Fighting For A Taste of Summer

He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. – Acts 14:17

For the past few years, I have lived the ups and downs of an amateur vegetable gardener. The first year, my plot grew such an abundance of gargantuan vegetables that I delivered bags of my wares to the local food bank because I had already overloaded my friends, family, and passing strangers with more produce than they could use. I felt like King Midas of the gardening world—everything I touched turned into zucchini.

The second year, cooler weather kept things smaller and slower growing, but I still ended up with a decent crop and tried my hand at freezing and canning my extras so we could enjoy the fruits of my labor into the winter.

This year, however, has been a disaster. King Midas is long gone and he took with him my hopes of filling my freezer in order to cut my grocery bill. Early in the season, some unknown critter managed to get through my eight-foot high, deer-proof fence, and helped itself to a salad bar made up of two entire broccoli plants, two entire artichoke plants, one entire eggplant plant, and all of the leaves off of my grape vine. When I say entire, I mean every scrap right down to the ground.

A few weeks after this invasion, I was cursed with a grasshopper plague of Biblical proportions. People would actually come for a visit at my house and say, “Where did you get all of these grasshoppers?” These pests devoured the corn, bean, cabbage, cucumber, raspberry and blueberry plants. In desperation, I abandoned my efforts at organic gardening and bought some grasshopper killer. It worked.

Interestingly, grasshoppers aren’t attracted to tomatoes, but apparently hail is. A mid-August storm battered my still-green beauties.

The bright spot in all of this destruction and disappointment (not to mention financial loss) came one day when I noticed two lovely, unscathed zucchinis growing amidst the weeds I’d given up pulling. This meant I had the key ingredient for my favorite summer-time treat—chocolate zucchini cake.

If you are growing zucchini this year or want to pick some up from the grocery store, give this recipe a try. It is sure to be a family favorite and, if your kids are like mine, may be the only way they will each zucchini.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

½ cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
½ cup evaporated milk + ½ tsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 ¾ cup flour (I use gluten free flour and it works just fine)
¼ tsp. cinnamon
5 Tbsp. cocoa
1 ½ cup sugar (I use about half this amount of turbinado sugar)
2 cups shredded zucchini

Cream butter, oil and sugar together with mixer. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift all dry ingredients and add alternately with zucchini and sour milk. Pour into greased and floured 9x13 pan. Sprinkle on topping made by combining:

½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/3 cup brown sugar
½ cup chocolate chips

Bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 minutes.

Enjoy the cake and say a little prayer for next year’s garden while you eat!


ADDITIONAL NOTE:
Jake is the great nephew of my friend, Jan Parrish. He is only three years old and is having transplant surgery today. His mother, Heather, is donating one of her kidneys. Please pray for Jake, Heather and the entire family. To see a slide show of Jake or get updates on his progress, please go to janparrish.blogspot.com. Thank you for your prayers!