Zucchinni

Carving of zucchini for the annual Zucchini Regatta

Have I ever told you about my grandpa's garden?  I lived next door to my grandma and grandpa all my growing up years, and we were the recipients of many, many, MANY pounds of produce from their garden every summer.  In fact we never grew a garden in my family until my grandpa stopped gardening as he got older.  Until that point I would spend all day at my grandparent's house with all the cousins running around the fields and gardens.  Thinking about it now, I was an exceedingly lucky kid.  We had oodles of cousins to play with every day, and I only had to do my hair one day a week in the summer.   Sundays.

My sister and I worked one summer in my grandpa's garden weeding, but we always helped with something or other with the garden.  I remember sitting for hours as my mom and grandma would shell peas, or the times my grandpa would get pitchfork loads of pea vines and throw them on the back of a trailer and haul us around as we ate peas, by the load.  I also remember the trunk loads of zucchini my grandpa would pick and then drop off to practically everyone in Pleasant View.

Happy kids ready to float their boats.

One day he unloaded a huge trailer load of zucchini  on his front lawn and told me and Hollie, and a few other cousins that we could sell the zucchini to all the passer-byers and keep all the money we made.  We had visions of polo ponies, and fancy clothes.........actually we just wanted enough to buy some penny candy at the little store.  There were stayed for 6 hours that day.  2 cars stopped, but they only wanted tomatoes and we weren't selling tomatoes.  Only zucchini.  Nobody wanted the amounts of zucchini we had. We didn't even want the zucchini!

I've found the best use of zucchini now is for the annual Zucchini Regatta, and now this Chocolate Zucchini Cake.  Truth be told, the cake is fantastic!!  We loved it.  I stumbled across the recipe here on the internet, and the recipe will be a staple.  So I'm sure you have loads of zucchini, so make some cake right before you use them all for the zucchini regatta:)

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups white sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

3 cups grated zucchini

1 c chocolate chips

1 c. chocolate chips

1/2 c. brown sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add the eggs and oil, mix well. Fold in the nuts and zucchini until they are evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared pan.  With the second cup of chips add the brown sugar and sprinkle on top of the cake.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.