Swapping Zucchini for Recipes

It’s the first market of August, and we have eight zucchini on the stall: four medium and four babies. There will be more, and there will also be Zucchini baseball bats. 

It’s time to swap recipes. I never sell a zucchini without asking people what they do with them.  People tend to wax poetic about the uses for zucchini and throw in words like delicious, sooo good, tasty, and easy. 

I wrote my first-ever paying article about this veggie. Confessions of the Zucchini Lady, an article about - what else The Guelph Farmers Market. Harrowsmith published it about 45 years ago.

Forty-five years later, I find myself a little jaded about zucchini, although I display them with a little sign touting them as the Vegetable Houdini.. 

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I think I’ve heard it all until a customer replies that she makes oatmeal pancakes with these things and fries the flowers into crepes. She has me at pancake, loses me at oatmeal and rekindles enthusiasm at crepes.

I’ve spent the week eating tasty pancakes and might even make my Weight Watcher weigh-in tonight. 

Tomorrow, I’m moving on to crepes. My customer solved a problem for me with this recipe. I’d read about frying the flowers for years. It sounded so romantic. I envisioned flowers blossoming on plates, not the sodden clumps that emerged from my frying pan. 

“Na, na na” she said.  “ I’m Italian; we turn them into beautiful crepes.” 

Here’s how she does it.

Zucchini Flower Crepes

 Get a few male zucchini blossoms- the ones that don’t turn into veggies.  Beat up an egg or so and lightly brush the blossom, then dip in icing sugar and fry them up. Eat right away.

Here’s the recipe for

 Oatmeal Zucchini Pancakes

Ingredients:

½ medium zucchini grated

2 eggs

2 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons oil

1 cup oatmeal

1 tsp baking soda 

Mix together. Let sit for 10 minutes.   Pour ½ cup scoops of pancake batter onto a heated greased fry pan and fry for 2-3 minutes a side.  Serve with butter and maple syrup.