Everything is bigger in America.  Including zucchinis.  A guy at work was telling me about the zucchinis he had grown in his veggie garden and talked about bringing some in for me.  I didn’t really expect him to (a) remember to bring any in for me or (b) the size of them.  So one day I turned up at work and found these on my desk:

So, thus beginneth my zucchini baking and cooking challenge.  What to do with 3 zucchinis the size of baseball bats?  And then another one from our neighbor … and another one just as I was getting through them all!  See below for what I’ve used over the last 2 weeks or so:

Some of these were successes:

• Zucchini burger – grated zucchini and carrot, together with an egg, nutritional yeast and gluten-free bread crumbs;
• Zucchini brownies – based off a recipe from Henry’s school teacher (thanks Janet!), and made a little more healthy with no refined sugar or oil, with my famous pecan/date frosting (recipe here)
• Zucchini cake – my never-fail carrot cake recipe (here) with the only substitution of zucchini for the carrot – one of the guys at work said it tasted so good, he was sure there was pot in it … I just looked at him and shook my head!
• Thai almond curry with veggies – I love this recipe (sauce recipe here) and it works absolutely fantastically with any veggies you have lying around the house.  This time I did it with sweet potatoes, mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini (obviously) and spinach
• Roast veggie salad – (recipe here) I actually had the salad with some gluten-free bread and wraps for a healthy lunch at work over a number of days
• Veggie quiche – (recipe adapted from here) – with mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini and spinach, along with some dairy-free cheese and nutritional yeast, this was a winner in my book!

Some of these were ok experiments, but not worth doing them again:

• Zucchini choc chip muffins – nice and moist, but didn’t have that ‘zing’ I was looking for
• Chocolate zucchini cookies – as above
• Zucchini peanut butter cookies – as above

And then there were the disasters:

• Zucchini fries – trying to be too clever and ‘healthy’ by not coating them in breadcrumbs, just roasting them alongside potato wedges.  The zucchini fries were soggy and yucky.  The wedges were awesome.
• Zucchini and veggie sandwich – really didn’t give me much satisfaction for lunch that day, just very bland
• Zucchini donut cookies (not shown) – I did the recipe according to what was written, but they just weren’t that great.  I ended up throwing these in the bin …

So I’ve learnt a lot about zucchini over the past few weeks (and I still have another zucchini to use up).  I would love to hear from you guys with your tried and true zucchini recipes – so I can use up the last bit of zucchini until I get given some more!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my cooking adventures – feel free to share with your friends and family and I would love to hear any and all comments you have!

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home!

Sarah