Above / Edible yellow flowers on summer squash plants remind us that all plants need male pollen added to female flowers in order to bear fruit… and that zucchini grow especially fast.
The blazing yellow flowers on the summer squash plants in our garden plots attract bees that carry the pollen from male to female parts. They also attract yellow jackets and dragon flies. Zucchini and patty pan summer squash are producing and growing well and it’s only July 15.
About a week ago, we considered harvesting a 6-inch-long zucchini, mindful of a harvest hint to pick the squash when they’re 6 to 8 inches long. We opted to wait a day. To our surprise, the fruit disguised as a vegetable nearly doubled in size overnight.
Already this month, we’ve grated three fast-growing zucchinis and baked 10 loaves of bread, using Aunt Marjorie’s zucchini bread recipe. We took three loaves with us to the Mitchell Family Reunion last weekend, wrapped two loaves for the freezer, gave two to friends and the other loaves disappeared.
My Aunt Marjorie (1923-2018) was my mother’s oldest sister. Back in the early 1970s, my mother began using her sister’s recipe, hand-written on a 3 x 5 card kept in her recipe file box.
As the story goes, Aunt Marjorie, who lived on a farm in Battle Ground, Ind., came up with the recipe during a year when she had a bumper crop of zucchini in her family garden. The recipe offers a spicy flavor and moistness, similar to carrot cake, and it’s delicious sliced practically right from the oven. It’s also great cooled and topped with a little cream cheese. If any is left, the next day or two, zucchini bread is good sliced, toasted and buttered.
Aunt Marjorie’s Zucchini Bread
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Grease and flour two 4″ x 8″ bread loaf pans. (Or use parchment paper to line the bottom which is what I’ve learned works better.)
1 2/3 to 2 Cups Sugar (I usually use about 2 cups)
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
½ Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Eggs
1 Cup Oil (Corn Oil suggested)
2 Cups Grated Unpeeled Zucchini
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
½ Cup Chopped Pecans
½ Cup Raisins (Optional) (I opt not)
Instructions
Into a large bowl, sift all six dry ingredients. Set aside.
In another bowl, mix the eggs, oil, zucchini and vanilla. Add this mixture to dry ingredients and blend well.
Stir in chopped pecans and raisins (optional).
Pour the batter into two loaf pans (4″ x 8″).
Bake about one hour (checking after 45 minutes), or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the loaves comes out clean.
Patty Pan Summer Squash
Patty Pan summer squash, sometimes called “scalloped squash,” is a new variety to our garden plots this year, taking the place of yellow crook-neck squash from other years.
Quite frankly, until this year, we’d never seen the scalloped-saucer-shaped summer squash until they started growing at the same pace as the zucchini—and that was quick.
Unfamiliar as we were, the first patty pans in our garden had grown to about four inches in diameter before we knew how to harvest them or to prepare and cook them.
We read online that patty pans can be harvested and eaten when they’re only a couple of inches in diameter, a perfect size for an individual serving.
So far, we prepared the patty pan by slicing off the top and bottom, cutting the unpeeled squash into wedged sections, then sautéing the wedges (We cut 12 wedges from a 4” wide patty pan.) in avocado oil, sprinkled lightly with Casey’s steak seasoning while browning. After a couple minutes when both sides were browned and the pieces fork-tested tender, we placed on a plate lined with a paper towel to drain. Next we dusted the patty pan with grated Parmesan cheese and served.
Oh, my! What a tasty surprise. And the recipe was so quick and simple.
‘Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” —Rudyard Kipling (1865 -1936)
What’s more, purplish flowers are blossoming as our shiny purple eggplants are taking shape. Tiny yellow flowers grow where green tomato bulbs are developing rapidly (We’ve picked seven small red ones so far.). And tiny white flowers are all over five or six varieties of peppers.
Mostly self-pollinating leaf lettuce, wax beans and green beans are ready for picking, with no sign of flowers.
Simply put, that’s how our garden plots, planted in mid-May, are growing this summer 2021.
