Zucchini and Apple Soup

I used light green zucchini from my garden. If you use standard zucchini, the soup will be a deeper green

Really? Sounds sort of odd together, doesn't it? But, it tastes delicious. Zucchini is not all that exciting on its own. The apple adds just the right amount of sweetness and acidity. It's apple season, why not?

Zucchini and Apple Soup
(serves 4)

1 large apple, peeled, cored & diced
2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 medium zucchini, diced
1 large onion, sliced
½ cup cider or apple juice
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon black pepper
4 cups chicken stock
½ cup light cream
salt
4 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Heat the butter and oil in a soup pot. Add the apples, zucchini, and onion. Cook over medium heat until the onions have softened but do not brown.

Add the cider, nutmeg, and black pepper. You can add a bit of salt here if you are using unsalted stock. Cover the pot and cook for 15 minutes. Add the stock, cover, and cook for another 15 minutes.

Puree everything in a blender or with an immersion blender. Add the cream and heat until hot. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if needed. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve hot.

Adapted from Apple Cookbook by Olwen Woodier, Storey Publishing, 2001.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Zucchini bread, the classic way to use up too much zucchini from the garden. Or your neighbor's garden. But, my zucchini plant was chewed up by a squirrel, then yanked up by a deer who didn't even have the decency to eat the thing. So, definitely a zucchini shortage in my house this summer. A friend of a friend bestowed an overgrown zucchini so I was able to test out a new chocolate zucchini "cake." I have a recipe that is a bit out of control - too much sugar, too much fat, and too much cake unless you are bringing it to a large gathering. But, I like the concept.

The first time I baked this, I used a loaf pan (see picture above). But, it's so moist and soft that it really works better in a square cake pan. It also bakes up faster because it has spread out more.

I used Dutch cocoa the first time, which results in a darker color and a richer chocolate flavor. The second time, I used natural cocoa (most commonly seen as Hershey's cocoa). The color is lighter as is the flavor. Feel free to try it either way. Both are good, as my husband and friends will attest.

If you end up using a baseball bat zucchini, don't grate up the center part with the seeds. Just use the fleshy outside layer.

If you are baking this cake at sea level (I live at 5400 ft above sea level), increase the baking powder to 1 teaspoon, which is my best guess on the correct amount for you flat-landers.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake
(serves 9-12)

Finally, the end of Zucchini is in Sight!

Not exactly. I still have a bunch of it in the freezer. But, it does make a good tagline.

Because of that cache of zucchini in the freezer, I'm always looking for good zucchini recipes. Here's one I conjured up on my own. I had orange juice hanging around so I reduced that until it was a syrup. Since zucchini has so much moisture in it, I knew that the syrup would be diluted quite a bit after it was mixed with the shredded zucchini. The result was a little sweet, with a nice hint of orange.

The zucchini doesn't take a good picture, but it's still tasty.

Zucchini Kissed with Orange
(serves 4)

½ cup orange juice
4 small zucchini, shredded
1 ½ Tablespoons butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
salt and black pepper

Bring orange juice to a boil in a small saucepan and reduce to a thick syrup. You should have about 2 Tablespoons of syrup. Place the zucchini in a colander and squeeze out some of the moisture.  Heat butter in a medium skillet until it starts to foam. Add the garlic, and saute for a minute. Add zucchini. Saute for a couple of minutes, stirring to cover the zucchini in the garlic butter. Add orange syrup and stir. Season with salt and pepper.

The Zucchini Glut Continues...

These are zucchini, a French variety called Ronde de Nice. It's my absolute favorite.

Oh, the glut of zucchini continues! I have one zucchini plant. As you can see from the photo, I pick them when they are pretty small. And still...there are way too many of them!!! Talk about prolific.

Inspired by this video by Jamie Oliver (filmed in less-than-ideal grilling weather), I switched up my usual zucchini grilling method. And, I have to say Jamie is right. Grill them dry, no oil at all, and they seem to take on more smokey, grilled notes. You dress them with oil after they are grilled, which gives you better options for oil. You can choose any number of delicious but fragile oils, such as walnut, hazelnut, almond, or fine extra virgin olive. As Jamie would say, "Brilliant!"

Grilled zucchini

There isn't a recipe here. More a basic process:

1. Slice the vegetables about ½" thick. Much thicker and they take too long to cook. Much thinner and they dry out.
2. Grill over high heat with no oil until you get nice grill marks on both sides.
3. Cut into bite-sized pieces.
4. Dress with a tasty oil and season with salt and black pepper.
5. Add other seasonings as desired. I tossed in some sliced grilled cherry peppers and some lemon thyme. Basil certainly is another great choice this time of year.

Attack of the Garden Produce

The east side of the garden

I don't have a big garden. I live on a fairly small lot in a small neighborhood full of trees. My garden occupies a good chunk of my front yard, where everyone else has a lawn. Who needs a lawn? I'm no sheep. I can't eat grass. But, I can grow lots of delicious produce. During the summer, I buy few vegetables. I get plenty of beets, carrots, beans (and more beans), eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, basil, zucchini (and this goes without saying, more zucchini), winter squash, lettuce, chard, kale, and collards from the garden. It is kind of amazing how much delicious produce comes out of a garden as small as mine. I have bags of beans, eggplant, and zucchini in the freezer because, at times, there is just too much for my family of two to consume.

The west side. It's only about 14 ft long and 7 ft wide (minus 1 ft for the path)

The beans have been particularly fruitful this year. I have 3 varieties: a yellow bush bean, a green pole bean, and a purple bush bean (which I won't grow again because it cooks up to a particularly dull green and tends toward stringiness). Being creative is helpful when confronted with a fridge full of garden produce. I can't stand to throw good produce on the compost pile.

Here's one of those recipes that just happened because there was stuff in the garden and in the fridge. Succotash usually contains beans (lima beans are traditional but I don't grow them nor do I actually like them), corn (I don't grow that either, but I had some from a local farm), and squash (usually pumpkin). My recipe contains all these things, sort of. As I said, you use up what you got!

My chiles were ripe and red which explains the red bits

Sharon's Succotash
(serves 4)

3-4 Tablespoons bacon fat (or you can use butter but bacon tastes even better)
½ medium onion, chopped
2 mild to medium New Mexican green chiles, roasted, cleaned and chopped
3 cups cleaned string beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
1-2 ears of sweet corn, kernels cut off the cob
1 zucchini, cut into ½-inch dice
salt and pepper
1-3 dashes of hot pepper sauce (optional)
1 Tablespoon chopped parsley (optional)

Saute onion and chiles in bacon fat. Add the string beans, corn, and zucchini. Cook over medium-low heat until beans are tender. I used fairly mature beans so it took about 20 minutes, but if you use young beans, it should be done in under 10 minutes.

Season with salt, pepper, hot sauce, (if you want a little zip), and chopped parsley.