What to do with all that bounty
It’s now, at the height of summer that you start to get a little bit overwhelmed with all the produce.
Especially those sneaky zucchini. Overnight they go from being petite perfect zucchini to something you can hardly carry.
How do you deal with this glut? If your neighbours look the other way when they see you coming, you know you’ve foisted too many zucchini upon them.
Zucchini grated, added to chocolate cake mix and teamed with chocolate cream cheese icing is wonderful (warn those eating it that the green bits are zucchini and nothing illegal!).
Or grated and made into fritters. You can also produce a very satisfying mustard pickle with zucchini as the base — great for using up those oversized monsters.
Stone fruit are great bottled for winter use, ideal for sweeter fruit chutneys and jams and apricots make a great base for a barbecue sauce. Apples, pears and plums can also be bottled. Plums make a great spicy plum sauce, and apple can also be stewed and frozen in portions for fruit crumbles in the winter.
Tip: when making jam or sauce with plums that are clingstone — don’t cut easily away from the stone — count how many plums go into the pot so you can count the stones that come out as it’s cooking.
Berry fruit have a very short shelf-life when fresh so preserve some as jams, jellies or free-flow freezing for use in smoothies, muffins etc through the year. If you’re lucky enough to have a dehydrator, or the building skills to make a solar dehydrator, berries can be dehydrated to add to muesli. Make your own fruit leathers for the kids’ lunch box.
I have successfully made pumpkin soup and dehydrated in thin sheets then blitzed to a powder — homemade pumpkin cup-of-soup!
Scour op shops for old jam/ preserving jars, arm yourself with a couple of basic recipes if you’re a newbie and have a go at preserving some of that summer goodness.
For more hints, tips and recipes check out the Sustainable Ewe webpage www.sustainewe.org.nz
Recipe:
This recipe was given to me by my mum. I do not know where she got it from so cannot credit the original author/baker, but whoever they are, with zucchini in one hand and grater in the other, I thank you.
Chocolate Zucchini Cake
125 grams butter
1 cup brown sugar
cup white sugar 3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence cup yoghurt cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon teaspoon mixed spice teaspoon salt
3 cups grated zucchini Prepare a 25 cm cake tin by lining with baking paper.
Set oven to 170 degree Celsius. Beat the butter with the sugars until light and creamy. Do not hurry this step.
Add the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of the measured flour to prevent the mixture from curdling. Add the vanilla and yoghurt and mix well.
Sift the dry ingredients together then mix until partly combined with the egg mixture. Add the zucchini. Do not overmix. Turn into prepared tin. Bake at 170 for 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10-15 minutes, then turn out onto cake rack. When cold, icing with a cream cheese icing. Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing: Beat together 250 grams cream cheese, 1 T cocoa, teaspoon vanilla essence, 1 T softened butter and enough icing sugar to get spreadable consistency (approx. — cup).