2 Ways to Use Zucchini on a Weeknight When You’re Too Tired to Go to the Store

I have never liked zucchini.

I understand that this is a controversial position to take, but in general, I find cooked zucchini to be slimy and tasteless. It reminds me of tofu. Like tofu, it can be made into lots of good things, but I don’t need to be around its virginal state.

But we are a member of a CSA, Phat Beets. We’ve done CSA memberships before, but this one feels a little different. We get a box every two weeks, and it’s stuff that we actually use. I often go into the refrigerator and pull something out and cook with it, instead of getting rid of moldy CSA vegetables that I forgot to use again every two weeks (which is the reason we’ve quit a couple of CSAs in the past).

Also, Phat Beets is doing something awesome: They’re social justice workers and promote small farm and farmers of color in local organic production. I mean, check out their farms! There’s even a 1-acre farm at the high school behind our house! I love knowing the chard we got this week might have been grown on the same block we live on.

But yesterday, I realized I had a lot of zucchini.

I’ve done zucchini noodles, but honestly, if I want noodles, I want pasta, not vegetables. That’s the whole point of pasta: that it sticks to your ribs and makes you feel sleepy afterward. Zucchini noodles (zoodles, if you want to make it really annoying) just make you feel virtuous for twenty-five minutes and then hungry.

So I went over to Smitten Kitchen, because I’m a fan of her recipes. I searched for zucchini, and last night I made these zucchini fritters which I served with poached eggs and her lemon garlic sour cream. They were easy and divine. Fluffy, soft, a little crunchy. We ate ’em all.

Not content to just fritter the zucchinis away (yes, I had to), I made some of her zucchini bread, too.

When I was a kid, my parents’ garden overflowed with zucchini every summer. It was the typical menacing zucchini, taking over everything in its path. It would get sent home with you if you came to visit, and you weren’t getting out of it.

My mother made this zucchini bread that tasted like heaven to me. It was tall and dense and delicious. It was sweet, but not overly so. Slathered with a little bit of butter, it was the perfect snack.

Last night’s attempt did not turn out like my mother’s. My attempt is good, yes. But the loaves were flat and overly dense (maybe because I used gluten-free flour?).

It has the same background flavor, though.

The little kid in me wants to gobble slice after slice, and the adult in me knows that while it might not be the best idea, I’m allowed to do that if I want.

And then my thinking gets wider.

Do you ever stand in your kitchen and look around and hear the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime?” How did I get here?

Seriously, how am I forty-six and thinking about my mother’s zucchini bread in a kitchen that I share with my beloved wife? How am I allowed to live this life? I can’t be old enough to do this – I’m not ready to handle this!

Oh, yes, wait. I love all this. I am ready for it.

Thanks, zucchini. You are not tofu. Thank goodness.

PS – Also, I really love meals that are unplanned and that you don’t have to go to the store for. Both the fritters and the bread were made with ingredients already in the kitchen, and I always like that’s a special magic. This bread was in my cupboards? In components parts? And I didn’t notice till now? 

PPS – In another good food episode of this week, making taco salad with CSA shredded cabbage because the thing you thought was CSA lettuce was actually thick chard, was INSPIRED, y’all. Suddenly, leftover taco salad, instead of being filled with wilted lettuce, is just as crunchy as the day you made it. (Chips always need to be crumbled fresh, of course.)  Lala and I both agree taco salad is better with cabbage now.