Cut it, strip it, process it, bake it – all things are possible when you have a three foot long zucchini.
Here is the perspective shot.
I returned home from the Burning Man festival with a broken ankle unable to walk down the hill to our community p-patch plot. I sent my ever so supportive partner to the patch to pick what I knew to be an overflowing garden of goodies. He brought me home this giant zucchini with a question mark on his face. So what do you do with a giant zucchini?
It was quite a goard to behold – so I started by cutting it into parts. One part to be food processed into zucchini bread, another to be made into noodles, and the third and final a zucchini bake.
All three options are quite easy to do and share. As you know what they say about zucchini – don't plant it unless you have friends.
Starting with the zucchini noodles – all you need is a carrot or potato peeler. Run the peeler over the zucchini to make the linguini sized noodles you see above.
To cook the noodles place them in a pan with the pasta sauce of your choice and simmer until they are soft and enjoy a starch-less, low calorie, gluten-free pasta.
Now onto the bake – you can fill your zucchini with anything that includes a nice amount of fat content to both help cook the squash as well as add flavor. This could be a meat and vegetable mixture with a cheese covering, or a goat cheese herbal blend such as I did.
Bake the stuffed zucchini for approximately 1 hour wrapped in tin foil.
Last but not least the best way to use massive amounts of zucchini is to make zucchini bread and/or muffins.
Just mix spices, sugar, eggs and zucchini
then add flour, stir and pour into bread pan or well buttered muffin tins. What I did learn this time though is to NEVER substitute coconut oil for vegetable oil in this recipe – especially when using gluten-free flour. It equals zucchini muffin explosion all over muffin tin and oven.
The recipe, when done right, yeilds quite a yummy bread or muffin.
Yummy Zucchini Bread
3 cups flour (gluten-free or traditional)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardomom
1 tsp nutmeg
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cup sugar (granulated or brown)
3 tsp vanilla
2 cups zucchini
Step 1:
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and grease your bread pan or multiple muffin tins with a generous portion of butter.
Step 2:
Mix all of the dry ingredients together.
Step 3:
In a seperate bowl mix the eggs, vanilla, vegetable oil together. When the three are well combined add the zucchini.
Step 4:
Combine the dry ingredients and the the zucchini mixture together. Do not over stir, mix only until all of the flour is combined.
Step 5:
Carefully spoon the batter into your muffin tins or pour it into your bread pan. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes if you are using a bread pan. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes for your muffins, depending on the size of your tins.
After the bread or muffin is slightly solid to the touch and golden brown remove them from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before attempting to remove from pan or tins.