Chocolate Berry Zucchini Smoothie

Anyone else feel like they have zucchini coming out of their ears? Last year I was begging, dreaming, wishing, and hoping some kind soul would leave a few zucchini on my front porch for Sneak Some Zucchini On Your Neighbor's Porch night. Not a one showed up on my porch, by the way.

But this year?

Ohhhhh...this yearrrrr.

This year, we will be the ones to sneak zucchini on to my neighbors' porches.

My brother planted a garden at his house, so in addition to our garden, we overfloweth with zucchini and cucumbers.

No joke, my parents came home from my brother's house with this 5 gallon bucket filled with zucchini and cucumbers. A few of the zucchini could double as a baseball bat.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I asked for zucchini, and I got it.

We've already shared the wealth with friends and family, but we still have quite an abundance. We've made a zucchini cobbler, zucchini fudge cake, zucchini bread, and zucchini cake, but none of those options are super friendly to the waistline.

At this stage of the zucchini game, I want to eat it and not know that I'm eating it. Know what I mean?

Hence, zucchini in a smoothie.

I'm dead serious about putting zucchini in a smoothie. It's desperate times and I think this has become my favorite way to eat it. For reals, y'all. I mean, last year I made zucchini pancakes and zucchini brownies that were good, but this is just too easy. Zucchini has virtually no flavor, which is why it's so great in sweet things. Plus, by eating the zucchini in its raw form, you're getting the max amount of benefits from the zucchini. They are low in calories, high in Vitamin C, and a good source of folates, Vitamin A, manganese, and potassium,.

I used a normal sized zucchini here, but if you're trying to use up a zucchini the size of a baseball bat, you'll need to scrape the seeds out, for sure.

Chocolate Berry Zucchini Smoothie

1 cup roughly chopped zucchini
1 cup frozen mixed berries
2 Tbls cocoa powder
2 tsps agave
1 Tbls almond butter
3/4 cup almond milk

Combine all the ingredients in a blender until smooth. Drink it up!

Titanic (Zucchini) Brownies

"I think you should call them 'Titanic Brownies,'" my brother mumbled from the general direction of the kitchen. I didn't have to see him to know that he was leaning over the pan, evaluating the brownies with his nose crinkled in mild disdain.

"Why?" I asked, ready for whatever his smart reply was going to be.

"Because they're going down."

Hmph.

"Maybe going down the hatch in a flame of awesomeness!" I replied back.

He mumbled something that I missed. I could tell he wasn't a fan of my zucchini brownies. He's not a big fan of putting vegetables in sweet things. Actually, he's not a fan of my cooking in general. Except for my chocolate chip cookies.

And that's OK.

Zucchini Bake

Heads up that "Sneak Some Zucchini on to Your Neighbor's Porch Night" is coming up on August 8th.

I plan on hanging a sign on my front porch to welcome sneaky neighborly zucchini dropper off-ers.

If nothing happens, I'll feel like Linus in "The Great Pumpkin." Vaguely depressed. Except I WON'T be waiting to see the Great Zucchini rise out of the zucchini patch. My dedication level isn't quite there. I can't be completely depressed, like Linus, because my dedication level isn't quite like his.

Frankly, if you have enough zucchini to sneak on to a neighbor's porch, I want to know your secret.

I have two zucchini plants and finally have plucked two misshapen zucchinis. I almost don't want to use them because I want to show my two ugly zucchinis off to the world.

Like, I legitimately grew something. I didn't kill it. It survived! It feels so...so...cannibalistic to eat something that I grew.

But that would kind of defeat the purpose of growing them, right?

Zucchini Pancakes

This is the story of how I came to make zucchini pancakes.

(There's always a story with me, isn't there?)

The story starts with bananas.

Yes, bananas.

You see, in a house without central AC, all produce must be eaten as soon as it's purchased. Why I decided to purchase a bunch of bananas that I couldn't possibly eat within 48 hours is beyond me. I had four bananas that needed rescuing right away. I hit up one of my favorite recipe inspiration sites, TasteSpotting, and found this recipe for Banana Rosemary Baby Bundt Cakes w/ Rosemary Brown Butter Icing.

They were UH-MAY-ZING.

This is a "must make in your lifetime" kind of recipe. I shared the link on Twitter, and got a tweet back from Wendi at Bon Appetit Hon who offered to trade some jam for one of my mini bundt cakes. Who am I to turn down another food blogger's jam??

Oven Fried Zucchini and Lemon Caper Dipping Sauce

My bestie and I agreed that we love happy food.

What do we consider happy food?

Food that is exciting, adventurous, not the standard. Food that has different flavor combinations. Food that big on flavor. Food that could be served in a restaurant, but we made it ourselves. That's happy food.

And so my bestie came over a few nights ago, and we cooked together and made happy food. And we didn't even set off the smoke alarm or anything.

Check out our menu:

• Cornmeal Crusted Chicken Tenders with Blackberry Mustard - I made life easy and bought chicken tenders because they were cheaper than buying the breast and slicing myself.
  
• Broccoli Bacon Slaw - I found a bag of broccoli slaw mix that was exactly 4 cups. No chopping broccoli florets for me! Easy peasy. 
  
• Oven Fried Zucchini with Lemon Caper Dipping Sauce - I used "Parm in a can" instead of grating my own Paremsan. Sure made life easy and tasted good too.
  
• Grilled Pineapple with Mango Sorbet and a blackberry drizzle - I bought a whole pineapple and trimmed/sliced it myself. Doing that saved me $1.75!

Follow the links above for the recipes to the chicken tenders and broccoli bacon slaw. The oven fried zucchini and grilled pineapple was my idea so you're stuck looking at the recipes here. I'll post the grilled pineapple recipe later this week.

Today, it's all about the oven fried zucchini, which I can't seem to get enough of. I made them again for myself last night.

I may or may not be stalking the zucchini plant in my garden to see if there is a zucchini on there yet that I can use to make these again. For free. Because free food you've grown yourself tastes better.

I LOVE these things. I love the salty, nutty Parmesan. I love the lemon and caper combination. If you don't have capers, go buy a jar. And then make chicken piccata with the rest. You'll be happy you did. But if you're going by what you have in the house, how about some jarred pizza or spaghetti sauce, heated? Everyone has jarred pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce in their house...right?

::sheepishly raises hand in the air and looks around to make sure she's not alone::

But these oven fried zucchini sticks? These made the bestie and I very happy.

Here's a little instructional video I put together on how to make them. Love to know if you try them and like them as much as we do!