If you're running out of recipes, just use them as an early-summer replacement for late-summer eggplant. Zucchini babaghanouj is quite good, for example.

Next year (and if you start getting more this year), cook every blossom you get your hands on, and that'll help a lot.

In New England, at least, the joke is that you come back to your car and discover someone has broken into it -- and instead of stealing anything, has left zucchini on your passenger seat.

Here in the South we call them Zucchini Bandits. But they don't have to break in, cuz we never lock our cars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYHeirloomer 

Here in the South we call them Zucchini Bandits. But they don't have to break in, cuz we never lock our cars.

And nobody deposits their "extras" in your vehicle? 

 

Yeah, they do, Grace. Thus the Zucchini Bandit moniker. What I meant was that they don't have to break-in to the cars to make those deposit. Just open the unlocked door is all.

Although not quick and simple, the following makes an incredible first course, if I say so myself. It's something I came up with last summer, as a way to use up the surplus zucchini.

If you've got lots of patience, this can be done with baby zukes. But small/medium ones really make more sense.

SARDINE STUFFED ZUCCHINI

2 medium zucchini          

2 can skinless/boneless sardines

salt & pepper

1 tbls minced red onion

Squirt of Dijon mustard

Mayo             

Thinly sliced Fontina cheese           

Flour              

Hot sauce spiked egg wash

Oregano        

Panko crumbs

Oil for frying 

Caponata

Red wine vinegar reduction (1 cup vinegar & 2 tbls sugar, cooked down until syrupy)

Shaved Parmegiano Reggiano

Using a mandoline or very sharp knife, slice zucchini lengthwise, about 1/8^th inch thick, keeping each two slices matched to each other. Sprinkle with salt. Sandwich between paper towels. Set aside to let some of the moisture drain.

Make filling: Mash sardines with salt, pepper, onion, mustard, and just enough mayo to bind mixture.

Sprinkle slices with pepper. Using matched pairs of zucchini slices, put a layer of sardines on one side of each pair. Top with Fontina. Do not let either the sardines or cheese overlap the edges. Cover with second zucchini slice.

Dip each sandwich first in flour, then egg wash, then panko crumbs mixed with salt, pepper, and oregano. Sauté in oil until browned on each side and cheese is melted.

Put a layer of caponata on serving plate, slightly longer and wider than the zucchini sandwich. Top with zucchini sandwich. Squiggle vinegar reduction over zucchini. Garnish with slivers of Parmegiano Reggiano.

I hate them too, horrible slimy things, just the smell of them cooking makes me feel ill,the only way I am able to tolerate them is in a Greek? ratatouille - have I spelt that correctly the word sounds "al la francais"  to me, however I always think of it as a  Greek vegetable dish.   I think underdone, only just cooked, al dente, is best with them.

Seaside, are we talking about the same vegetable? I've never seen a slimy zucchini. And they have so little taste and aroma of their own that you must have an incredibly sensitive nose to react to it.

Ratatouille is a southern French dish -- Provencal, I believe. The Greek dish you have in mind is probably moussaka, which is sometimes made with zucchini, although we usually think of it as primarily eggplant.

There's a great Mexican dish I got from Diana Kennedy. You hollow out some zucchini and cook the cut-out stuff with corn and herbs, and perhaps some fresh chiles if you like, let cool, then mix with cheese and soured cream. Pack that back in the zucchini, top with more cheese, and bake until golden. It's delicious: corn, rich dairy, chile, and zucchini are a winning combination. Fresh oregano makes it even better.

KYheirloomer,  yes courgette/zuchinni smell very unpleasant to me when heated,  I do have a very very sensitive nose.  The larger fruit a Marrow, so called  in the UK,  does not have that smell it is with the much  smaller zuchinni type that I have a problem with, overcook it too much and  to me it is rather slimy.

Chrislehrer  -  Ratatouille although a french word I have always mistakenly thought of as Greek, probably because of the use of the eggplant/aubergine  I have often made moussaka, minced lamb tomatoes aubergine egg custard   etc.

Sorry for any confusion folks!!   

I would have thought ratatouille more akin to caponata than to moussaka.

Anyway, here's another great summertime dish I adapted slightly from one that appeared in the Gardener's Community Cookbook:

TOMATO ZUCCHINI TART IN POTATO CRUST

1 potato crust

2 large tomatoes

2 ½ cups grated provolone

1 large shallot, minced

2 medium zucchini

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

1-2 mild chilis, minced

Prepare the crust and bake while preparing the filling.

Trim and thinly slice the zucchini. You should have 3-4 cups. Thinly slice tomatoes.

Spread the bottom of the crust with 1/3 of the cheese. Place a layer of zucchini slices over the cheese, overlapping them to cover well. Arrange a sligly overlapping layer of tomato slices over the zucchini

Lightly sprinkle the tomatoes with another third of the cheese. Continue with a second layer in the same order, ending with tomatoes.

Sprinkle top layer with the onion, chili, basil and oregano. Spread the remaining cheese over the top. Bake in a 375F oven until cheese is melted and bubbly and veggies cooked through, about 45 minutes.

Potato Crust

2 cups grated russet potatoes

1 egg lightly beaten

1 small onion, finely chopped

¼ cup all purpose flour

2-3 garlic cloves, crushed

Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375F.

Squeeze as much moisture as possible from potatoes (I wring them through a cloth). Combine with the other ingredients and mix well.

Oil a 10-inch pie pan and transfer the mixture to it, spreading evenly across the bottom and up the sides, as for a pastry crust. Bake until well browned arund the edges, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven, fill, and bake right away.

For a greek dish which is probably not even greek given it's name try this.

Briami

- zucchinis in 1/2 inch slicesonion

- potatoes in 1/2 inch slices

- onion slices

- dill... lots and lots of dill

- olive oil

- s/p

Put all the ingredients in a baking dish and bake.  I never make this since I like the greek ratatouille version better so I can't recall if it has garlic in it.  But I would put it in just to be safe.

Pile it on my doorstep anytime and I will thank you. I love zucchini, and I can't say why as it really doesn't have much taste.

Sort of like egg plant that way. Still, I love zucchini. I like it best just sauteed in some olive oil, garlic and a little tarragon along with yellow summer sqaush, mushrooms, asperagus and whatever else might be around. I see a lot of people mentioned pancakes, and I believe they mean like a potato pancake where you shred the zucchini and substitute if for the potato. I have done this and like it a lot. There is a Chinese restaurant in my town that shreds it and mixes it with mayo and crab meat then tops it with cheese and bakes it. There are probably other ingredients in it, but not that I can identify. I love that stuff and could eat the whole pan full. I never even heard of zucchini until Cambell's had a commercial where an Italian lady was describing how she made her minestrone soup, saying she cut (list of ingredients here, including zucchini) into nice, big chunks, echoed by Campbell's saying they also cut their (same list of ingredients) into nice big chunks. I don't believe anyone in the whole state of Minnesota had the least idea what a zucchini was prior to that commercial, but within two years nobody had a garden without it and nobody had any idea what to do with it. Made me wonder why they even bothered planting it. It got to be almost like rhubarb with people coming up with any and every use for it. Still makes me wonder.