t convince yourself or anyone that it was healthy, tasted good and was not completely unhealthy.
With the next ripe zucchini I decided to make "mom's" zucchini bread. Why have the word "mom" in parenthesis? Well, though I have my mom's zucchini bread recipe, I didn't make it. I used a recipe called "Mom's Zucchini Bread" that I found online. I chose a random mom's recipe over my own mom's recipe because the online recipe called for an entire cup more of flour than my mom's does (yet the sugar/ fat amounts were identical) and having more flour would translate to thicker batter which sounded better to me. I have now made a few batches of zucchini bread and everyone who has had it has liked it.
Here is a link to the recipe that I used:
Here are a few pictures:
Some of the people who reviewed the online recipe remarked that they added a streusel topping which sounds like it would be an incredible addition. I couldn’t help but be reminded of carrot cake when I ate the bread. Think what a slathering of cream cheese icing on a piece of this bread would do!! (It would turn the bread into zucchini cake, I think 😊👍🏻)
Next I made zucchini chips. They didn’t turn out well at all. To make zucchini chips, the zucchini needs to be cut into very thin pieces. To make the very water filled veggies dry and crispy, they need to be baked at a low temperature for at least two hours. I found a recipe that cut the bake time in half by having the temperature high for half the bake time and then baking them at a lower temperature for the rest of the time. I tried that recipe since I didn't want to wait 2+ hours for the chips. Unfortunately, the recipe did not work for me. The pieces of zucchini started to burn so I had to take them out of the oven but they were still soft and mushy. They were not chips at all. I may try to make zucchini chips the real way at some point- with lower temperature for a longer time period.
The latest dish I made was zucchini onion pie. Though called a pie, this dish, sadly contained no crust. It was more like a crustless quiche; it was savory and not sweet like traditional pie. It was good! With three cups of zucchini in it and an onion, this pie seemed almost healthy. We all liked it.
Here is the recipe:
Here are a few pictures:
Note that this dish is particularly not photogentic…This was before the pie went in the oven.
After: yum!
I look forward to trying even more zucchini recipes. Finding recipes and trying new dishes with zucchini in them has been a good distraction from some of the heavy news lately both worldwide and closer to home. Spending time in the garden is enjoyable to me- I don't even mind pulling weeds that constantly encroach around the plants much anymore. Speaking of plants, all of the zucchini that I've picked from the garden have come from two plants. The plants are huge because they are next to the compost bin and any plant near the bin fares well. I have two other smaller, though healthy looking zucchini plants that have yet to bear zucchini but I am optimistic that they will. The last time I was in the garden, I saw a bee in one of the flowers which portends well for fertilization.
These all sounds like delicious recipes- you are totally inspiring me :)
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