chocolate, meet zucchini

Imagine you're on Chopped and you have a basket with chocolate chips, zucchini, olive oil and curry powder. It's the dessert course. What would you make? How about an amazing chocolate cake?

Over the last three weeks it's been far too hot for cooking but I've turned on the oven twice. Both times to make this cake. The original recipe comes from my favorite "What do I do with this vegetable?" cookbook, From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Seasonal, Farm-Fresh Produce. I've changed it up a lot over the years to inject healthier ingredients and more flavor, and it's evolved into one of the best chocolate cakes ever. When the zucchini is coming out of the garden faster than I can keep up, I love to make it. My son looks at me with awe when I cut him a piece warm from the oven and he says, I quote, "Thank you, gorgeous!" Whether he's thanking me or the cake, I don't know, but that's about enough to encourage me to make it a third time in one month. That, and the fact that I don't feel one bit bad eating seconds.

The Moistest-Ever Chocolate Zucchini Cake

3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 t. vanilla
1/2 cup almond milk
3 T cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. curry powder
1/4. t. cloves
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips

Mix together oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla and milk. Sift together dry ingredients and add to the wet. Stir in zucchini and chips. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

A couple tips:
-Sift your dry ingredients onto a piece of waxed paper, then pick up the paper and pour the sifted ingredients into the bowl. You save washing another bowl and the paper can be saved and used again. I always do this for cookies, too.
-Shred extra zucchini and keep it in sealed container in the fridge. As soon as the first cake's demolished, you'll want to make another one and the zucchini prep will be done. Or, try these Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Chocolate meets zucchini there, too. Also with yummy results.
-Save your butter wrappers in a bag in the freezer. When it's time to grease a pan, pull one out and rub it on your pan. There is usually enough butter left on one wrapper to cover a whole pan. Then throw the wrapper away - nothing wasted!
-Substitute buttermilk for the almond milk if you prefer. Coconut milk would probably work well, too.
-If you don't like curry, leave it out. The flavor is subtle; it's mostly just fun to say that there is curry in the cake. That's why I added it, next Food Network Star that I am.

our way with squash

Because of the cool, rainy streaks interspersed with stifling, drought-like conditions, our garden has suffered. We enjoyed an early spurt of lettuce and a few handfuls of the most delicious green beans (even my little veggie snubber would pick and eat them straight from the vine), but the pepper plants produced nothing, the carrots are still the size of Elliott's pinkie and not a single tomato has turned red. The squash, however, has redeemed the bed. Several times a week we have discovered a squash or two hiding under the leaves that wasn't there the day before, a true vegetal miracle.

As a result, summer squash has been a mainstay of our August diet. (Mark, I know you are so jealous.) We saute it with herbs and cook it into frittata-like quiche, but our favorite recipe has been squash-crusted pizza. The inspiration for this recipe comes from the Zucchini-Crusted Pizza recipe in Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (one of the best cookbooks ever!). I adapted the recipe to use the yellow summer squash, which I think must have a lower water content and thus results in a less mushy, more crispy crust. I also altered the measurements of some of the ingredients to fit our tastes. It is a truly delicious entree.

Squash-Crusted Pizza
inspired by Mollie Katzen

2 small or 1 large summer squash, grated
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/2 t. Italian seasoning or the like
1 T olive oil

Mix the ingredients together and spread into a well greased and lightly floured pie pan. Bake 35-40 minutes at 400 until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes, then slide a spatula under the crust (around the entire pan) to loosen it from the pan. Top with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and any toppings. (We often top with sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil.) Return to oven about 5-10 more minutes, until heated through.

making our bed

So, we have these worms living in our basement. They eat our garbage and make us dirt. It sounds a little weird, maybe even kind of gross, if you feel that way about worms. But, truly, it's pretty incredible. For about 8 months (longer than is recommended) we fed our red wigglers carrot tops, banana peels, apple cores and egg shells and, in return, they (in Liam's words) pooped us out about ten gallons of rich, nourishing dirt.


We probably didn't follow the best technique for sifting the worms from the dirt, as it took a very long time. We're definitely going to look into that for the next go around. Speaking of which, these worms are big time reproducers. We have enough red wigglers now for another 20 gallon bin that will need a home. Any takers?


The best part about keeping dirt-making worms is getting to use said dirt to fertilize our own little veggie garden. Memorial Day weekend we built and planted a raised bed.


Every time I plant a seed it seems absolutely impossible that anything would sprout from it. Now that Liam's involved, it feels like a little more is at stake. I am hoping at least one veggie will grow. The worm dirt should insure at least that. If nothing else, we have some awfully cute little markers.