sauteed yellow courgette with sesame (seed & oil, why not)

Well.  My husband is about ready to walk out (and have supper somewhere else), if I continue to serve anything containing even a semblance of zucchini.  His dedication to eating locally (from the front garden) is quite a bit less forceful than mine.  I don’t entirely disagree with him: I’m pretty sick of courgettes, big and small, myself.  But this only furthers my resolve to come up with interesting and creative things to do with them.

And let’s be honest: Zucchinis are inoffensive, flexible, and not un-tasty, although I suppose they don’t really have much of a personality on their own.  Which is really why they are so well-suited to dishes savoury as well as sweet.  So, to deal with the glut, I recommend the following: Take all of your huge zucchinis, grate them, and pop them in the freezer in 2 or 4 cup denominations, just like that.  I have already found, that this way, zucchinis rapidly become indispensable, and are a very frugal way to put food on the table.

1. Soups.  Any soup, really!  I was under the weather the other day, so Lee was on his own meal-wise.  He made a valiant attempt at what could have been a fine ratatouille, but unfortunately added quite a bit too much salt…and then olives and sundried tomatoes, which really put things over the edge to inedible.  So, I encouraged him to take one of our overgrown zukes, and grate the whole darn thing into the soup.  This he did, and thus the soup was saved!  Zucchini will absorb flavours, and mush up quite nicely, to become relatively indistinguishable from its old self.  What was before a failed ratatouille, became a delicious vegetable soup.

2. Bread.  There are innumerable delicious zucchini-bread recipes, many of them gluten and even grain-free watch this space for a couple, coming up.

3. Cake.  I absolutely love Zucchini cake.  All of my cakes are made a little bit slap-dash (I have never been one to follow the rules, and what better place to exercise one’s inner radical than in the kitchen?).  My cakes are also always gluten-free if not very low gluten, but I never scrimp on butter or sweet.  If you’re going to make a cake, please, go all the way.  Also, Zucchini loves chocolate.

4. Veggie & Fruit bars.  I recently stumbled across several lovely recipes for raw (dehydrated) fruit and vegetable bars in which zucchini plays a starring role.  Stay tuned!

5. Curry.  In a pinch, I make a curry.  Frozen, grated zucchini gets thrown into my cast-iron dutch oven, along with some organically-raised chicken thighs, curry spices, garlic, onion, and whatever old veggies happen to be lying around.  A few hours later, and…ta dah!  Supper.