Backyard Poultry Forum

hmm well thats different tastes for you, i certainly wouldnt consider myself lucky to have a garden overgrown with the above!! haha, but i was never one for icky squash and the like anyhow...

that recipe idea sounds great infoaddict... bit of a cook at home are we?

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grate them and freeze them...
they are good in soup and stuff.
i think grate them and feed 2 chooks mabe 2

cant say i really like the stuff... but slices about this think [...........] with salt and pepper on the bbq is good.

cheers

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http://comic.zilcorp.net/ <-- La Grenouille

I love salady things, and one hassle with growing my fresh veggies is my tendency to eat them raw off the plant before they even get inside the house! Once I've grazed the garden, having to put together a meal for someone else seems far too much like work

I like the little yellow button squash - I _hope_ that's what I've planted!

Lebanese cucumber you don't need to peel, and it has a lovely tangy sweetness; I can eat a whole one with no hassles. Particularly if there's a lot of cheese involved



Heh. Does it show much??

Another trick I've discovered is to turn extraneous stuff into a smooth paste, preferably with lots of herbs and garlic; and then use it as a base for pasta sauces and suchlike. Either just blend as is or else bake to remove water and concentrate flavour, and blend with oil (olive oil ideally but I also use lighter flavours like macadamia or plain ol' veggie oils) and a lot of garlic, herbs and spices as appropriate (basil and/or oregano for italian flavours, coriander for asian, lemon myrtle for Australian), and maybe a nut of some description (pine nuts for many cuisines, bunya nuts for Australian) ... maybe a small chilli ... and presto! - flavour base for bucketloads of stuff. Or even just tossed over pasta as is.

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http://comic.zilcorp.net/ <-- La Grenouille

I have this problem too!! I solved it.
Scoop out the middle and give to chooks. Not only do they love it, the seeds seem to give a laying boost. My sister swears it brought all her flock back onto lay. I don't know really, but I seem to remember that pumpkin seeds (related) are good for reproductive health, so maybe there's some truth to it.
Now for the flesh/skin... I make a lot of thin wide strips (using a potato peeler, dicer or the side slot on the cheese grater). Marinate these in a mixture of olive oil (heaps) and a bit of balsamic, about three parts olive oil to one balsamic. Oh, and a huge pinch of salt. Rosemary is nice if you feel like adding some too. If you don't have time to marinate it makes little difference; just slosh the strips around in the mixture until you feel ready to cook them up.
Lay them out in a single layer on a foil tray or pizza tray, or under the griller. Cook them until translucent and partly caremalised. Just don't burn them to a crisp like I did once... They're very quick to cook because of the sugar in the balsamic and because they're so thin.
Then you can have them hot, chilled (a salad) or on pizzas.
They are absolutely yummy, the trick being loads of olive oil and plenty of salt.
The man of the house came out one morning and I was having this for breakfast... I promise it wasn't just a case of 'I better use up this zucchini', but an actual wish to eat it.
Jennie

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http://www.zilcorp.net <-- My Web Page
http://comic.zilcorp.net/ <-- La Grenouille

I've just been given two monsters by a workmate (mine are still in flowering phase!!) and this last idea of thin strips and grilling sounds _excellent_, as we have 11 people around this weekend.

And the chooks will appreciate the middles, I'm sure

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http://comic.zilcorp.net/ <-- La Grenouille

Therein lies the zucchini's survival strategy. Most people simply can't bear to dig up the plant while it keeps on producing fruit. So people, who already have their cupboards stuffed full of zucchinis for a hungry rainy day, have to resort to giving the fruit away to anyone who will take.

In the meantime the plant just keeps growing more fruit. It wont stop until the frost finally kills it.

The minds eye give a picture of men and women standing on street corners with buckets of zucchini pleading with passers bye to take some of the fruit.

No wonder my wife stood at the back door shouting at the plant "die you B@$t&*d.

Incidently, had a pub lunch yesterday, it was cutlets, chips and veggies for $7. The main part of the veggies were zucchini and they were very nice. But our zucchini plant has already died.

Mike

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Retired Now. Have moved and now officially a Tuross Head resident.

I worked out that's why ratatouille came into existence when I had a surplus of eggplant, tomatoes, and capsicum - all fruiting at the same time - and I was looking for recipes to use the lot.

It even had a _name_. It was sort of a revelation as to why some particular recipes even exist - to use up surpluses in the nicest possible way for people who are WAY over whatever the thing was in the first place.

At least one can re-use fruit in icecream

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http://comic.zilcorp.net/ <-- La Grenouille

A good alternative is growing golden zuccini. doesnt get as big and is a little sweeter so it can be cut up raw and put in a salad, mmm nice and crunchy, can be stir fried for a bit of colour or grated and put in a creamy sauce for pasta.
Ahhh endless oppourtunities
Can put up a pic of how big they get if you havent seen them before

I was determined this year to avoid the giant zucchini issue, so have been picking them when very small and checking daily. The tiny ones are great sliced up into salad. The larger ones I cook in anything that has other vegies. I also freeze them whole for use in soups etc - they defrost pretty sloppy. Grating them first would be a good idea. Another nice thing is zucchini cake. The shredded zucch doesn't taste of anything in cake - just adds moisture and texture. Check out your cake recipes or online recipes. The really big ones are not very interesting to eat - even my spoilt for choice chooks aren't that interested. But as Mike says - they're great in the compost and that is NOT wasting them. Cheers, Judy

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Devoted Mum to my Australorp Bantam brood.

I have to ask, why do they call large Zucchinis "zeppelins". I have a half dozen baby plants in the ground and after reading this thread have fears of being swamped by giant zucchinis trying to bust my back door down

Leave one to grow bigger... just so you can see how big they get in a few days if you don't pick them. Happens unintentionally if you miss picking one at a reasonable (read 'small to medium') size.

Then you'll see why they get called 'zeppelins' (not that I've ever heard that term).

Over a certain size my mum calls them "Marrows", as this is how they used to grow them when she was little some 70 or so years ago. She can't understand why you pick them so small when they are still just babies,


Ron

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"To the Core"

yep my mum too .. marrows .. and they were baked in the oven as was everything except that which was stewed, fried or poached on the top

this year i have two yellow crookneck zuccs and they are plenty and yumm .. for me the smaller the zucc the better and any lightly steamed vege with a dollop of real yoghurt is a treat

jocler, I haven`t read through all the posts so I don`t know if this has been said or not.
In North America we make something called zucchini bread. I used to love the one that mum made. yum! She used to use the big ones that we didn`t like to eat. I have saw it when I was in Australia, but have had it since I have been back.
I don`t have mum`s recipe, but here are a couple you could try.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/breakfast/ZucchiniBread.html

We never frosted ours. I liked it warm and cold.

http://www.spruce.ca/food/bread/four_ea ... cipes.html

Just something different for you to try. (sorry if it has been mentioned already)

Some of those sound great coopslave - thankyou! Can anyone tell me what Bisquick is? I assume it is a flour based 'mix' of some kind but would be good to know what sort of mix.

NellyG

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NellyG ........................