Zucchini Flowers

School is depressing right now -- too many students missing too many classes, not doing their assignments if they do come, not paying attention to the directions, and in a few cases, cheating, has me depressed.  I'm starting to wonder if assigning less homework would mean I would get more turned in.

But the garden is doing pretty well.  The zucchini blossoms are beautiful, and we have honeydew melons and hubbard squash that are getting close to harvest time.  Our cucumbers are really bitter, though -- I have to read up on what might be causing that.  Too little water?

Anyway, for now, here are some pictures for you to enjoy.



Zucchini blossoms

I wish I had the guts to try frying these -- I hear they are an Italian delicacy!

A bee doing her job

Honeydew hiding

Hubbard with squash blossoms

Chocolate zucchini bread!

I think I may have mentioned on here once or twice that we kinda have zucchini coming out our ears right now.  So I knew I needed to start looking up more zucchini recipes, when all of a sudden I remembered the existence of zucchini bread, and even better, chocolate zucchini bread!  It seemed like a great way to 1) get rid of a bunch of zucchini, and 2) bring some of it to work in a form that would be highly likely to be eaten.

I surfed around a bit online, and came upon this recipe, which looked perfect: not only did it promise to use more zucchini per batch than most, I also had all the necessary ingredients in the pantry, since I used up all our oil making tempura zucchini a week ago, and this recipe calls for melted butter instead of oil.

I was very excited about the prospect of using 4 cups of zucchini, but then I realized the recipe was for 2 loaves, and we only own one loaf pan -- so I'd only be able to use 2 cups at a time.  In fact, I grated a single zucchini that had stayed on the plant a little too long, which made the full 2 cups, so I didn't use quite as many as I'd hoped, but no matter how many individual squash I end up using in a batch, it still means there are less in the fridge!

I screwed up the first batch by not reading the directions carefully -- I forgot that the sugar doesn't go with the dry ingredients, it gets creamed with the eggs, so I had to toss one batch of dry ingredients.  This recipe also gave me an excuse to use the Kitchenaid mixer I got as a wonderful wedding gift from my aunt, that mostly collects dust on the counter.

When all was said and done, we had a lovely, dark loaf of chocolate cake that was hiding a ton of shredded zucchini inside:

Now, I used some cocoa powder I had on hand, which didn't specifically say bittersweet, so it felt like it needed a little punch -- the original recipe says chocolate chips are unnecessary, but I think they could have improved this loaf.  They were right about how moist it is, though -- dense and chewy, even 2 days later.  I found that ours got a little extra zing by spreading a little Brummel & Brown margarine on it, because the salty spread really compliments the sweet chocolate bread.  This was an easy, quick recipe, and I will definitely be making it again.