Using Up All Of That Zucchini

Zucchini is in season and I have tons of it, almost literally if you've seen the big honkers I pulled out of the garden a few days ago. Every year when the zucchini comes in, I'm always amazed at how much of it grows and how fast it grows too. Seems like some of them double in size overnight.

I prefer not to use the very large zucchini for anything other than grating up to use in bread or the Gardener's favorite, chocolate chip zucchini cake. I gave a few of the largest zucchini to my father in law along with a recipe for zucchini wine. I personally think zucchini wine sounds absolutely awful, but he wants to give it a try. I guess we'll find out in a month or two when it's done.

The smaller, more manageable sized zucchini are great for sauteing in some olive oil or butter and enjoying along with some pasta or rice. Monday night, I made a pasta dish with fresh vegetables all grown in my garden. Basil, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes and garlic (from the farmer's market). I started by browning up 2 seasoned pork patties (only because I had it in the freezer, this would be great with just vegetables too) then added all of the chopped veggies to the pan and cooked for about 10 minutes while the pasta boiled. I added a few ladles of the salted pasta water to the sauce, seasoned with pepper and topped with Parmesan cheese. Believe it or not, my kids asked for seconds!I was so proud of myself for coming up with this tasty and healthy recipe in only minutes, then realized that almost the exact same recipe was on the back of the box of whole grain pasta I used.

Yesterday I kept the zucchini trend going by making 2 loaves of zucchini bread using this recipe (The only change I made was to squeeze out the extra water from the zucchini with paper towels before adding it to the batter. Makes for a bread that is NOT soggy and gooey.)

I also took Riot Kitty's advice to make a stir fry with all of my produce and raided the garden again for fresh veggies. broccoli, pea pods, zucchini, summer squash and scallions

I had some dried mushrooms in the pantry so I re-hydrated those and added a scrambled egg to the top.

Anybody else have a great zucchini recipe?