August means three things for my family, rooted in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. My younger sister has a birthday, and for two months Mom’s three daughters’ ages are just one year apart. The first time it happened, we were 1, 2, and 3 years old! Secondly, for fifteen years our “little brother” has welcomed the Vents (Mom’s maiden name) to his country home in Ohio farmland for a Corn Roast Reunion.
Eric’s wife Amanda, Sons Eric and Kyle, Dave and Lisa
And in August, zucchini happens. Attendees of this year’s reunion were offered a parting gift of the prolific produce. I was a grateful recipient, having valued zucchini since my childhood, and not having a garden of my own.
Zucchini: plural zucchini or zucchinis. : a smooth usually cylindrical dark green summer squash; also : a plant that bears zucchini.
As a kid, I loved Mom’s zucchini bread, similar to banana bread, but made with shredded zucchini instead of bananas. Even on hot August days, it was worth turning on the oven to make the delicious treat. Before leaving home, I learned to make the bread, shredding the squash in a food processor, sifting the dry ingredients, mixing till moist, and baking until a toothpick came out clean. Out on my own, I quickly acquired a food processor for this specific purpose. While it’s possible to grate enough zucchini for one batch of bread, our family likes to double the recipe and freeze some for later.
This is a chocolate version, more like a dessert.
I’ve baked zucchini bread, cake, and cookies, while my mom even makes zucchini pie, much like apple pie. It was some time before it occurred to me that zucchini was good for more than a baking ingredient. Treated as a vegetable, the squash can be added to stews, sliced and prepared with breading, sizzled on a grill, and much more. In areas where it grows easily and abundantly, creative uses have blossomed as well.
This year, I found a magazine recipe for meatballs containing zucchini. I altered the recipe a bit, used them in meatball subs, and got raving reviews from my guys. So, yesterday I used half of my reunion parting gift and two pounds of ground turkey to make a double batch of meatballs for the freezer. They were out of the oven by noon, so I added a few to some left over vegetables for my lunch.
I’ve added the recipes for my Zucchini and Turkey Meatballs and my Zucchini Bread to my Printables Page.
August in Ohio brings an abundance of homegrown vegetables. Gardeners harvest sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and much more. Some folks bring fresh produce to farm markets. Others have enough to share with family and neighbors. But there is one plant that produces a crop so large that it has earned a reputation for being difficult to use up, even garnering its own National Day, the humble zucchini.
Learn here that zucchini is actually a fruit!
This year’s Vent Corn Roast was extra special for us. Son Eric brought his wife Amanda for the first time. They visited with cousins, teamed up for some corn hole matches, and asked me for my Zucchini Bread Recipe! It was fun to see the tradition continue as they headed home with their parting gifts, one to grill, and the other to shred and bake into bread.