The Zucchini Defense

It looks pretty – kinda - if you like long, hard, yellow or green club-like squash that reproduce more abundantly than the rabbits in Mr. McGreggor’s garden, then you got zucchini. Or if you’re one of the many of the Blessed to receive a mystery bundle of joy on your doorstep, in your car, in your office cube, in the pew; people spreading random acts of kindness anonymously, then you need to have a good defense.

Having been brought up under the notion of “nothing goes to waste”, I thought I’d share my method of dealing with so much home-grown, unsolicited love. I had a bag stuffed with the stuff from She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sitting on the kitchen floor for over a week... maybe three but who's counting, and it was time to get rid of it.

First I chop off the stem and flower ends, divide and conquer into manageable chunks and then quarter length-wise. I scoop out the seeds, not so much because you need to but because if my Farmers found one in whatever it was I made, the gig would be up and they would refuse to eat it no matter how much sugar or chocolately goodness it was baked in.

My handy-dandy Salad Shooter takes over and shreds them into little bits of love. From here, there’s a lot we can do with it. Filling to stretch hamburger, dips, cakes, cookies, breads, soups, casseroles, etc.

Then I bag it up in two cup portions. Why two cups? ‘Cause that’s what it takes to make my spiced zucchini bread, that’s why. Actually, two cups seems to fit the bill for most zucchini needs.

Nice loaves! They don’t look beautiful but what they lack in presentation, they make up for in taste. I made two batches, four loaves all together and all but the one we gave away ended up looking like this mere seconds after they were cool enough to touch.

Hey, I’m not going to tell the Farmers what they just ate. Not that it’s necessarily “healthy” by any means, but they ate a veggie and that’s good enough.

I didn’t even begin to use what zucchini I had, so the rest went into the freezer until they too become devoured as some other creation. I left some freshies out to slice up to make lasagna out of or sautee in butter with Walla Walla’s, garlic and bacon. My standard is dipped in egg and milk, coated in flour and cornmeal, then fried until golden brown and sprinkled with S&P.

There are thousands of zucchini recipes out there to build your own lines of defense. Some are good, some sound good and others deserve a nod for their “creative” culinary concoctions.

Anyway, here's my Spiced Zucchini Bread recipe. Fiddle with it as you like.

3 eggs

1 cp brown sugar

1 cp granulated sugar

1 cp oil

2 cps shredded zucchini

2 cps flour

2 tsp soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp nutmeg (I use more cause I like it)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves (more or less, you be the judge)

Optional: chocolate chips, chopped nuts, the kitchen sink...

Mix first five ingredients, mix dry together and add to wet. Add optional's last. Pour into to greased and floured loaf pans. (Baker's Secret works great without getting bits of paper towel from greasing.) Bake in a pre-heated oven @ 350 for an hour. Remove from pans onto wire racks to cool. Freezes well.

Appreciate Affection... or at least tolerate it.

*If you have a special recipe you'd like to share with the rest of the troops, leave it in the comments below. ~Stacey

Labels: Home and Garden