Tis the season for zucchini to grow into the size of baseball bats (and be used as such if you live at my house). Tis the season for everyone to lock their doors while at church…just to prevent someone from unloading their overgrown zucchini into other people’s cars when no one’s looking. Tis the season for people to start offering to pay you money just to take zucchini off their hands.
It’s amazing how one little hill can produce enough zucchini to fill an entire kitchen. (Did I mention that I didn’t even plant zucchini this year?!)
We’ve eaten a bunch of zucchini in stir fry or simply sauted it in a bit of olive oil. It’s SO good like that. I’ve already shredded a bunch and put it into the freezer. Now, I’m on a quest to figure out some great recipes that will sneak zucchini into a variety of dishes, making them more nutritious. And well…a zucchini can only serve as a baseball bat for so long. Eventually it must be eaten.
I don’t like eating a huge zucchini as is. The seeds are larger than my teeth and the skin is tougher than I prefer. I like shredding the large ones in my food processor and stirring them into zucchini bread (whole wheat and honey recipe coming soon).
While making zucchini bread last week (and then looking around at all the other huge zucchini in my kitchen) I realized that surely one could come up with a cookie, or at least a cookie bar that included zucchini. So I tinkered around. I discovered this: Cookies are a delicious way to eat more zucchini.
Here’s the recipe I came up with:
Giant Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup organic sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice)
1 egg
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Shred zucchini (I use a food processor). In a large mixing bowl mix sucanat, flour, salt and baking soda. Stir in shredded zucchini, melted butter and egg. Fold in chocolate chips. Use a large scoop to put 1 1/2 T. sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake in a 350° oven for 15 minutes. Makes about 20 giant cookies.
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars
Follow the same recipe as above, only spread the dough into a 9×13 inch pan. Bake in a 350° oven for 20-25 minutes.
My husband, kids and I all loved these. Zucchini makes them moist…and of course chocolate makes everything good.
Coming up in my next Zucchini Recipes post…I’ll share my whole wheat and honey zucchini bread and muffin recipe!
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Go check out Amy’s awesome list of zucchini recipes!
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) in order to save money in the long run and prevent waste. Anyone have any experience with these that they can share?
