Hiding the Zucchini

I know the title sounds like a 14-year-old boy's euphemism, but it isn't meant to be. I really had a lot of zucchini to eat, and had to hide it in other foods to convince my doubtful family to ingest it. If you read The Value of a Mother-In-Law, you'll understand my husband's aversion to the squash. The boys have no such excuse aside from being little boys.

Fort Hill Farm came to the rescue with a great way to hide zucchini from the zucchini-defiant: Chocolate Cake. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Who would ruin a perfectly good chocolate cake by hiding zucchini inside?

But it worked. It was delicious. And we ate it all up.

Here is the recipe as presented by Fort Hill Farm:

Moist Chocolate Zucchini Cake
From The Cook’s Garden by Ellen Ecker Ogden

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour 2 cups sugar
1 cup whole-wheat flour 8 TBSP (1 stick) unsalted butter (room temp)
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder ½ cup olive oil
2 tsp baking soda 3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp fine sea salt 1/3 cup sour cream or yogurt
3 cups grated zucchini
*Add some Chocolate Chips for a real treat!

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350. Butter and lightly flour a 9×13 inch rectangular pan.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the sugar, butter and oil together in another bowl until well combined. One at a time, add in the eggs, beating well after each addition. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, blending until just smooth. Stir in the sour cream or yogurt, then the zucchini. Spread evenly in the pan.

Bake until the cake springs back in the center, about 45 minutes. Cool completely over a wire rack.

Some things to note: I was staying at a rented beach house when I made this recipe. I only had white flour, I had no chocolate chips, I had no grater with which to grate the zucchini, so I chopped it very small, and the oven in the house had no discernible temperature settings- the numbers had been scrubbed off the dial, and the light did not turn on until the dial was turned to its highest setting (whatever that might have been). This recipe is very forgiving, because it was still very good, despite all the setbacks.

I did not take photos, but it looked just like a chocolate sheet cake with some very tiny flecks of green. Try frosting it to hide the green flecks. Or tell the kids they are "sprinkles".

My Favorite Sandwich (If you don't include burgers, pastrami or Philly steak and cheese)

We went to the carnival at our church last night, so I didn't cook at home. You know, support the church and all by dropping 100+ dollars on unlimited ride bracelets, carnival games, raffle tickets, pizza fritte (fried dough or "elephant ears" to those who don't live in the northeast), and food donated by the local restaurants. In the spirit of increasing vegetable intake, I chose the $4.00 eggplant Parmesan grinder donated by Mona Lisa here in Newtown. Fantastic! But that isn't the sandwich I am thinking about.

I figure that if I'm going to get through that whole big box of veggies before the next one arrives on Wednesday, I'm going to have to cook some for lunch, too. So today I made my favorite veggie sandwich with the purplette onions, yellow squash and 1 zucchini from my share. The recipe couldn't be easier. I slice one onion (or part of a large onion) a small zucchini, and yellow squash nice and thin, and I sautee them in a bit of butter and olive oil. I add a generous shake from the salt shaker, and and even more generous shake from the pepper shaker, and let it cook till it looks good: not too soggy, not too crunchy. Throw an appropriate amount of the mess onto a kaiser roll with a slice of cheese, and you have a delicious sandwich!

My favorite type of cheese for this sort of sandwich is the Land O' Lakes white American cheese from the deli (NOT the individually wrapped slice crap). I know American cheese sounds terribly lowbrow, but I think those who pan it based upon their experiences with velveeta and the like, are overly self-important and afraid to admit what's really good. But I decided to veer off of my usual course and use a bit of leftover goat cheese. Tangy goodness, different from the usual.

I was also lacking in the kaiser roll department, so I made do with a little bit of leftover sourdough sliced bread toasted up and buttered. When in doubt, add a little butter. Yummy sandwich!

By the way, if you find you've made more than will fit on one sandwich, it tastes just as good the next day heated up.