Okay, the whole zucchini thing is not as adversarial as it sounds. However, considering that I planted exactly two zucchini seeds, the level of vegetable production I'm experiencing is almost alarming.
On June 23rd, I took a couple of photos of some adorable little zucchini plants that were just forming and still had yellow blossoms on their tips.
One rainstorm later and on July 1st I had a nice harvest of two good-sized squashes, two cucumbers and a handful of grape tomatoes.
Pay no attention to my filthy car upholstery. Look at the beautiful vegetables!
Three days later I stopped by my garden to water and picked another moderately-sized zucchini, two more cucumbers and a few more grape tomatoes. I took one last look at my smaller zucchini plant and discovered THE BIGGEST ZUCCHINI EVER hiding in the leaves. I can't believe I hadn't spotted it earlier.
You could seriously mess someone up if you hit them with that beast of a squash. It had to have weighed more than two pounds.
I got out my trusty Kitchen-Aid vegetable slicer attachment and shredded the monster zucchini. It produced six cups of vegetable matter.
First I made two loaves of zucchini bread. My husband had been chanting, "Zucchini bread, zucchini bread…" like a mantra ever since I'd told him I planted zucchini, so obviously I had to start there.
With the remaining three cups of shredded zucchini, I made a double batch of zucchini pancakes to accompany the grilled steaks we had for dinner last night. I followed the link in that blog post to Maangchi.com and made the dipping sauce she recommended to accompany the pancakes, using the largest of the jalapeño peppers I have growing outside my back door.
We will definitely be having those again. The dipping sauce alone was so good that I want to dip all my food in it forever.
Tonight I made a pretty pedestrian batch of spaghetti with sauce from a jar, but of course included a sliced zucchini because these things are not going to stop growing. I still have two more waiting to be used and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a new crop ready for picking before the end of the week.
So do you have any recipes for zucchini that are interesting, delicious, unusual or otherwise worth passing along? I think I'm going to need them!
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