Monday, June 30, 2014

Zucchini Overflow?

Good harvest of zucchini lately? Gotten a bunch from people who have been harvesting them? An explanation for the overflow might be from wiseGEEK's "What is zucchini?" site. "Many markets carry this squash in the summer, and it is also a snap to grow at home, although some caution is advised, as the plants can produce way more fruit than one would think is physically possible."

A few times this month, a co-worker brought some gargantuan ones, and I've gleefully partaken of them, and passed on buying any in the store for awhile. I've grated or sliced these homegrown ones for recipes, or bagging and freezing after shredding and slicing, As of a week ago, I've baked two half batches of zucchini mini-muffins, varied by well shapes, and one batch of crustless ham-swiss-zucchini quiche.

For the next few articles, I'll publish three recipes for zucchini mini-muffins and one for the quiche.
The two half-batches of mini-muffins I baked last week had the same ingredients and baking time. The pans differed—aluminum round vs. silicone square—because I wanted to test my theory that one type of pan would yield moister results than the other pan.

My third batch of mini-muffins will again use the same ingredients, but the amount will be a 3/4-recipe batch, using both types of pans. I'll be using zucchini that I grated, froze, bagged, then let thaw. I'll not squeeze, as thawed zucchini is watery when squeezed.

I consider mini-muffin sizes to be a bit more appealing than regular cupcake size—more units that are available for distributing in a social environment. The amount of batter for making one cupcake-sized goodie is the same amount as for three mini-muffins. (At a potluck event, people can more easily pick up a small, self-contained morsel than commit to a larger item or something that requires slicing, particularly a pie.)

The Betty Crocker recipe has lots of details, including baking times for various pans. The Paula Deen recipe includes nutmeg, a spice I'd like to use in more recipes than I do. The most appealing reason I like these two 2-loaf recipes, besides relative ease of the process, is the even number of eggs. Making half-recipes is a lot easier when dividing four eggs than three eggs.

Some additional zucchini links:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your ideas on using up zucchini. I recently tried juicing a zucchini in with my usual green drink of kale, cucumber, celery parsley and ginger root. It added a great, raw, fresh taste! I'd love more ideas as well.

whilldtkwriter said...

Thanks for your comment! Sounds healthy!

A friend told me about slicing a zucchini very thin, shaking pepper and salt, and microwaving it. I THINK she said she added wine and also grated cheese. Another friend mentioned shaking parmesan cheese on a zucchini that was sliced lengthwise and microwaving it.

I still have a good load of both sliced and grated zucchini in separate bags to use in the near future.

Holly Jahangiri said...

Hahah...my parents once left the country with two zucchini plants about to fruit and instructions to not let them rot on the ground. "There shouldn't be too many..." Right. It is thanks to that harvest and Arnold Palmer's Zucchini Bread recipe that I was able to feed myself, my friends, and all their boyfriends up at the university dorm one summer. I could hardly make the bread fast enough to use up the zucchini before it ate ME out of house and home! :D I do love zucchini, now, in spite of the fact that I'm convinced it's from another planet and not always as benign as it would appear on store shelves...