This is the time of year when neighbors sneak around in the middle of the night, dropping bags of zucchini on your doorstep and running away. Of course, we don’t want that good wholesome squash to go to waste—but how much ratatouille and zucchini bread can you eat, after all?

So, as a public service, this month’s Frugal Fun Tip gives you some more ideas of what to do with that green thing that keeps poking its way into your kitchen.

Zucchini Kebabs. Marinate chunks of zucchini in salted olive oil with a little vinegar. Skewer them along with pieces of onion, whole cherry tomatoes, and bell pepper slices, and grill.

Zucchini Fajitas. Cut into long strips and soak in a mixture of olive oil, soy sauce, garlic (a lot), cumin seed, and hot pepper. Grill.

Zucchini Latkes. Grate zucchini, onion, and carrot in a food processor. Add to a batter of eggs, milk and flour and fry up in thin patties. Serve with sour cream.

Zucchini Guacamole. Throw zucchini into a food processor with lots of garlic and cilantro, some lemon, and a dash of hot pepper. Serve with corn chips or even bread, since it’s a lot thinner than avocado guacamole.

Curried Zucchini Soup. Make a soup stock from your freezer bag of carrot and onion peels (boil the peels, then strain). Sautee onions in a fair amount of curry powder, add sliced zucchini and cook until zucchini turns olive-green and gets soft. Add some of the stock and puree in food processor. put it in a soup pot with the rest of the stock. Add unsweetened soymilk (or dairy milk, which requires more frequent stirring) and cook down over a very low flame for an hour, stirring frequently. Allow to age off the flame for a few hours. Optionally add croutons just before serving.

Hundreds more creative things you can do, but I’ll stop there.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Frugal Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.