Our Garden on Steroids (or The Attack of the Giant Zucchinis)

While we had a nice harvest last year, this year our garden is positively exploding! It's a blessing.

Here is a snap shot of a typical harvest for us. This was from yesterday morning when we harvested some cucumbers (those for eating and those for pickling), yellow squash, kale, lettuce and tons and tons of zucchini…

As you can see some of the zucchini is quite large. We always try to pick our zucchini when it’s much smaller, but sometimes one or two hide from you in the garden and you don’t see them until they are impossible to ignore :).

You really can't sauté or cook the zucchini when it’s this size (well, you could but it would be very tough and not very tasty).

So what on earth do you do with all this zucchini?

The best thing to do with giant zucchini is to use it in baked goods. The world is overflowing with ideas on how to turn zucchini into breads and cakes, but our family favorite is my recipe for chocolate zucchini cake.

I made two cakes this weekend – one for us and one for the lawn party at our church. As you can see, it doesn’t last long around here. I tried (unsuccessfully) to get a pic of ours before my boys dove in…

We love this as just as a snack cake (i.e. no icing), but for the lawn party I made it a bit prettier by sprinkling some powdered sugar on the top.

We all love it, but my husband is crazy about this cake. Hmmm…makes me wonder if he doesn’t let a few zucchinis grow on purpose :)...

Here's the recipe - enjoy!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Ingredients:

2 C all-purpose flour
2 C white sugar (sometimes I use a mix of white and brown)
¾ C unsweetened cocoa powder (I use the richest cocoa I can find – Costco has a good one)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp all spice
4 eggs (if you have access to duck eggs they are fantastic for baking!)
1 ½ C vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
3 (heaping) Cups grated Zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan. I like to use coconut oil. It makes your baked goods taste great and there are lots of health advantages as well.

In a medium bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a small bowl whisk together your eggs, oil and vanilla. Gradually add the egg mixture to your dry ingredients, stirring as you go. You might feel that the batter seems a bit too thick, but just wait – you haven’t added the zucchini!

Add the zucchini in a cup at a time mixing as you go. You will see the batter start to absorb the water from the zucchini. Don’t over mix, just until you have a moist, smooth batter.

Pour into the pan and bake for 50 to 60 mins or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.