Zucchini Galore!

In case you haven't figured it out by now from tweets and other comments, we planted a lot of zucchini this year. I like it, DH has gotten used to my creative uses of it and loves zucchini bread, and we give some to friends. This year I am even selling some of our overstock at the roadside. (5 DKK each. sold 2 so far.)

Friday I prepared a few zucchini for freezing. I use the grater attachment to my mixer to grate it. Then I put a plastic bag in my pyrex measuring cup to measure 2C portions for freezing. 2C is the right amount for a single batch of zucchini bread (which makes 2 loaves unless I use a really big loaf pan). The portion is also great for other purposes. DH has to get the machine out and put it away, but without it I wouldn't be able to process near as much.

What do I do with all this zucchini? For one thing, I make a lot of zucchini bread. This is the recipe I use, which I got from my mother.

Zucchini Bread (Cake)

• 3 beaten eggs
• 1 C vegetable oil or apple sauce
• 2 C sugar
• 3 t vanilla
• 2 C grated zucchini
• 3 C flour
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 C soaked raisins, nuts, or coconut (optional)

Mix it all together and put into greased and floured loaf pans. Bake in a preheated over 350F or 175C for 1 hour.


I've done some experimenting with this recipe. For one thing, it is too sweet for danes. If using sweetened applesauce, I use HALF the called for sugar. Because we got a good deal on brown sugar and have lots of it (it is cheaper than white the way we got it), I use brown sugar.

Applesauce is preferred to oil for two reasons: it is healthier and the resulting bread is moister and tastes better. If you do use oil, be sure to use one that is a neutral taste. Neither olive oil or grapeseed oil is a good choice for this. Rapeseed (canola) and corn oil work fine.

Another healthiness improvement I often make is replacing part of the flour with oatmeal. This eliminates some of the wheat (I have an allergy but it isn't severe) and increases the fiber content of the cake. Replacing 1/3 of it is pretty much unnoticeable to the eater. Half works pretty well, if I remember right, but is more noticeable. I've also swapped portions out with whole wheat flour at times.

I have also baked these as cupcakes or muffins instead of loaves on several occasions. They take about 15-18 minutes in the oven that way. This is great for single portion servings, whether for visitors, a road trip, or freezing. It also eliminates the need to grease and flour, although my silicon loaf pan does that as well.

Speaking of freezing, these freeze really well. When I baked it Saturday, we kept a slightly larger loaf out for eating and froze the second smaller one. I wrapped the one to freeze in two layers of foil, labeled it with the contents and date, and put that into a plastic bag in the freezer.


Other Uses

At some point, I will be making stuffed zucchini boats for dinner. We usually use giant zucchini for this one. I will post the recipe for that at that time, because I have to make it up. I did this from memory in Danish the other day for my mother-in-law but I'd rather be making it at the time.

Zucchini and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper and optionally garlic, sauteed on a pan with olive oil is a GREAT side dish. We had that the other night with pork chops, oven-baked potato boat fries, and bernaise sauce. It is also good when you add mushrooms.

Pasta! Zucchini and other vegetables are great on pasta. I usually prefer fresh for this and will cut it into small pieces.

I add grated zucchini to all sorts of meat and one-dish meals. It is a great stretcher for the meat and a good way of getting more veggies into the diet. My burrito recipe recommends it. The thing with zucchini is that it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. So it is easily disguised. Want more substance in that meat and tomato sauce for spaghetti? Throw in a bag of grated zucchini! It will mix in with the meat and your man, even if he is grumpy about veggies, is unlikely to notice!

I also use zucchini (either sliced fresh or grated frozen) in my pork chop-rice-tomato casserole. I think that was the use of the first one out of the garden this year.

Cut into sticks, zucchini goes great with carrot and celery sticks for dipping into salad dressing. I make a homemade salad dressing sometimes with sour cream, chives, parsley, and other stuff. It is great for that. You can also use it in salads either sliced or cut into half-moons or chunks.

That's all I think of for now. Feel free to contribute your own zucchini favorites in the comments!

Clicker Training with Horses

I've been thinking my doing some clicker training with the horses for a long time, but I finally had enough reasons that I had to start. With Ria, I am mostly worried about how she reacts around treats. She gets very mouthy and I don't like that. With Quintas, my goal is to work with her and how she stands while DH is doing her feet. She tends to pull and push a lot while he's working on her and I can see clicker training could do a good job in cleaning that up.

The first lesson I want to teach them is zen. Zen is all about self-control. In any kind of animal, it's dealing with the art of getting what you want by acting like you don't want it.

I was a little nervous training this because it could be quite dangerous. The dogs when I start them as puppies are pretty limited in how much damage they can actually do to my hands. Also, both of them have learned that "OW" means back off that you're hurting me. But the horses haven't learned that. Most of the time that you working with horses your goal is to never let them find out that there actually bigger than you. It also means making an effort yourself to avoid things that will cause them to bite.

Holding out a treat in a closed hand in front of a horse's nose is very likely to cause it to bite. This is why you always feed horses with an open flat hand.

So I did some asking on my dog clicker training list because I know some people there have worked with other animals. I got some great advice as well as a pointer to a llama training book made by the author of my preferred dog training method. They also recommended a voice clicker training book, but I've kind of blown my book budget on other things at the moment.

So anyway, I started last night with my first Zen session. I took two apples and used the corer-divider on them (they got the cores too, just made pieces easier) and went over to the fence. They came right up, so I worked outside the fence. First Ria, then Quintas, etc. They already do half decent respecting each other's spaces, which made it easier to work them in turns. A step to one side or the other for a particular horse.

I held out the treats where they could barely reach them with necks stretched out as far into my space as they could. As soon as they pulled back into their own space, I clicked and treated. Using a verbal cue for eating, which I am sure they will pick up pretty fast. Both figured it out pretty quickly. They didn't quit reaching after the treat, but they got faster and faster at pulling their heads back and waiting for the click.

Not sure what I will do to continue right now. Our grass shortage got too intense, so last night we put all 4 together onto their summer pasture. We split that up for strip grazing, which means that right now they can't get near the road side of the fence. Going the other way around to them is extremely challenge for me. It is rough terrain in woods and a hay field and a lot longer walk than I am up to. So I guess sessions will be limited to when one horse is home for something, That does have the advantage of working one-on-one, but the disadvantage of rarity.