Saturday, August 01, 2009

ZUCCHINI - week begins and Garden Blogger's Muse Day

Just a heads up, National Leave a Zucchini on your Neighbor's Porch day is coming!
Mark next Saturday, August 8th, and be sure to celebrate,
especially if you, like me, are being inundated by your zucchini plants.
Just to 'sweeten the pot' so to speak .. or maybe just so your neighbors won't hate you,
I'll be posting a new , tasty zucchini-using recipe every day.
You could make a copy and tie it to the zucchini-bats you so generously share with your neighbors. :)
As it is also August 1st, I even found a poem that rhapsodizes about the unique properties of zucchini:

It was an an itsy-bitsy,


teeny-weenysilver striped green zucchini.


While we slumbered, what went wrong?


Overnight it's two feet long!

from http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1146421, which has quite a few poems about zucchini.

I am hoping that you will be inspired to share your own zucchini recipes. Let me know in the comments!!!!

Here's my first recipe, and it is a winner - everybody has a recipe for chocolate/zucchini cake-brownies, etc. I've tried a lot of them over the years, and this one is THE best.

Self – Frosting Chocolate Zucchini Cake

½ c. margarine
½ c. oil
1 ¾ c sugar (1 ½)
2 eggs
2 c finely grated zucchini
1 t soda
2 ½ c flour
1 t vanilla
1/2 c sour cream or buttermilk
4-6 T cocoa
½ t cinnamon (optional)
1 t salt
1 t b powder

Mix oil, margarine and sugar. Add eggs.
Sift the dry ingredients together, including the cocoa. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk to sugar mixture.
Add the remaining ingredients except zucchini blend well.
Stir in the zucchini by hand and pour the batter into a greased 9x13 pan

Mix the following and crumble on top of the cake:

¾ c chocolate chips
¾ c chopped nuts
¾ c brown sugar

Bake @ 350ยบ for 35-45 minutes or until done. Serves 12

(Omit cinnamon to bring out better chocolate taste)

This is a great recipe, folks! Help me out this week, and let me know about your tastiest zucchini recipes.

A new recipe tomorrow. Yum, yum, yum.

5 comments:

Lynne's Somewhat Invented Life said...

I made a zucchini casserole the other day that the person posting it said it tasted like funeral potatoes. Wrong. It was awful! My husband got cold leftovers out of the fridge and ate them cold. So, I won't post it but I have copied your recipe and will make it this next week. Thanks!

Muum said...

what a nice compliment! I can tell from your blog(s) that you are an accomplished cook. thanks

Rose said...

This is certainly a timely Muse Day post! I just picked my first two zucchini today. Yesterday they were too small, and today they were almost too big:) This chocolate cake sounds similar to a recipe I've tried, and it is delicious. Your recipes are certainly going to come in handy, if my plants produce the way they did a few years ago, the year I refer to as "the zucchini explosion":)

Lynne's Somewhat Invented Life said...

Made your cake and shared it with neighbors. Everyone said it was delicious! Thanks.

Muum said...

Rose- it is zucchini-pa-looza time, for sure!

Lynne- hey! glad you liked it!