Giant Zucchini Shocks Millbrook Senior

Zelda Smith has seen a lot of surprising things in her 82 years, but last Thursday something turned up in her yard that just stopped her in her tracks. “It was huge. Monstrous. I was really terrified, to be honest,” said Smith. “There’s definitely something funny going on here. I’m pretty sure it’s global warming.”

 

Last Thursday, while pruning her prized rose bush, Smith was shocked to find an enormous zucchini growing where no zucchini had ever grown before. Not only was this zucchini the largest specimen of its kind ever found in the village but Zelda Smith denies planting it and swears that she had never even noticed the plant before stumbling upon the huge squash lurking beneath the leaves. It was a sight she will not soon forget. “I screamed,” Smith admits.

Mrs. Smith is, in fact, deathly afraid of zucchinis and has never allowed one into her home – a phobia that began in childhood. “All those horrid zucchini breads and zucchini casseroles and zucchini cookies my mother made – it was like you couldn’t trust anything to not have zucchini in it,” Smith says. “One time she even made zucchini jam if you can believe it. I wouldn’t touch that stuff with a ten foot pole.”

But now, here she was, face to face with her worst fear. Having lived through a world war, Smith was not to be undone by this bizarre situation. “I marched right down to the basement where my late husband Edgar kept his tools and found his axe,” she said. “It was a little rusty but I figured it would do the job. I mean, what else could I do? Call 911?” In mere minutes, the plucky Millbrook senior managed to reduce the menacing vegetable to a pile of harmless smithereens, which Smith tossed into her compost pile. “It was a relief, of course” she says, “But I did feel a little guilty. My mother would have turned it into zucchini bread.”

 

She may, in fact, get another chance after all. That compost pile – it’s full of zucchini seeds.

 

Looking for fame, fortune and a way to dispose of your unwanted zucchinis? Enter the Millbrook Zucchini Festival Cooking Contest! The two adult categories are for sweet and savoury zucchini concoctions; junior cooks (12 and under) can enter whatever they want. Deliver your fabulous zucchini dish by 1:30 p.m. to the cooking contest table at Zucchinifest on September 13. Zelda’s mom would be proud of you.

 

Zelda Smith’s Mother’s Orange Zucchini Bread

 

3 cups flour

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

1-1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 whole seedless orange, cut into chunks (peel and all)

1 egg

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

 

Preheat the oven to 350o F. Grease two 3 x 5-inch loaf pans.

 

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

 

In the container of a blender, combine the orange chunks, egg, vegetable oil and vanilla. Blend until smooth.

 

Pour the mixture from the blender into the dry ingredients. Add the grated zucchini and mix well. At first the batter will be very thick, but it will become easier to stir as the zucchini releases its liquid. Stir in the chopped nuts and spoon the batter into the two loaf pans. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick poked into the middle of a loaf comes out clean, with no batter clinging to it.

 

Remove from pans and let cool completely.

 

Makes two loaves.

 

 

 

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