How to waste not your zucchini

Well, we picked our first zucchini of the summer today—just the beginning of many more zucchinis to come, I am sure. I know there is a zucchini tradition—zucchini in summer is the counterpart of fruitcake at Christmas. And I will probably write about fruitcake in December if I haven’t already. But I am herewith climbing on the annual zucchini jokewagon in an effort to outdo all of the other zukesters.

Just so you know, my Mother tried to teach me not to waste anything. Along with a houseful of kids, she was the mother of recycling. My Mom was waste-free when waste-free wasn’t cool. And speaking of zucchini, we ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole month of August when I was growing up. Granted, there are a lot of ways to disguise zucchini. That is because they don’t really have any taste and can therefore be made to taste like anything—apple pie, spice cake, chicken casserole. If someone has a zucchini chocolate recipe, I would like to have it please.

I say that the most serious waste of all is unused zucchini. Having a seven-year supply of them squirreled away is no excuse for wasting the rabbit of the vegetable kingdom. Did I mix my metaphors again?

I looked it up—the word “zucchini” is diminutive of zucca squash. In other words, around here we grow the small variety. Aren’t you glad we don’t grow the large one?

So to help you be more green, (no pun intended), here is the Butterbean suggestion list of ways to use all that superfluous zucchini. Warning: this list is not mother-approved.

1. These are dog days. Use one for a doorstop.

2. Give them to your kids to make canoes to float in the bathtub. With a little imagination, they may be able to make other toys out of them.

3. Dry them and make kitchen witches. The color is perfect.

4. Use them for shoe trees. This will use up two at a time.

5. Let the kids play war with them. They make great grenades. My kids used to play a game called “bazoocchini.”

6. Slice the overgrown ones 3/4” thick and load them into your clay pigeon thrower.

7. Collect a representative sampling of them and take them to the county fair. You could “stuff the ballot box” by submitting courtesy entries for your friends and relatives. That one that tripled in size overnight could be entered into the largest vegetable contest. If it is a pumpkin contest, play dumb.

8. Box some up and send them to the IRS.

9. Try juggling some. They should substitute well for bowling pins. This method is most effective if you are a novice juggler. But novice or not, start out with several.

10. I think they might make good fish bait. Try a small one whole when fishing for bass.

11. Leave them lying around in the back yard. Maybe the dog will bury them.

12. Conduct scientific experiments with them. I should think that zucchini could be used to make something really useful like bio-fuel and with a little encouragement, which no one has been willing to give them before now, (no one fertilizes zucchini plants) could be made to out-produce corn as a crop. And unlike corn, if they disappeared from the food chain, no one would ever notice.

Whatever use you find for your extra zucchinis, remember two things: keep your car locked from now until first frost and never, never throw zucchini in the garbage, no matter what.