Give a man a zucchini and he will eat for a day. Give a man a zucchini plant, and he will wind up with so much zucchini he won't know what to do with it, and he'll probably end up resenting you.
Fortunately, zucchini is so versatile it can be used in a seemingly endless variety of dishes. Nevertheless, everyone with too much zucchini usually just ends up making zucchini bread. We try to convince ourselves that it is healthful because it has zucchini in it and it is bread, but deep down we all know that it is really just zucchini cake.
So I made four dishes, none of them involving cake, that managed to make a pretty good dent in anybody's zucchini harvest.
Each, in its own way, was richly satisfying. Zucchini is often used as an afterthought, a vegetable that you may grab at the store because it is inexpensive and you haven't had it for a while. But in each of these dishes, the zucchini becomes a star.
I started with zucchini pickles. Restaurants have been pickling pretty much everything they can get their hands on for the past few years, and zucchini is a natural. It goes well with salt, and it goes well with vinegar, the two main ingredients in a pickling brine. It even looks sort of like a cucumber.
This version adds mustard seeds, dry mustard powder and turmeric. The mustard does not make it nearly so hot as you might think, and apple cider vinegar is used to temper the acidity.
These pickles need to sit only one night before they are ready to be served. The flip side of that speed, though, is that they only last about one week. On the other hand, you'll probably finish them off long before then.
I next made Zucchini Parmesan Crisps, and you can bet I'll be serving them the next time we have people over for dinner.
They're based on an Ellie Krieger recipe, and they could hardly be easier. Cut thin slices of zucchini, toss them in oil and then coat them in a mixture of breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese. Bake until crispy, and you have an addictive, irresistible hors d'oeuvre.
For a more substantial side dish or a vegetarian entree, I made the unfortunately named Zuccanoes. They are zucchini halves that are hollowed out like a canoe, but because they were created by Mollie Katzen in the original "Moosewood Cookbook," I'm willing to give the name a pass.
Besides, anything that tastes this good should be tried.
What makes these canoe-shaped zucchini treats better than all those other canoe-shaped zucchini treats you keep hearing about these days is the stuffing. This stuffing is made from sauteed onions and mushrooms mixed with rice and minced nuts, for an earthy and obviously nutty taste.
Then you grate cheese on top and bake it. Because, let's face it, everything tastes better with baked cheese on top.
The last dish I made found its inspiration in a dish made by my editor's husband. I'm calling it Zucchini Medley, but it's really just ratatouille on steroids, plus quinoa.
I know _ I usually try to avoid the (perhaps formerly) ultracool grain quinoa. But its nutty taste is just the background this dish needs. And what a dish it is, too. It's a kitchen sink kind of recipe, with an entire produce stand mixed together to create a multifaceted blend of flavors that I think, at the risk of sounding immodest, tastes superb.
Just imagine onion, garlic, red bell pepper, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, diced potatoes and corn, blended with quinoa and tied together with white wine, lemon juice and thyme.
Now add zucchini.
You'll need a big pan to make it, because this is a lot of food. That's good. It means more leftovers for all.
