A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that we went to the farmer’s market, despite the fact that we already had more fresh vegetables than we could eat. We ended up with tons of stuff that needed to be used before it spoiled. I had some zucchini, eggplant, squash, tomatoes, and okra.
Let me preface all this by telling you how grossed out I used to be by freezing food. I was OK with it if I didn’t know the food had been frozen or if someone else took care of the act of freezing and thawing. I’ve got it figured out now. Our deep freeze works really well, and we don’t get all that frost and yuckiness on everything.
I used all the all of the above in a vegetable barley soup one night. We ate it for one meal and put the rest in the freezer. I just diced up what I had, added some barley and tomato past, then let it cook until the veggies were tender and the barley was cooked. Easy squeezy!
I also made a side to put in the freezer and pull out when we’re having steak or something quick for dinner. I sliced the yellow squash into discs, added tomato, and steamed it all. Whatever was left from a reasonable portion for Mr. Gray & I, I pureed for Baby Gray.
I also sliced some zucchini and egg plant very, very thinly long-ways. I froze the slices until I’m ready to use them. I’m going to use those slices in addition to pasta in lasagna. I’ve heard several people talk about doing this and how delicious it is. We’ll try it soon!
The most delicious thing I did was make zucchini bread. I had a huge zucchini left after all the other stuff, so I grated it up and made zucchini bread. I ended up having enough zucchini to double the recipe, so we ended up with two loafs of zucchini bread and two muffin tins of zucchini muffins. So good!
Zucchini Bread
(this is a single batch; I doubled this to accommodate my zucchini)
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Ground cinnamon, to taste
3 eggs
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 1/4 cups sugar
Vanilla extract, to taste
2 cups grated zucchini
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Grease and flour two loaf pans (or a bundt pan or muffin tins)
- Beat eggs, applesauce, vanilla, and sugar with electric mixer
- Combine flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon in a separate bowl
- Gradually pour dry mixture into wet mixture, continue to beat slowly with mixer
- Stir in zucchini
- Pour batter into the two pans
- Sprinkle cinnamon over the top, if desired
- Bake about 45 minutes, or until a tooth pick or knife comes out clean when inserted into the center
You can add oatmeal, nuts, or chocolate chips to this recipe as well.
