The Relish Garden

Jill --

My wife and I have the same zucchini dilemma every year. We call them "war clubs" I have a great recipe for zucchini relish that my mother has been making for over 50 years. It is quite a project, however. (lots of boiling water in the middle of summer) We make a great deal and put it into mason jars. We are actually taking this year off from it, as we have over 50 jars in the basement! This relish is great with baked beans, meatloaf, on burgers, and I also use it to make a nice tartar sauce for when we make fish & chips. Let me know if you would like the recipe.

Many years ago, when my hair was longer than my belt (!!) and I lived in a houseful of similar youngsters in Palo Alto, I was walking through our overgrown side yard one day and tripped over a zucchini the size of a healthy dachshund. There had obviously once been a garden there and nobody had told the zucchini plant that things had changed. I picked it and carried it in the house, and said, "Hasn't this thing gotten past edible?" My girlfriend and two other women said, in chorus, "Heck, no!" (or words to that effect), and sent me to the store to buy some sharp cheese, a loaf of day-old sourdough bread and a pound of pork sausage. That night two big steaming green boats sat on the dining table, scooped-out centers loaded with a stuffing of cubed bread, chopped zook pulp, onion, sausage and cheese, and we all fell to and ate like little long-haired kings and queens. I have since done much the same with overlooked/overgrown zucchinis, though none that gargantuan. If the squash has in fact gone beyond edible, splitting it down the middle (which you'll need to do anyway) will tell the story.

great