To my astonishment, George managed to plant and cultivate a small vegetable and herb garden this year. Since we moved into our home seven years ago, he’s always maintained a garden, but I expected the addition of four babies to cramp is style. He scaled back quite a bit and stuck to two crops we thought we’d most enjoy: tomatoes and zucchini.

A few days ago, we got a chuckle out of his latest harvest. After a few minutes piddling in the garden, George strutted into the house hauling a 5.5 pound zucchini. To put it in perspective, this monster weighed more than any of our babies at birth. Now that is one enormous zucchini! George presumed this thing would be too woody for consumption due to it’s extended time on the vine.  One thing I detest is waste.  I wasn’t going to let a perfectly good zucchini go unused if I could help it.  The next day I sliced it and found it to be tender and mild even raw. This particular one ended up being steamed then mashed into a gallon of baby food. The babies have enjoyed several zucchini medleys including: zucchini + apple + cinnamon, zucchini + apple + banana, and zucchini + tomatoes. I may have used up the big mama jamma for the babies, but we also had quite a few smaller zucchini to contend with.

Harper was as entertained by this gardening snafu as much as we were.

Rylin is a clever girl and knew this was meant to be eaten. She went after it like corn on the cob.

Do you see the little teeth marks?

As a wedding gift, a family friend gave us an assortment of kitchen utensils along with cherished recipes.  We received this zucchini bread recipe.  The original version calls for 1 c. pecans, but I’m not a fan of nuts in bread so I omit them.

While baking, this bread fills your home with a delicious aroma. It gets a nice crust on top and is great with coffee.  Note: greasing AND flouring the pan is critical. We used Pam cooking spray and it got stuck.

I also sauteed onion and garlic with diced zucchini and tomatoes to toss over pasta for dinner.  This week I’m  planning to try my hand at oven baked zucchini fries with roasted chicken.  After that, I’m out of brilliant uses for zucchini.  If you have a fabulous zucchini recipe, I’d love to give yours a whirl.

hugs!

Amber