Well, one of these days I should really learn this one lesson: never grow more zucchini than you (and your friends and extended family) can eat. They - the zucchini, not the family - appear harmless enough at first, but here's what inevitably happens in my garden. By the way, the same thing happened last year - you'd think I'd learn my lesson, but that's another story.
Anywho, so you have these pretty zucchini plants, and around the first week in July (in Provence at least) they begin to bloom ... beautiful yellow flowers like these.
But here's how things begin to unravel. I'm hanging out in the garden just recently collecting various veggies for dinner. A tomato here, a head of lettuce there, some swiss chard, a couple of cucumbers, when I glance over at my nine zucchini plants. I see at least three good-size zucchini peaking out from under the leaves, but half-way down the path on my way to get them, I am reminded that we just had sauteed zucchini for lunch, and thus I turn around, postponing the picking until the next day. After all, what's one day in the life of a vegetable?
The next morning upon returning to the garden, I am taken aback, and a little awestruck, to find that those three zucchini have almost doubled in size overnight (okay, maybe not quite doubled, but is that why the call them nightshades?). And not only that, there are several more zucks now ripe and ready to be picked. No problem, I tell myself, I'll just make zucchini bread. That ought to absorb the excess, right? Come to think of it though, we still have half a loaf of bread ... oh but wait, I'll just give that half to Max, my faithful labrador-turned-garbage disposal, and make a new loaf for us, the humans.
And if that doesn't use up (okay, get rid of) my basket of zucchini, I could always buy a second stand-alone freezer to house more blanched, ready for ratatouille in the middle of winter, zucchini, since my current freezer is already filled to the brim with, you've guessed it, blanched zucchini?
Thank god for my wonderful husband who, when presented with zucchini bread for breakfast for the fifth day in a row, suggested I make zucchini ice cream to go with it. With a man like that by my side, surely I can overcome any challenges my over-zealous garden throws at me? Or did I detect a hint of sarcasm? Huh.
Anywho, so you have these pretty zucchini plants, and around the first week in July (in Provence at least) they begin to bloom ... beautiful yellow flowers like these.
But here's how things begin to unravel. I'm hanging out in the garden just recently collecting various veggies for dinner. A tomato here, a head of lettuce there, some swiss chard, a couple of cucumbers, when I glance over at my nine zucchini plants. I see at least three good-size zucchini peaking out from under the leaves, but half-way down the path on my way to get them, I am reminded that we just had sauteed zucchini for lunch, and thus I turn around, postponing the picking until the next day. After all, what's one day in the life of a vegetable?
The next morning upon returning to the garden, I am taken aback, and a little awestruck, to find that those three zucchini have almost doubled in size overnight (okay, maybe not quite doubled, but is that why the call them nightshades?). And not only that, there are several more zucks now ripe and ready to be picked. No problem, I tell myself, I'll just make zucchini bread. That ought to absorb the excess, right? Come to think of it though, we still have half a loaf of bread ... oh but wait, I'll just give that half to Max, my faithful labrador-turned-garbage disposal, and make a new loaf for us, the humans.
And if that doesn't use up (okay, get rid of) my basket of zucchini, I could always buy a second stand-alone freezer to house more blanched, ready for ratatouille in the middle of winter, zucchini, since my current freezer is already filled to the brim with, you've guessed it, blanched zucchini?
Thank god for my wonderful husband who, when presented with zucchini bread for breakfast for the fifth day in a row, suggested I make zucchini ice cream to go with it. With a man like that by my side, surely I can overcome any challenges my over-zealous garden throws at me? Or did I detect a hint of sarcasm? Huh.
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