Posted Aug 25, 2009
Some sympathy, please, for the zucchini. Such a versatile vegetable, and so energetic. Give just one plant a little encouragement and enough water, and it will pop squash all summer. Zucchini is low in calories, a fine source of vitamin A and fiber, and it’s easy to cook.
Yet even more than its cousin the pumpkin, it’s the butt of jokes. Unlike peaches, potatoes, corn, watermelon and even hot peppers, it has no national board promoting its usefulness to chefs and home cooks. Everyone, it would appear, already knows what to do with it:
Leave it on a neighbor’s porch in the middle of the night.
Seriously, this summer squash needs some respect.
Those determined plants could be producing until the first frost. So before you home gardeners pull them out by their big, scratchy leaves and toss them into the compost, we have some suggestions for you. Several are from Bee readers; others are from zucchini growers and cooks on our staff.
A zucchini avalanche
Just one request to readers in the Food & Wine section last month produced a bounty of ideas for extra zucchini. And it’s not stretching the truth to note that the recipes run the gamut from breakfast to dinner, from appetizers to dessert. (In researching this story, we even ran across a recipe for a cocktail — a Zucchini Tini — but testing that one at work would have been a problem.)
First thing in the morning, for example, you could try zucchini pancakes, which can be sweet or savory, depending on the other ingredients. Top the sweet ones with zucchini jam (thanks, Esther Mendes and Carol Mendes Klint of Sacramento). My personal favorite is chocolate zucchini bread or muffins, which can be a great packable breakfast or midmorning snack with coffee.
For Sunday brunch, a lattice-top zucchini tart, like the one often made by Bee designer Susan Ballenger, is a beautiful choice.
Lunch could be a slice or two of vegetarian zucchini- crust pizza, from the recipe shared by reader Linda Wilhelmy of El Dorado Hills, or perhaps a mug of chilled zucchini soup. Michael T. Motley of Davis sent in a recipe we couldn’t resist: It blends in crisp bacon.
Grilled zucchini is a natural starter for dinner, perhaps with zucchini relish (Lynn Geise of Sacramento says her dad makes this).
Continue to lasagna that substitutes baked slices for the noodles, as Sandi Haslett of Citrus Heights suggested. Finish with Gaylin Fleming’s zucchini ice cream, perhaps atop a dish of Grace Stratman’s zucchini cobbler.
You get the picture. And if you haven’t had your fill by the time our growing season ends, well, zucchini is available in stores year-round.
Date: Aug 18, 2009
To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com/.
Copyright © 2009, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.