Drive-by Zucchini-ing

It’s the time of year when the labor of love (that made my neighbors think I was growing weed in the basement) comes to literal fruition.  Fresh green beans for dinner every night.  Cucumbers, still warm from picking, with a dash of salt.  Peppers and lettuces in any color you can imagine.  Tomatoes for days…canned with the same tools our grandmothers used…..and zucchini.

Zucchini…the gift that just keeps giving.  Drought, violent storms, flood, meteor showers…and more zucchini.  The ‘not husband’ likes his zukes sauteed, fried, with noodles, on pizza, even pickled in relish.  The only use I find for it is bread. (A mightily delicious recipe that I will include at the end with all the culinary perversions I have attempted with it.)

Every waxy green zuke I cut from it’s prickly stem brings me a giggle.  My family, you see, had one very zucchini year.  (Zucchini as an adjective – indeed.)  There were three of us kids.  I was around ten and the twins were around five.  Someone at church gave us some seeds, telling us they were cucumbers.  We were so excited that we talked momma into giving us one entire row of the garden.  We would have fresh cucumbers, and all the pickles we could eat.  Carefully we planted the mounds and waited patiently….leaves emerged, followed by flowers…and something that was NOT a cucumber.  Quite quickly we were inundated with zucchini that none of us ate, so we gave it away.  We took boxes to church.  We gave bags to neighbors.  We did drive by zucchini-ing, leaving bags on porches.  We had so many zucchini that we started leaving them in people’s cars at church…until people started locking their car doors.  It seems that even when it’s free, there’s only so much zucchini a person (or several dozen people) can tolerate.  Finally defeated, we chopped them and fed them to the cows.  By the end of the summer the cows would follow me for the entire fenced length of my parents’ yard.

Lesson learned.  Cucumber seeds are either purchased in bags that say ‘cucumber’ or they are saved from cucumbers you grow, but never trust a zucchini fairy in disguise.

As promised, here’s the bread recipe.  You may as well plan on doubling or even tripling it because really, who just has 1 cup of zucchini??

Lemon Glazed  Lemon-Zucchini Bread
2 cups flour (I use 1/2 plain white and half whatever else -including coconut or oatmeal flours)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil (olive, canola, vegetable, avocado, etc)
1.5 cups sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (pulp and all – fresh is best)
1/2 cup milk (coconut, soy, or almond milk works fine)
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup grated zucchini (cheese shredder gets it done, peels and all)

For fun – toss in some blueberries or strawberries.  Cooking is fun.  Bwahaha!!

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (throw in some zest too)
1 tablespoon milk (I just use more lemon juice)
Okay let’s get crazy…add cream cheese to this and make this bad boy some icing!!)

Mix unceremoniously (the recipe actually states an order but psh!!) and pour into a bread or cake pan.  Bake 35 min (cake pan) to 45 min (bread pan) at 350 or until a knife comes out clean