Making in the Kitchen: Zucchini Cakes

If you have a garden with a zucchini plant, you know that they grow fast. One day, you see a young zucchini the size of a tube of lipstick. Then you bend down to tie your shoe — and bam! It’s the size of your arm. So it’s incredibly easy to wind up with a few oversized zucchini. But you have many options for these big guys — and they all involve shredding. Today I made delicious zucchini cakes that I found in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine a few years back. They make great appetizers, side dishes, or just a different kind of snack.

What you’ll need:

• 5 cups shredded zucchini
• 3/4 t. salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 c. flour
• 1/2 c. grated parmesan
• 1 T. finely chopped onion
• 1/4 t. black pepper

The first step is to shred your zucchini. If you have an extra-large one like I did, cut it in half and then into spears so you can cut out all the seeds. Then start shreddin’! After you have a good 5-6 cups, sprinkle in the salt and put it all in a colander and place something heavy on top. (I used a bowl filled with heavy cans.) You want all the moisture to drain out and the salt will aid in that. Leave it like that for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs with the garlic and then add the flour, cheese, onion and pepper. Stir until just moistened. Then when your zucchini is ready you can mix that in.  Before I put mine in, I squeezed handfuls of it to get even more moisture out.

Put a little bit of oil on your skillet and heat to just under medium. For each cake, drop on a tablespoon of batter and then use the bottom of your spoon to flatten (and roughly round out) each cake. They’ll be about 3 inches in diameter. I fit nine of them on my square griddle. Cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side.

These taste great by themselves, or you could dip them in cool sour cream, comeback sauce, or even ketchup. This recipe made 27 cakes for me. Oh, and one more thing — the kiddos devoured them!