So I have a goal: not to waste any of the zucchinis we harvest from our garden. This means all zucchini that is edible when harvested should at some point be consumed.
It’s not much of a challenge to use the zucchinis that are still small when we find them. Chop up a couple and toss them in with a tomato sauce to have with pasta, throw them into chilli or add them to the soup. If I get a nice young tender one I’ll add it to my salads, especially hearty salads like quinoa and chick peas.
But the real challenge comes in using the zukes that we didn’t notice until they’re the size of baseball bats (we have one here that weighs 6 lbs 9 ozs – children are born weighing less!).
Tonight I made ‘Garden Oatmeal Muffins’ that had 1 cup of grated zucchini (along with carrots, oats and other basic muffin stuff). But 1 cup of grated zucchini barely makes a dent in this bunch.
In the muffin recipe book I have, there are recipes for zucchini muffins with carrots, chocolate, lemon, nuts, oat bran and whole wheat. If I can find the time, I would like to make up batches of each and freeze them. Luckily the cooler air that’s blowing through today makes me feel more inclined to cooking than I do when the humidex is over 40.
It’s been suggested that I can also just freeze grated zucchini, so I will likely do that with much of these – ideally in 1 or 2 cup batches so that it’s easy to use them. I can imagine though that our little freezer downstairs will quickly fill up with zucchini baked goods and grated zucchinis. I guess that’s what having a garden is all about.
Some of our produce we barely have time to admire, let alone store, before it’s eaten – like little cherry tomatoes that Miya loves, and cucumber that all of us are pretty fond of. (And I’ll add that our cukes are much tastier and crunchier than Superstore versions.)
We still have some more things to harvest – including more zukes. Better get my cook books and freezing guides out.
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