It has been the hottest summer on record – but we are saying that every year now, aren’t we? As we try to walk our 10,000 steps every day, lingering under the shady trees as much as possible, Luke the wonder dog and I long to be home, in the coolth. Luke can at least lie on the floor, on top of the air conditioning vent. He also doesn’t have to worry about what to do with the sudden abundance of zucchini.
Like Homer Price’s doughnuts, ripening zucchini is everywhere. Luckily, there are just about as many recipes for zucchini as there are the ubiquitous and magically regenerating vegetables themselves.
It’s that time of year. Again. Neighbors furtively slipping their excess zucchini harvest onto your front porch, before dashing back home. These are the times that try cooks’ souls: what to do with all the excess zucchini baggage.
Luckily it’s been a great tomato season, and they provide excellent camouflage for zucchini:
Zucchini Tomato Gratin
What are we to do with all the zucchini? It doesn’t look very nice on the windowsill – summer tomatoes in varying stages of turning from green to red are much more attractive. An elegant galette is a good way to start your purge. The crust is easy and forgiving, and it is soothing to lay out all the zucchini rings in ever widening circles. You will look very competent and trustworthy. And then you can start to spring these other surprises on the unsuspecting. If you have a garden, you have been harvesting tomatoes with a greedy heart, thinking about the jars of spaghetti sauce you will enjoy this winter. But what about that ever-rising green mountain of zucchini? You need to put on your thinking cap, and find some creative culinary solutions.
Zucchini Ricotta Galette
Zucchini boat recipes are popular. I like the idea of filling hollowed out vessels of zucchini with a variety of fixings, vegetarian or not, and using up all the lingering leftovers. Zucchini Boats
Luckily, zucchini is oh, so versatile. You can find it in soups, salad, chips, galettes, casseroles, hidden in breads and cookies. You can roast it, slice it, twirl it. This is a link to a virtual compendium of Zucchini Recipes
Do not be sneaky with zucchini. You don’t want to be the formerly favorite aunt who brings zucchini ginger cupcakes to the birthday party. Kids have a different perspective on summer. They never forget so-called “gourmet” baking experiments, or deliberate kid deceptions. Zucchini Ginger Muffins Yummy icing is always welcomed.
Nobody is fooled by zucchini bread. Least of all the small children into whom you are trying to stuff healthy vegetables. They are wise to your ways. Discuss the benefits of adding vegetables to your daily diet before feeding them this delicious Lemon Zucchini Bread. We are very excited about this Chocolate Zucchini Bread.
“The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt.”*
-Dave Barry
*This is my favorite zucchini quotation of all time, and I haul it out almost every year.
Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.
