The Great Zucchini Challenge

It has begun.  It is the middle of June, and already Matt's generous planting of zucchini and summer squash is yielding bountiful produce.

Those first several squash are always exciting.  Matt worries that I pick them too soon, but I ignore him and slice them up thin to fry in olive oil.  Less than a week later, they are coming in a pretty steady stream.  We're eating sauteed squash every other night, and I am polling people at work to find out if any of them will take zucchini.  Within days, we are eating it every night and I no longer care if people at work like squash.  They are taking it home anyway.

Yesterday, I discovered we'd missed one (nine), and I found myself dealing with enough zucchini to start a baseball team (although, as vegetables go, these are shaped more like quarterbacks).  After sauteing one (half) for dinner, I decided to try my hand at zucchini baked goods.

Zucchini baked goods confuse me.  Maybe I'm missing something here, but the zucchini bread, zucchini muffin and especially the zucchini chocolate cake all just seem like a way of dealing with excess zucchini: a coping mechanism for zealous home gardeners.  It's the human version of peanut butter on Henry's monthly heart-worm pill.  You can either make baked goods with a rich, dense crumb or you can make a sub par and equally unhealthy product with shredded zucchini in it. Yum.

As a kid, I didn't complain.  We didn't eat sweet breads or muffins very often, but zucchini bread was permitted.  Quick breads = bad.  Zucchini quick bread = have a third slice.  It was like the ice cream we were encouraged to eat the last morning of vacation.  Then I grew up and started taking my calories without the zucchini, thanks.

But last night, the behemoth zucchini scared me, and I made muffins.  The recipe came from Smitten Kitchen.  Deb gave me the brownies that have never let me down, and I confidently grated my zucchini and stirred it into the batter.  When I came in from putting up my birds, the house smelled comfortable and promising.  I spread two muffins with butter and gave one to Matt.

They were just like I remembered.  Meh.  Not bad, but not great.  The dumpy country cousin to a real muffin.

Now I'm on the hunt for real zucchini recipes.  Recipes that celebrate the zucchini.  Recipes that can't be improved by eliminating the zucchini.  I have my eye on a couple recipes like this sandwich from How Sweet It Is and this pasta from The Pioneer Woman.  My cousin Jamie sent me one for a quiche that I'm super excited about.  And I'm even wanting to try this tart from Smitten Kitchen.

If you have any recipes that you like or are curious about, send them my way.  I'll try any recipe you send me  with three exceptions:

1. Crazy expensive - if it calls for 24 karat gold dust, it's not happening.  Twenty-four carrots are ok.
2. Really weird ingredients - I'll try almost anything.  But I'm telling you now, zucchini jello is out of the question.
3. Allergies - if it has cinnamon in it, I have to substitute nutmeg or allspice.

So that's where we're at.  Some people challenge themselves to climb mountains or quit smoking.  Mark Zuckerberg (spellcheck just tried to change that to cheeseburger, haha!) challenged himself to eat only meat that he's killed himself.  I'm challenging myself to eat copious amount of zucchini.  Baby steps.

As long as I have recipes and zucchini, I will be blogging zucchini.  Stay tuned...