A lot of the adjust­ments when the kids move out are pret­ty easy — less laun­dry, a low­er water bill, not as much “stuff” around the house. But it’s real­ly hard to get a han­dle on the food sit­u­a­tion when you go from four to two. Often I buy more than we can eat before it goes bad or I make too much and we’re stuck eat­ing the same thing for days. And all bets are off when our veg­etable gar­den goes into over­drive, like it has dur­ing this hot, dry sum­mer, or friends share the wealth (usu­al­ly zuc­chi­ni) from their gar­den.

Pattypan

I real­ly don’t have any­thing against zuc­chi­ni. Admit­ted­ly its fla­vor and tex­ture are a bit meh and there’s only so much to do with it. And it becomes even more chal­leng­ing when I’m deal­ing with my own over­sup­ply of a squash rel­a­tive, pat­ty pan squash, and yet anoth­er mul­ti-pound Lunch Lady gourd. Enter the spi­ral­iz­er, a gift from my neigh­bor Pat­ti. It turns zuc­chi­ni and oth­er long, skin­ny squash into spaghet­ti-like strands. You can saute them with gar­lic, use them like a low-carb pas­ta, or put them in a favorite zuc­chi­ni bread recipe. But I learned an impor­tant les­son — you have to cut the strands into short pieces before adding them to bread or muf­fin bat­ter. Oth­er­wise it feels like you’re eat­ing hair in your muf­fin. Ew.

Spiralized zucchini

I made zuc­chi­ni bread with zuc­chi­ni from my friend Sue’s CSA share, inspired by a recipe by Melanie Barnard and Brooke Dojny in the AMA Fam­i­ly Health Cook­book.

Sue’s Zuc­chi­ni Bread

  • 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
  • 1 tea­spoon bak­ing pow­der
  • 1/2 tea­spoon salt
  • 1/4 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
  • 1 1/2 tea­spoons cin­na­mon
  • 1/8 tea­spoon all­spice
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sug­ar
  • 1/4 cup milk (I used 1%)
  • 1/4 cup saf­flower or oth­er veg­etable oil
  • 2 cups packed shred­ded zuc­chi­ni or sum­mer squash
  1. Pre­heat the oven to 350º F. Spray a stan­dard loaf pan with cook­ing spray.
  2. Com­bine the flour, bak­ing pow­der, salt, bak­ing soda, cin­na­mon, and all­spice in a large bowl. Set aside.
  3. Whisk togeth­er the egg, brown sug­ar, milk, and oil in a small bowl. Add to the flour mix­ture and stir until near­ly smooth; avoid over­mix­ing.
  4. Fold in the zuc­chi­ni.
  5. Place the bat­ter into the pre­pared loaf pan and bake for 50–55 min­utes, until the top is light brown and a tooth­pick insert­ed into the cen­ter comes out clean.
  6. Cool in the pan for 15 min­utes, then gen­tly remove and fin­ish cool­ing on a rack.