Legwork and Life: Zucchini

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
I tried my hand at gardening this year a bit.  It was something to do that made me feel a little more in control of my life, plus growing food is kind of cool.  I started with an idea, some containers, and some seeds…

In all honesty, I planted late.  I could have easily planted a full month earlier, I just wasn\’t sold on the idea.  I try to think through ideas that have price tags over $20 or so, and this was significantly higher.  Still, it was kind of rewarding to see the zucchini sprout and grow…

And grow…

And just keep growing.

Then they flowered, and the harvest began.

This was the first zucchini I harvested.  As you can see, it is not small.  I was pretty pleased.  We chopped it into pasta dishes.

But of course you never get just one zucchini, so…  They began to pile up, even though I made gifts of some.  Notably, due to the coronavirus, the zucchinis sold in the store are a quarter to half the size of the ones here.  Zucchini can grow to be the size of baseball bats (just ask my mother-in-law, who grows an army of zucchini every year), but the insides get very squishy and seedy so you’re better off harvesting them sooner.

I bought a starter spiralizer to use on fresh zucchini, and to make tossing zucchini in pasta even easier.  You can use spiralizers on most vegetables, but I wanted to specifically try to freeze zucchini spirals.

There’s now a quart bag in the freezer for use whenever, plus more in the fridge.

In addition to spiralizing zucchini, I also endeavored to make my spouse’s family zucchini bread recipe, which is notably a dessert.  That’s cinnamon sugar on the top.

At the time of this post, I’ve baked six of these loaves and made gifts of two.  My spouse has agitated for something like 10 loaves to keep in the freezer, because this zucchini bread is familiar, comfort food for him and he wants to have it around all the time now.  I’m not sure I’m up to making and freezing that many, but it’s… certainly possible with how much zucchini I’ve harvested.

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