Chad’s Brandy Glazed Zucchini Bread

“What can I do with all of my zucchini?”  “Google Zucchini Recipes.”  “Here, take a zucchini.  I insist.”  These are common queries among gardeners this time of year.  If you live in a small town like Culver, you may not lock your car doors, except for his time of year – when you fear someone might leave a pile of zucchini in it!

Zucchini is extremely seasonal, and generally quite productive.  Thus, people tend to look for unique zucchini ideas, recipes that use a lot of zucchini, or that will use them in new ways,  then forget about them the rest of the year.  Seriously – you can see the season on Google!  Everybody loves zucchini bread, but you can only eat so much, even if it is good as my Brandy Glazed Zucchini Bread.  And, due to some mis-packaged seed (what was supposed to be patty pan squash turned out to be zucchini, so we have 300 feet of zucchini!), our farm is awash in zucchini now.  If every zucchini sold at the Culver Farmers’ Market came from us, we’d probably still have a surplus.

Thus, this post.  Hopefully it will serve a couple of purposes.  First, give you some ideas and recipes that I’ve been using for zucchini over the years, so you know what to do with the ones from your garden (or that you buy from us!).  Second, provide a forum for you to suggest novel zucchini uses for me to try, so we can enjoy them.  Unlike most posts, I’m going to be updating this one periodically, so check back from time to time (even though the post date won’t change).  Perhaps it can become as prolific as everyone’s favorite summer squash!

Zucchini Recipes

You can find all of my zucchini recipes by clicking the “recipes” tag above, and filtering ingredients for “Zucchini.”  But hopefully I’ll find some new external recipes to link to as well.  Please, make suggestions!

• Chad’s Brandy Glazed Zucchini Bread
• Mom’s Chocolate Zucchini Cake
• Grandma Brumbaugh’s Zucchini Cookies
• Zucchini Carbonara
• Zucchini Pancakes
• Pizza Stuffed Zucchini Boats
• Zucchini are great in Tandori Kabobs with Raita, one of my recipes that has not yet made this blog, but was published by Edible Michiana.

Grilled Zucchini

Zucchini is made for the grill, but sometimes folks are intimidated by it.  So, my thoughts on grilled Zucchini.

• Choose small to medium squash.  They have less seeds and pulpy core, and so are much better on the grill.  Particularly if you plan to slice them into discs.
• You basically have two slicing options.  You can slice across the squash into discs, or along the length of the squash into zucchini steaks.  I typically prefer discs, but if you don’t have a grill pan (seriously, just get one!), steaks can be easier.
• Yellow zucchini typically look better on the grill, because they show off the grill marks better.  But they all taste good.
• It’s helpful to lightly coat the zucchini with olive oil before placing on the grill.  Sesame oil is great, too.  And don’t forget salt and pepper!

Zucchini Ideas

Some things I’m working on, or intrigue me…  The Flavor Bible suggests a lot of interesting flavor combinations for zucchini.  That makes sense, given that zucchini is pretty much just a flavor sponge that doesn’t exert itself too hard.  Many conveniently have the same type of seasonality, so celebrating summer and local food together works well.

Among the more intriguing suggestions to me include bell peppers, butter, cheddar, feta, parmesan, chiles, eggplant, garlic, lemon, marjoram, basil parsley, thyme, pecan and walnut oils, olive oil, onions, pecans, tomatoes, and Pernod.  It also recommends chorizo.  The flavors of chorizo seem like they’d go great with zucchini to me, but I’m so far struggling to figure out what kind of situation to put them together in…

So, please, let’s help the world out.  Make some zucchini suggestions here!  The only beings that won’t benefit from more creative zucchini use are those living in your compost heap, so share away in the comments below!