Zucchini Mania

Some people roll their eyes when zucchini season rolls in. I am just the opposite. For years I was garden challenged. I couldn't even get zucchini to take hold, but now, when I see those lovely long fingers developing, I feel gratitude. I love the stuff!

I am just fine with it cubed or sliced and steamed with salt and pepper, but there are so many other things to do with it. I remember when I was a kid that some of the Relief Society Sisters got excited and decided that you could flavor zucchini with anything or pickle it and so they did. For example I remember one of them showing me her freezer full of plastic boxes of different flavored zucchini chunks. The one I remember best is that she had marinated it in pineapple juice and then frozen the cubes to use in things like pineapple upside down cake and fruit salad.

I have never gone that far...yet...however, some of my friends think I am crazy because when I go outside and a zucchini has "gotten away from me" and is now about 5 pounds huge (I picked one this morning that was almost 6#!) then instead of wondering who I could give it to on a "ring and run", I start planning dinner. A few years ago a friend of mine brought me a couple that size the day before I was going on vacation because she didn't know what to do with it and neither did I, but we were going camping, and I had a little idea niggling at me, so I stuck it in the food basket and off we went. Well a couple of days later I pulled it out, fried up a pound of breakfast sausage, some onion and mushrooms and then I stirred 8 oz of softened cream cheese into the whole thing. I cut that zucchini in half lengthwise, took the seeds out and stuffed it with the sausage mixture, topped it with bread crumbs and put it in the dutch oven. Oh man! This is one of the most requested dishes now at my house and I am always keeping my eye out for that "big one" or letting one grow that big.

Here are some ideas of ways to NOT waste your next zucchini:

1. Zucchini Bread
2. Meatballs
3. Spaghetti sauce
4. Lasagna
5. Sausage stuffed Zucchini
6. Grate it and put it in Ziploc bags in the freezer for later use (no other prep necessary)
7. Zucchini Muffins
8. Grate zucchini into your salad
9. Grill them
10. Use in a vegetable stir-fry

Enjoy!

"Lost Bread"

The year I lived in France I bought a LOT of baguettes. My husband and my oldest son especially loved it when I had a fresh baguette in the house and they could take a crisp wonderful sandwich to work or school. They loved them so much, that sometimes I bought too many at a time. The problem with that is that French baguettes become hard quite fast and I didn't know what to do with the leftovers. I threatened that I would have to quit buying if we couldn't use them up consistently. The mournful faces were too much for me! I began a list of all the things I could do with hard baguettes! The French call this "pain perdu" or lost bread. You wonder where we got our wonderful recipe for French Toast as we call it? It came from "pain perdu"! They take the stale or hard bread, soak it in eggy milk and bake or fry it and Voila! a delicious breakfast. This is only one of the marvelous things I did in France and still continue to do with lost bread. Here are a few more ideas:

Ways to use “lost bread”

1. French Toast
2. Toast to dip in Hot Chocolate
3. Bread crumbs
4. Bread pudding
5. Meatloaf
6. Fondue
7. Stuffing
8. Croutons
9. French Bread Pizza
10. Garlic Toast
11. Cube for under gravies such as sausage, tuna or chipped beef

Since I have discovered and shared with many of you the wonderful recipe for Aritsian Bread in 5 minutes a day (see http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/). I have continued to have wonderful crusty breads, but find I need this list now just as much as that when I lived that wonderful year in the Alps!