Invasion of the Gourd - and other things...

There is a joke in the Canadian Prairies that says to be sure to lock your car.

If you don't you will find, upon your return, the back seat  full of bags of zucchini.

This might be funny if it weren't true.

Each year I plant one zucchini plant and each year I have enough zucchini for the neighborhood.

It is amazing how many things you can make with zucchini and still have a gunny sack full and you just don't know don't know what to do with them.  

Each year we let them get as large as a football players lower leg just to go "wow, is that one ever big!"

Each year we say, "Let's not plant zucchini next year."

But I always find the seed packet in the seed  bag in the garage fridge and think, oh, what the heck - might as well.

This year I found a new recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake.

It is very delicious.

Worth buying a zucchini at the store if you haven't grown your own garage full.

This is it.

2 1/4 cup AP Flour

3/4 cup Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

1 1/2 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Butter

2/3 cup Vegetable Oil

2 Eggs (large)

1 tsp Vanilla

1/2 cup Buttermilk

2 cups grated unpeeled Zucchini

1 cup semi sweet Chocolate Chips

1/2 cup chopped Walnuts

Oven at 350 deg F.

Use a buttered and floured 9 x 13 pan or a Bundt Pan .

Sift flour, cocoa, b.soda and salt and set aside.  Beat sugar, butter and oil till well blended and add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla.  Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk - start with dry and end with dry.

Mix in zucchini, chocolate chips and walnuts.

Bake 50 minutes for a 9 x 13 pan and 1 hr 10 min for a bundt pan.  

Dense, chocolately and delicious.

We all thought so but Son #2, who should be a detective, said "there's something in here - what is it?"

"walnuts". I said.

In addition to zucchini I love having a garden full of veggies and fruits.
And as an ex-prairie girl who moved to gardening heaven I grow (or try to grow) everything.
After digging, seeding, watering and weeding ( and complaining that I get no help and my lower back hurts!) here are some of the results of my efforts.

Peas and Carrots. - crunchy and sweet.

I bought a fig twig last year.  This year it produced fruit.  When we returned from our little vacation there were two figs that had ripened.  They were drooping on the stalk and were a deep purplish color.
 I was so excited.
I had never tasted one -  fresh and juicy,  right off the tree.
I bit into it and excitement was replaced with disappointment.

Like the zucchini they are flavorless.
Sweet but bland.
Darn it! I was hoping for something delicious.

Tomato, about a week and a half away from being a toasted tomato sandwich

 Peas, Beets, Carrots and Leeks.

Zucchini Blossom - too big to stuff with goat cheese filling and deep fry.
But there will be more.

Green Gage Plums - Now these are delicious!


But today, instead of making pickles and relish or jams and jellies, we did this.

I love the Okanagan!