Giant Zucchini

This is what happens when you leave the zucchini on the plant for too long.

Matthew was not happy that we had so many zucchinis from our one plant this summer. He doesn't especially like them, and I was putting them in everything, cooking them as a side dish, freezing them and giving them away. He asked me to leave one on the plant and see how big it would get. (Thinking that would be one less that we would have to eat.) When I left town for a week in early September, my family conveniently "missed" two zucchinis. They were bigger than I like them when I returned, so I left them to see how big they would get. I only picked them when it got too cold and the plant started dying.

Matthew got his wish, but he didn't know the down side of his wish. I have about 50 seeds from just one of the zucchinis. I chopped it into large pieces and baked it like a pumpkin, then made a large pot of cream of zucchini soup with it. It actually smelled and tasted more like a squash or mild pumpkin than zucchini. Matthew actually ate seconds of the soup. We have a cellar, so I think I'll put the other one down there and save it for a cold day and another pot of soup. I'll probably keep the seeds from that one, too, because I can't stand to waste potential food.

I really don't know what I'll do with so many seeds. We only had one zucchini plant this year, and had more zucchinis than we knew what to do with. But it sure is fun to threaten Matthew with them!