What to do with a crap ton of zucchini

This is not a cooking blog.  There are plenty of those (see links to the right.)  However, this is a time of plenty.  And I hate waste.  And I know you have some zucchinis in your garden that managed to evade your sharp eyes and grow into monstrous proportions.

First let's set aside any notion of zucchini bread.  Zucchini bread, while tasty, is a bit lame.  There are much better breads/cakes and the zucchini bread is simply a vehicle for zucchini disposal and delivery of sugar, wheat & butter.  Despite the sheen of health provided by the zucchini it isn't actually good for you.  More to the point, it hides the amazing vegetable and the staff here at Wayward Princess are huge fans of zucchini.  Huge fans of huge zucchini in fact!

So what are you going to do with all that zucchini?  You could nervously avoid making eye contact until the weather changes and your zucchini patch turns into its own compost.  But that is a cop out and you know it.

Hopefully you have a Cuisinart with the grating attachment or a big box grater and beefy forearms.  'Cause you are going to need to grate that zucchini.  Gargantuan zucchini really must be grated.  The texture of giant zucchini is rather ho-hum and the taste of the big 'uns gets a bit thin.  You can still cut them up into sticks for dipping into hummus (or other dip of your choosing), but it is an uninspired dip stick and won't make much of a dent when you need to burn through pounds of zucchini.

So a few very basic ideas and starting points are below.  For recipes I suggest you search the world wide web.  Some of my favorite starting points are, as mentioned above, to the right.  If there is an idea below that grabs you I'm happy to send you more details on how I go about it.

• Soup:  Toss cups and cups of shredded zucchini into most any vegetable soup.  
• Minestrone-types would take to this easily
• I like to add it to split pea soup, especially curried yellow split pea soup.

• Cook it down with onions and toss into almost any vegetable, rice, pasta, soup, frittata, etc. dish.  
• Take an onion or two, slice 'em up, toss into a large pan or pot with some neutral oil and caramelize them.  Or if you lack the patience for caramelizing, cook until you run out of patience.  
• Add cups and cups and cups and cups (you almost can't add too much) and cook down until the pile looks smaller and some of the moisture has evaporated.  You could add some salt too.
• Add spices and such (or not) that would go with whatever you are adding the zukes to and then add to your dinner, lunch, breakfast.
• My favorite application:  Disappearing zucchini rice.
• Take a cup or so of slightly undercooked.  Crack and egg or two into the rice and stir until rice is coated.  If your rice is hot, stir quickly after cracking to avoid fried egg rice.  
• Add oregano and thyme to the zuke concoction.  Salt and pepper are good at this point too.
• Add rice to zuke concoction.  Stir on heat until rice has absorbed some of the zucchini juice and is totally done.  Season to taste.  
• End result is a savory rice that is many parts zucchini to one part rice but seems more like many parts rice to one part zucchini.  The egg beefs it up a bit and is totally optional.  You can also do it with pasta like orzo.

• Fritters!  You don't really need me to tell you that one.
• Make sure to set salted, grated zucchini in a colander for a while to let some of the moisture weep out.
• A guy at the farmers' market said he makes his part 'tater and part zuke.
• The Kitchn has a recipe for carrot zucchini fritters.
• I also randomly found a zucchini banana fritter recipe, though I have not even read through the blog post so beware.
• I'm guessing you could find a recipe for just about any zucchini fritter variation you could fathom.  Except chocolate zucchini fritters.  I looked.  Chocolate zucchini muffins, bread, etc. but no fritter variety.
• Pasta?  I've never done it myself but I have heard some rave reviews.  I've also heard some bleh reviews.  Go forth and report back thy findings!
• Freezer.  Have you still a pile of zukes gathering pitchforks and beating on your doors?  Grate the suckers and put 'em in freezer bags.  I suggest 3 or 4 cups per bag as it may be hard to dole out single portion after freezing.