Enormous Zucchini

I happened upon a fantastic thing today - Disappearing Zucchini Quiche. I had a baseball bat sized zucchini from my garden. I didn't know what I was going to do with it. To start, I peeled it, cut it in quarters lengthwise and seeded it. Then I sliced it vertically into spears and ran it through my food processor with the shredder blade. I mixed it with salt and sat it in a colander in the sink for a few hours while I went back to work. I considered fermenting it like sauerkraut.

Later I found a recipe for I Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Crab Crab Cakes, which are basically, Old Bay seasoned zucchini latkes. I never do a good job with these. They never firm up. They stick to the pan. I get the pan temp wrong. It's awful. They ended up mushy and reeking of the fat I cooked it in. Blech.

While I was researching what to do with this zucchini, my oldest daughter said that she LOVES quiche. My sister-in-law bakes quiche often and she had tried it over there. So I threw together a crustless quiche with the rest of the zucchini completely based on what I had. Here goes:

Disappearing Zucchini Quiche

Preheat oven to 350F.

whisk together

7-8 eggs

1/2 cup milk

toss with

~ 2.5 cups of shredded, salted and drained zucchini

~ 2 cups of shredded cheddar

~ 1 cup bacon bits

Grease rectangular baking pan. I used a 8 x 11.5 x 2in pyrex dish. Pour whole thing in there. Move it around a little to make sure the zucchini is well distributed. It was done in about 25-30 minutes. I turned off the oven and tossed a cup of shredded cheddar on the top. and let it melt. Notice I added no seasonings. There was already a lot of salt from the zucchini, cheese and bacon.

The amazing thing was that I COULD NOT tell that there was zucchini in this dish. It completely melded with the texture of the egg. My oldest daughter loved it. She is taking it for lunch tomorrow.

My son cracked us all up with his suffering. First, his Dad said we were having eggs for dinner. He used an outraged and whiny tone of voice.

My son exclaimed, "Eggs!?! For DINNER?!?".

Then I said, "No, it is quiche."

"Quiche? Why do we have to have quiche?! Oh, look there's CHEESE on top of it! Why does there have to be cheese?"

"There's cheese inside of it too."

"Awwwww!!"

I served it and said, "Wow, I can't tell there's zucchini in here at all."

"ZUCCHINI!"

Every time he protested, we couldn't help but laugh. Poor guy. Of course, he hated it after one bite.