Lightening Online

Here goes with our Zucchini Lovefest! Thank you so much for all your wonderful submissions. We really have a great variety here. I don’t think I’ll have quite enough zucchini to try them all!!!!!

Honestly, if you can’t find something amongst this lot to tickle your fancy, well, I give up.

I hope you enjoy this “carnival of zucchini” the Zucchini Lovefest.

BLOG POST SUBMISSIONS

Kate over at Our Red House has some wonderful recipes for zucchini. She has some fantastic recipes posted from time to time so I knew there’d be some great inspiration from there.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I’ve been wanting to try this since Kate posted it but just haven’t really had the time or energy. It’s top of the “to do” list for today. If you’re lucky I might even post a pic later in the day.

And here it is……… 

It’s not all that obvious because I iced them AFTER I’d cut a piece off….but I did do a “Sephy” and sampled a slice before I took the photo.

And the verdict????  YUM!!!!  See, chocolate cake really IS good for you! 

Zucchini Fritters

Cheesey Zucchini Slice

Next we have

Zucchini Cookies submitted by N from Bad Human! Don’t Take Chemicals From Strangers saying “I never thought this recipe would be good because I never thought about sticking zucchini in a cookie but they are amazing.”

Kate from Picklebums has the following recipes

Zucchini Bread

Zucchini Fritters

Lis from Altered Cutlery has

Zucchini Muffins

A savoury muffin option with bacon and cheese - they look good enough to eat!!! Oh, that’s the idea? Very good then.

Altered Cutlery is another great location to visit when you’re in need of recipe inspiration!

Sephy from Sephy’s Platzish has

Zucchini Bread

This one had me in giggles with the photo at the end with this caption “here’s the bread, minus a smallish sample”. That’s what I like to see. Recipes that are tried and tested.

Zucchini Muffins

A great alternative to zucchini bread. This is a sweet muffin recipe and the post comes complete with a physics experiment using the batter.

Tracy from Beyond My Picket Fence has Roasted Vegetable Salad

DIRECT RECIPE SUBMISSIONS

River has passed on this great recipe:

In olive oil stir fry finely sliced onion and shredded carrot until soft. Toss in finely shredded cabbage and chopped parsley, stir. Add small amount of water, put on a close fitting lid and let steam just until cabbage wilts. Toss in grated (shredded) zucchini, turn off the heat, let stand for a minute. The heat from the mix will cook the zucchini without turning it to mush. Great alongside sausages or chops. We’ve even had it with roast beef. Ingredient amounts are to suit your family.

LS writes:

One off the cuff which I use especially with those large zucchini’s (which my dad thinks are meant to be picked like that so I am used to them now)…. is a quick recipe that makes a nice saucey type addition to snags, snitzels, or just heated up like chunky soup. It also makes a nice type of stuffing if placed in a casserole dish , baked then covered with breadcrumbs. Yummo. My tastebuds are watering.

I cut the washed zucchini into rings about 1.5 cm wide (maybe cut in half if diameter is huge) , roughly dice onion and tomatoes (good for those ones nearly past due date or patchy skins) and place with a little oil and water in a saucepan along with some pepper, salt, and some mixed herbs or similar. Cover and simmer till soft or just cooked. Can thicken with cornflour or simply serve as is. I have also used this to add to spag bolog, and a pasta bake I make from basics. Noone ever notices.

You can always freeze this and use later… it last ages and is handy come casserole time in winter. You may need to add more spices though as it can go watery.

My mum makes a zucchini and pasta relish which is very tasty if one can handle the colour!

Katy sent in:

We love vegetable pie! The children especially. Grate 2 carrots, 2 zucchini, 1 cup cheese, 5 eggs, 1 cup flour, S&P, bacon or chicken if you’d like. Mix it all up in a big bowl, and cook on 180 for about 45 minutes. Yummy!

And here is tonight’s attempt at this recipe:

I didn’t get a chance to take a photo before I served the kids.  This is 1/4.  And it was pretty much a hit.  The kids were a bit dubious at first which is pretty normal.  But they each ate it all.  I think it’ll become an addition to our regular menu.

Cat from Fitcat says:

Grate zucchini, carrot, potato and unpeeled sweet potato. Add to a bowl of mince. Add a raw egg. Mush, mush, mush. Shallow fry in vegetable oil. Yummy!

Erin from Rantings From the Walking Dictionary writes:

We being non wheat/gluten eating as a family, dont often get nice things like gravy (i have gluten free gravy packet for DS but I cant stand it), however I found by accident that putting sliced zucchini in to cook in the meat juices after the steak had browned, resulted in my meat juices thickening up into a slightly runny gravy, that was totally wheat/gluten free (meat juices, zuchinni starch and a hint of salt) as well as being homemade (and the zuchinni homegrown too). So I had a bonus to my meal, gravy flavoured zuchinni slices, and actual gravy to go on the meat.

We also like dicing it up with some onion, tomato, pumpkin etc and sauteeing it (lol sounds fancy and hard work but its all just chucked in the frying pan and simmered in its own juices til soft and delicious lol) and then serving on top of rice with whatever meat/chicken etc we are eating.

Works well in savoury mince and in meat patties as well.

A FEW TIPS

• Apparently the best zucchini’s are those under 12cm (5 inches). They are the most tender. (ooops…..the big ones are GREAT for grating up in cooking though )
• When selecting look for those that don’t have withered ends….or better yet, pick your own and use straight from the garden.
• You don’t need to peel them. The skin is edible. If you want to hide them from your kids though….be warned, the tiniest of skin will alert the little critters. Grating without skin will ensure the entire zucchini is dissolved into whatever you are cooking….never to be revealled.
• Tiny zucchini’s are apparently nice raw (who’d have thought???)

TRAWLING THE WWW

If that aint already enough for you, here are some links I found on the net.

There are a massive number of recipes using zucchini on Basic Recipe. Everything from zucchini soup to zucchini cake to zucchini fries (???).

Zucchini recipes on About.com

This one looks totally good enough to eat!!! Zucchini Slice . I really love a good recipe with TOP photos!

If you’d like something a little bit different (including some recipe titles in languages other than English) you could try Recipe Zaar’s zucchini recipe list or perhaps some with an Italian flavour.

Just to finish off I had to add Chocolate and Zucchini. I’m yet to find any zucchini recipes on there but I couldn’t resist the title!!!!

If I’ve forgotten to include your link or idea, please let me know and I will add it in.