zucchini baby

Yesterday my aunt gave me a giant zucchini from my uncle's garden. I put my zucchini child's picture up on flickr and he's now famous thanks to boing boing! Here's the famous photo:


Here he is next to a regular grocery store zucchini, and with a quarter for size comparison:


So what to do with a giant zucchini child? Apparently it's not really desirable to have your zucchini get this big, but he looks pretty tasty to me, so I won't let him go to waste. My first thought was bread, so I shredded part of him up and made a loaf and a dozen muffins. I used this recipe from the ol' Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book that every household seems to have:

Zucchini bread

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 cup finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
¼ cup cooking oil
1 egg
¼ teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
½ cup chopped walnuts

preheat oven to 350

In a mixing bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. In another mixing bowl combine sugar, shredded zucchini, cooking oil, egg and lemon peel; mix well. Add flour mixture; stir until just combined. Stir in chopped walnuts.

Pour batter into a greased 8x4x2-inch loaf pan. Bake in a 350 oven for 55 to 60 minutes or till a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.

Remove bread from pan; cool thoroughly on a wire rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing. Makes 1 loaf (16 servings).

I didn't add the lemon zest, though, because I didn't have it. Also instead of walnuts I added a bag of salted sunflower kernels from the 7-11, and a couple handfuls of golden raisins. The result was good. A little too sweet, though. I'd add less sugar next time. And there will be a next time, since this double batch only managed to take care of about 1/6 of the zucchini baby.