Zucchini: Blessing or Curse

Yesterday Peanut and I spent the day at Grandpa Gigi's house. (That is my dad.) He had been wanting his back room re-wallpapered. My aunt, his sister helped me. On Wednesday we picked out the wallpaper and I stripped 3/4 of the old wallpaper off the walls. She hung most of the wallpaper and I helped. We also painted the ceiling for him and I painted the 2 doorways. It looked so different and so nice. Needless to say, I am exhausted today. BUT there was work to be done. As much as I longed for a nap during Peanut's naptime, I didn't. Before we left last night, we went to the garden to find that it had been overtaken by zucchinis! Now I love zucchini so it is fine with me. My dad kept asking, "What are you going to do with all of this?" Eat it, of course! He can never figure out why I love to plant zucchini....I love it!

I love to chop it up and saute it in a little butter and seasoning. Yumm-o! I also love zucchini bread. Gigi's favorite way is to bread it in flour and milk and fry in olive oil. We had a sampling of this for supper yesterday. This summer I am going to make Zucchini Relish. I had this once and oh my, it was to die for!















My trunk is full of zucchini...so during naptime, I took the 4 largest ones and went to work. By large, I mean HUGE, ENOURMOUS! I took the skins off and seeded them. Then I used my box grater and shredded them. The 4 large zucchinis yielded 14 cups of shredded zucchini. I used 2 cups to make zucchini muffins and froze the other 12 cups in quantities of 2 cups each. (Notice the coffee in the background. It kept me going!)















I am going to give you the recipe that I used for my muffins and I might add that the salt is important. I got in a hurry and was worried that I wouldn't have enough cinnamon so with my mind on the cinnamon, I forgot to add the salt. They are not bad, but I can tell. Shhhh...don't tell.



















Zucchini Muffins
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 c. vegetable oil
3 t. vanilla
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. SALT
3 t. cinnamon
2 1/2 c. flour
2 c. shredded zucchini
1 c. chopped pecans (I didn't use these.)
Beat eggs, add sugar, oil and vanilla. Beat until creamy. Combine soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; mix well and add to creamed mixture. Fold in flour, zucchini, and pecans. Stir just until combined. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Makes 2 dozen.

We also have added blueberries to our freezer of produce. The freezer is getting full and there is still lots to come in the garden! Yeah for summer!

Now off to see the relatives. My hubby's family is visiting this week. All the cousins are here. Peanut will be in Heaven!