What A Whopper!

The church I cook at has an outdoor classroom area (which is where the chickens live). There's also several raised garden beds. Now that it's prime growing season, when I enter the kitchen I never know what type of produce is going to be on the countertop.

Before the weather heated up it was heads of leaf lettuce and radishes. Then it changed over to green beans, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers. The past two weeks I served some type of cucumber salad, but then I learned the vegetable didn't agree with one of the office staff and crossed that one off the possible ingredient list

This past Sunday there was zucchini waiting, including this monster:

Marker for size comparison

I was curious to know how much it weighed, so I pulled out the kitchen scale and learned it was 2 pounds and 7 ounces. The ones I buy at the grocery store are usually about 6 ounces!

(Fun facts-did you know that zucchini is a type of summer squash and technically a fruit? And that the name zucchini actually refers to an immature version? Once it becomes full-sized it's called a marrow.)

There is never an expectation for me to actually use any of the produce, but I was actually looking forward to the creative challenge of figuring out what I could make with this monster. After some internet research I decided to stuff it and serve it as the main dish at lunch today.

Cooked but not cut

The stuffing was a combination of ground chicken, onions, garlic, Italian spices, diced tomato, and a splash of white wine mixed with bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and an egg. I cut the squash lengthwise, scooped out the seeds, added the stuffing, and threw it in the oven.

Even though my recipe said it was designed for a large squash, at the end of the cooking time it was still pretty hard. I only had ten minutes before the office closed for the lunch/staff meeting so I cut each half of the squash into three pieces, arranged the pieces on a plate, and nuked them for several minutes before putting the plate on the island for serving.

Everyone came through the line and put a piece of squash on their plate. After the meal was over everyone carried their plate to the sink. As I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher I saw that all of the squash had been eaten.

Five years ago today: Convertable