Batter Up?

Someone gave my mom a "present".

Then she gave it to me to make something useful of it;
although my first thought was to use it as a bat in batting practice.

It amazes me how people can ignore their gardens long enough to let zucchini get this big.  The only guess is that they went on a trip and found lots of "surprises" like this one waiting for them on their return - so they shared.

Needless to say, much of yesterday was spent cooking.

Two buckets of tomatoes were turned into more marinara sauce.

The top half of the zucchini was peeled, cored, sliced, sauteed in olive oil, and then added to the afore mentioned marinara sauce.

It browned quite nicely, but seemed to take forever to cook through.

The bottom half was cored, cut into long strips and run through the fine grind screen of the meat grinder - yes, the meat grinder - see.

Grandma K. taught me that handy trick, and I'm sure she found the use of a grandchild powered hand-crank meat grinder a real labor saving device for her.  (Keep the child busy, and tire her out so that she will go to bed early.)

Having the zucchini ground rather than shredded optimizes surface area and squeezes out excess moisture.  The result is a really moist batter on breads and cakes; the liquid ends up in the batter rather than gradually seeping out later to make the cake soggy, rather than moist.  It can also be drained of liquid and used for ravioli stuffing in place of spinach.

There was enough zucchini to make both a plain zucchini cake and a chocolate-chocolate chip one.

Zucchini Cake:

3 eggs

2 C sugar

1 C vegetable oil (canola or non-virgin olive oil)

1 Tbs. vanilla

3 C flour (chocolate variation: 2 1/4 C flour, 3/4 C cocoa)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cardamom (not for chocolate variation)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 C ground zucchini squash

1 Tbs. grated lemon or orange rind

   (alternately a shot of juice works if not available)

Optional ingredients:

1/2 C raisins, 3/4 C chocolate chips, 3/4 C nuts

Beat 3 eggs.  Add sugar and beat until mostly dissolved & creamy.  Gradually add oil and mix fully.  Sift together dry ingredients and add to mixture alternately with zucchini and citrus rind.  Mix well.  Add nuts and raisins if desired.  Pour into pre-oiled 9x13 pan.  Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, 30-45 min, or until butter knife inserted in center of pan comes out clean.  (Chocolate variation may take slightly longer to bake.)  Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before removing from pan.  Freezes well.

After dinner, it was time to clean out the fridge.

Made some jelly with black raspberry juice that had been waiting a while - my bad.  Canned tomato juice that was being ignored.  We are a bit tomato'd out at the moment after all.

For some reason, I don't feel like doing any cooking today.

Tomorrow, church is having a food drive.  Today's picking of beans and a large share of tomatoes will go to new homes.  Someone who does not have a garden can enjoy them for a while, and I can get some work done on the remodel project - a win-win situation.