The Free-Ride family has spent the last several weeks dealing with an abundance of zucchini. Here are two of the smaller ones we harvested this week.
Since there’s a limit to how many zucchini you can give away without alienating your friends and neighbors, it’s good to have some tasty strategies for eating them. Here are to of the recipes we’ve been working.
Zucchini Faux-Risotto
Wash and trim about 3 pounds of zucchini. Halve them lengthwise and slice into semicircles (about 1/8 inch thick).
DIce one large onion.
Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil.
Heat up a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and zucchini and toss to coat with oil. Cook on high heat without stirring too much (so that the zucchini and onions brown a bit). As you cook, the onions will get translucent and the zucchini will cook down significantly.
Meanwhile, boil 1 pound of orzo. (Ours is al dente after about nine minutes.) Drain, add to the skillet with the onion and zucchini, toss gently, and turn heat off.
Finely grate some asiago or other hard cheese until you have 1/2 to 1 cup. Toss with the orzo and vegetables. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
This dish is good hot or at room temperature.
Zucchini Bread
Preheat your oven to 350 oF. Lightly grease a standard loaf pan, or line with parchment paper.
Grate a very generous 2 cups of washed, unpeeled zucchini. (In a two-cup Pyrex liquid measuring cup, you want it to be overflowing with the grated zucchini.) If you have a food processor with a grating disk, this is a good time to break it out.
Put the grated zucchini in a large bowl with 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, the finely grated rind of half a large lemon, and a large egg. Beat together with a fork.
Sift together into the zucchini mixture 1.5 cups flour (this last batch I used 1/2 cup whole wheat, 1/3 cup white whole wheat, and 2/3 cup all purpose), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom. Stir together until incorporated.
Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about 55 minutes. Cool before removing from the loaf pan and slicing.
This is so moist that you won’t even think about buttering it until after you’ve gobbled it down.
zucchini faux crab cakes are my favorite way to deal with excess zooks: (from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/2007/07/never_enough_zucchini_recipes.html )
I Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Crab Crab Cakes
Adapted from John Shields, chef/owner of Gertrude’s, Baltimore, Md.; recipe appears in “Cooking Fresh From the Mid-Atlantic” edited by Fran McManus & Wendy Rickard
KOD note: Years ago, I had heard from a vegetarian reader about this method of shredding zucchini and seasoning it with Old Bay to mimic a crab cake. I should have heeded her advice much sooner; these are a vegetarian dream come true! It is remarkable how much these taste like crab cakes, particularly if patties are small and thin. A real kick in the pants.
Ingredients
2 cups coarsely grated zucchini
salt
1 cup bread crumbs
1 egg beaten
1 ½ teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon mayonnaise or plain yogurt
Juice of ½ lemon
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
vegetable oil, for frying
Method
Place grated zucchini in a colander; sprinkle lightly with salt. Let zucchini sit for about 30 minutes, allowing it to drain. Squeeze to remove additional liquid – zucchini should be fairly dry.
Place zucchini and bread crumbs in a large bowl and mix together.
Place egg, Old Bay, Dijon, mayo, lemon juice and parsley in a small bowl. Mix well.
Pour egg mixture into zucchini-bread crumb mixture, and mix gently and thoroughly. Form into 8 patties the size of crab cakes. Heat a small amount of oil in a saute pan, and cook patties on both sides, browning well.
Serve with tartar sauce, chopped capers, fresh basil and/or lemon wedges. Goes really well with halved sun gold or cherry tomatoes.
Have you tried Korean spicy zucchini soup? It’s basically a miso soup with tofu, zucchini, potato, and a lot of hot pepper. (It’s usually a deep red color when I see it in actual Korean restaurants.) You can use any sort of miso and any sort of tofu.
A few different recipes for it:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quick-and-Simple-Korean-Doenjang-Chigae-Bean-PasteTofu-Soup/Detail.aspx
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/korean-bean-curd-miso-soup/Detail.aspx
http://drbenkim.com/recipesmisosoup.html
http://www.nibbledish.com/people/gamany/recipes/tofu-zucchini-stew-dubu-chigae
http://koreanfood.about.com/od/soupsandstews/r/Daenjangchigae.htm
Haven’t had zucchini bread in ages. I’ll have to give the recipe a shot.
Two zucchini recipes that have been a hit at my house this summer:
Spicy Zucchini Pickles
Thai-Style Zucchini
I also like zucchini in my chili and zucchini frittata
I just like to chop it up, dice a nice roma tomato, saute the roma in some olive oil till it sorta gets all melty in the skillet, throw in the diced zuke and toss around till just tender, add a little salt and pepper. Remove from heat, throw in some fresh chopped basil, mix it up, plate it out, sprinkle parm cheese on top and ummmm. This is good by itself or on top of some pasta.
Chocolate zucchini muffins were a big hit at my house.
Apparently an over-abundance of zucchini is not uncommon, Isobel writes about it at Grits and Purls as well (http://wp.me/p10cFb-rd) and provides some links to some great sites for recipe ideas.
Enjoy your summer gardening.
My new favorite word is “zuke.” Like “cuke” only better, because any word with a Z in it is automatically more awesome.
I find I can cut back on sugar in my zucchini bread if I substitute some applesauce. This works in my recipe because it’s a pretty dry recipe. In yours you might need to short something else wet.
I didn’t know anyone else besides me used cardamom in tea breads! That is awesome. Sometimes I use allspice, too, if you want a stronger-tasting bread.
Also, it is worth noting that one of the best things about zucchini bread is that you can grate & freeze the zuke and make the bread in December or January, just when you are short on fresh ingredients.