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!