zucchini

[pam]

chef,
being from italian ancestory, i know zucchini with tomtoes, zucchini potato pancakes. grilled, breaded or fried...zucchini has been there with me.
can i pickle it?
have you any ideas?
an aside....
why is this sight tougher to contact than fort knox?

[Chef Heather]

Not sure about what you mean when you say this site is hard to contact? How so? Are you trying to PM someone? I see you double posted this thread. Maybe you have ISP woes. When you get to the Main Page of the boards, right click and then "create a shortcut" that will appear on your desktop. Click on that to access this board. And yes you can pickle zucchini. I typed "pickled zucchini" into my web browser, and LOTS of stuff came up. For me, I just slice it like spears, and place the spears in a clean jar with garlic, apple cider vinegar, dill, and pickling spices. I use them promptly..within a week. Then I make more. Then I do it with kerby cukes. I don't go through the "canning" process though.

[Suzanne]

My guess is that yes, you could pickle it, although you'd probably want to use the smallest ones possible to pickle whole, as zucchini is so full of water. I'm sure I have recipes somewhere for pickles and relishes using zucchini; I'll look around for them asap.

As for the second part of your question, Gosh, I'm not sure what you mean. Well, yeah, some of the folks here are awfully busy, but you can always find one of us around somewhere. Give a loud "YOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO" or better yet, e-mail me if you have a problem, okay?

Also, as you may have noticed, your other thread with the same question has been merged into this one, and the initial question deleted. Have a little patience, Pam. We're not ignoring you, honest!

[shroomgirl]

caponata is great too....zucchini, eggplant, garlic, onions, basil, currants, viniager, brown sugar, celery.....

Zucchini blossoms tempura with chevre filling....

we've got alot of heirloom squash on the markets right now....romansca, zephyr (my fav) which is 1/2 yellow crookneck 1/2 zuke, yellow zucchinis, loads of pittypans in various hues with blossoms attached.

I like to pickle green beans for bloody marys....

[Chef Heather]

I love pickled green beans and make them quite often. My secret ingredient is a bit of curry powder. Back to the zuke issue...cucumbers have far more water than zucchini, and they are often pickled sliced, of course. So...you needn't pickle the zukes whole, but certainly have that as an option if you can find ones small enough to fit in a mason jar. I think this time of year large zucchinis are far more prevelant. Just cut them into spears and procede with "refrigerator" pickle recipes, the basic outline of which I gave earlier. Use plenty of garlic!!

[shroomgirl]

not sure where you're located Heather but in STL at the grower's markets we have enormous bounty of small squash.....pinky size.....

[Chef Heather]

Never seen a pinky sized zucchini in these parts--which for me is NYS farm country. Right now those suckers are as large as baseball bats. You could inflict serious damage on someone's person with a zucchini should an intruder break in. Can't do that job with a "pinky sized" zuke. No sireeee.

[shroomgirl]

too funny
nope ours are coming in with blossoms still attached to their bum.

[dano1]

there's a recipe for zucchini pickles in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. It's really about the same as brining for dill pickles-mustard seed, tumeric, sugar, salt, vinegar.
hth, danny