Z is for Oh my god, so much Zucchini

And this isn't counting the bigger one I grilled for dinner. Or the two more already lurking out there in the garden.

Doomed. I am doomed.

D is for Detour

Ok, . . . guys? It's the end of August and I'm drowning in zucchini. In the interest of actually blogging here again, I hope you'll be tolerant of my skipping ahead a bit and letting you know how I'm dealing with the squash overload. Because I'm looking at pickling and, frankly, I'm a little scared.

B is for Bulbs

Bulbs of shallots and garlic, which I need to get into the ground pretty darn soon.

In fact, being November, it's a bit past optimal. Unfortunately bulb planting time and the kick-in of the uber rainy season here in Seattle sorta kinda coincide. However. today was sunny and tomorrow is supposed to be as well (fingers crossed and boy does that make it difficult to type) so I should be able to get the little suckers in the ground in the afternoon.

In any case it'll be better than this year. I planted in the spring and got some return, but twas measly compared to what it could be with the correct amount of run up time.

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Meanwhile, in Televisionland, The Next Iron Chef has been watched and was double plus pleasing this week. The chef I most wanted to stay (Freitag) and the chef I most wanted to go (Appleman) both did those things. Yay!

Z is for Zucchini, My Other Inspiration

I've babbled a bit about what possessed me to do this, but while I was blanching vegetables night before last I realized there was a little more to the story:

Ever since I can remember, I've both wanted to cook and wanted to garden. Kitchens being a little easier to come by than real estate, my first real go at a vegetable garden was last summer.

It was, weeell, mostly a learning year. My own fault; I jumped in without doing much research (I did read the back of the seed packets, but those are not as informative as one might hope), and the only things that did solidly well were the swiss chard and the purple string beans (hurray! for low maintenance plant relationships).

I spent the winter reading up a bit and now have an embarrassment of tasty green riches. I love zucchini, but had only really cooked it one way prior to this August: sauteed in chunks. A yummy enough preparation, but not something you want to do five days in a row. Having been forced into cohabitation with all this summer squash, I now know how to grill it, bake it, stuff it, hide it in cookies and freeze it for the winter. So I thought, "Hey! This method could work for other foods! Whee!"

So here we are. Trying to figure out one last thing to do with apples.