I hate letting food go to waste. And I can’t say no to produce. This is a bad combination during zucchini season, especially when you are volunteering on a farm.

A few weeks ago our single zucchini plant was cranking out fruit and we were gifted about 20 lbs of zucchini from 21 Acres on a volunteer day.

I am happy to report that we used it all! Here’s what I’ve been cooking.

Zucchini Bread

I adapted this recipe from https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/simple-zucchini-bread-recipe, reducing the sugar so that it tastes more bread-like and less cake-like. I brought one loaf to a 2 hour meeting at work which went pretty smoothly. I will interpret that as a baking success.

1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup of milk
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp nutmeg
4 cups grated zucchini
1 ½ cups walnuts, toasted and chopped
1 ½ cups raisins, optional 

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two loaf pans with parchment paper or grease the pans well with vegetable oil.
2. Mix the brown sugar, milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla until smooth.
3. In a second bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined, being careful not to over mix.
5. Add the zucchini, walnuts, and raisins.
6. Bake for 55-65 minutes. Insert a toothpick to test whether it is cooked through. If no wet batter sticks to the toothpick, it’s done!
   

Zucchini Noodles with Garlic Scape Pesto

The garlic scape pesto we made was pungent. Quickly sauteed zucchini noodles (made by shredding zucchini on a grater) were the perfect vehicle for this flavor-filled sauce.

Zucchini Muffins

Another not too sweet zucchini baking project from a new-to-me farming and cooking blog that I’m really excited about – Dishing up the Dirt.

Zucchini and Red Lentil Curry

While I was looking up the zucchini muffin recipe I also found this one. Yum!

Zucchini Pancakes

It was worth turning on the stove for on a 90°F day for these pancakes (i.e., summer latkes). I added some fresh corn that had been neglected in the fridge. Noted, that compared to most of the country we are quite lucky to be whining about 90°F days in Seattle.