Zucchini Are Coming!

This is not your normal “Holding the Light” post. This is an urgent alert. Zucchini are upon us, people!!! Don’t answer your door! Home gardeners are foisting off zucchs left and right. Weeks ago my friend Beverley Barrington Chumbley posted a zucchini pizza recipe on Facebook, a rumble of thunder before the storm. None of this concerned me until now, because this is the first year I decided to grow something besides flowers: morning glories—which some people consider to be weeds—day lilies, which only need thinning, and impatiens, my favorite shade annual. Life has been simple in my yard.

I had the sense to start small: one tomato, one cucumber, one pepper and one zucch. I figured they’d all die, but so far so good, although the cucs are distressingly deformed. And, as I proudly told the Whittier coffee klatsch, I’ve already harvested ten zucchinis.

“You know,” one of the women said tactfully, “squash are the most forgiving of vegetables: they’ll grow almost anywhere.”

I didn’t take offense. I believe they’d grow on the moon. They’re probably alien to begin with, because how else could they grow so fast? One day I have two zucchs as long as my finger, cute little babies. I come back the next day and they’ve swollen into two-foot creatures I need help carrying into the house. Every morning I admire those big yellow blossoms until it dawns on me, novice that I am—each blossom will become a vegetable and there are new flowers every morning. That’s when I start to be afraid.

I’ll give some to Jennifer Mosquera, my neighbor. She’s a vegetarian. But then I remember that Jenn’s growing her own veggies this year too. I already have zucch pizza and zucch bread, and my favorite Mexican veggie dish, calabacitas. I’ve made calabacitas twice in the last week. Luckily our daughter and grandson were visiting and we made them eat zucchini in several iterations. I’d just taken a loaf of zucchini bread out of the oven—at least I can freeze that—when Jenn popped her head over the backyard fence, calling, “look what I have for you!” while hefting a gargantuan zucchini.

“Packages of zucchini seeds,” says Phil, “should be required to come with 50 recipes.” Just to get you started, here’s a great dish. You can get rid of two big zucchs making it.

Zucchini Salad with Lemon & Mint:

1.5 lbs zucchini, cut into one to two inch chunks

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium white or yellow onion, sliced

2 tablespoons slivered fresh garlic

1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest

1 tbsp each chopped fresh mint and parsley

Salt & pepper to taste

Serve with lemon wedges & plain yogurt to garnish

1. Steam zucchini until just softened, still bright green, maybe 8 min. Mash in a colander to press out as much water at possible. (I work at this a few minutes, but you can’t get all the water out without turning the zucch to mush & the salad’s fine with a little extra moisture.)
2. In a sauté pan add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and cook onions and garlic over medium heat until crisp tender and just starting to color, about 5 min. Remove from heat, cool, gently stir in zucch and lemon zest.
3. Turn mixture into a bowl and stir in mint, parsley and remaining olive oil. (I use fresh mint leaves from my garden.) Season to taste with salt & pepper. Serve at room temperature with lemon wedges (squeeze fresh juice over the salad) and a dollop of yogurt. Can be made a day ahead & stored in fridge, but let it come to room temp before serving.
4. I tore this out of a magazine years ago. If I could remember the source, I’d credit it. Does anyone know?

If zucchini starts to overwhelm you anyway, Jenn says you can prevent the bloody buggers from forming at all by harvesting the squash blossoms and there are recipes for them too. Meanwhile, if you need a zucch or two, please let us know over here in Whittier. We got lots.