Any novice gardener can tell you. Watch your zucchini plants closely. Give it any private time at all you will be harvesting something the size of a baseball bat.Now if you have a large family, or are one of the many underpaid/underemployed adults in the nation, or are simply a romantic and as such are overly fond of your plants and cannot abide wasting a single one, then by all means shred, dice, peel, bake and saute your days away. I do not blame you, for I myself uncovered a gargantuan specimen this morning, and instantly gave into the temptation that all other pressing matters must be shoved aside to make room for this one glorious thing.
The day was a disaster.
The first thing I tried was a new recipe for zucchini blondies. If you come across this recipe, do not make it. There is a large chance that you will be drawn by the sculpted abs on the woman who posted this farce. But she is not what is on the menu. And go ahead, add the 1/4 cup of chocolate chips to the scant amount of sugar in this dessert, but the experience will still be a bitter one.
And while I'm on the subject of things not to bake. Do not, I repeat do not attempt to bake a pie with a store brand ready-made crust. You will not be doing anyone any favors. Least of all yourself. My husband—late last winter—came home with two boxes of Kroger brand pie crust. He was trying to do me a favor (see earlier remarks about favors). In all fairness to Kroger, the box was cleared stamped "Best used by February 2018." The poor things have been sitting quietly on the shelf in the refrigerator. I've looked at them often and passed them over. Still, not wanting them to go to waste or make my husband feel bad, I attempted to make them into part of a blueberry pie for the Forth of July holiday. This made perfect sense because the frozen blueberries that had been patiently waiting in the freezer had also been stamped for use by February 2018. Long story short, the pie is inedible. Not because of the berries, but because of the aroma coming from the crust. Think bacon-lemon flavored. Americans are crazy for bacon, but I am not putting any stock in this particular flavor catching on.
Getting back to the zucchini, I continued shredding another 3 cups to make into an "Italian Zucchini pie." It was cooking next to the bacon-lemon-blueberry pie, so I am afraid to eat it.
On the dinner menu tonight is zucchini noodles (if I can stuff this monster into my handy veggie noodle maker). Then I have about 700 kitchen utensils, pots and pans to wash, followed by mopping the floor.
All for the sake of one zucchini.
With age, they say, comes wisdom. May I have the strength to never again succumb to the seductive power of a vegetable.
