Zunuksuk

Christine's Zunuksuk

It’s amazing how a single zucchini plant can produce enough fruit to save a small country from starvation.

The perfect zucchini should fit the hand like a good tennis grip. How many perfect ones have I harvested thus far? Maybe two. The other twenty or so were almost as big as my first-born child.

I let the Sunburst Squash get too big as well; two to four inches in diameter is best (for a single serving), but I’ve cooked several that were closer to eight. (It certainly makes dinner prep easier if you only have to stuff one for the family instead of four.) Like most people who grow it, I have a love/hate relationship with it.

I also have a love/hate relationship with recipes that promise to “put a dent in that zucchini harvest”; not a single one, that I’ve found, actually delivers on the promise. I’ve already made a few dozen zucchini muffins, several loaves of zucchini bread, loads of ratatouille, and a zucchini cake for my four-year-old’s birthday party. There is a slight depression, perhaps, but certainly not what I would call a ‘dent’. And yes, I substitute any summer squash (including Sunburst) in any zucchini recipe, which means the exact same recipes are resurrected as squash muffins, squash bread, ratatouille, and squash cake.

So, why grow it? Because it grows in spite of everything.

There isn’t another crop in my entire garden that won’t give me grief if I choose to ignore it, forget to water it, refuse to weed it, etc.

So, today, since I was up to my knees in squash, and feeling totally BAKED, I tried something new: I grabbed the 3 largest zucchinis, dug out the seeds, sliced them 1/8″ thick and threw them in the dehydrator. A few hours later, I bagged them and froze them. Harvest, rinse, repeat. Problem solved.

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