This time of year, is zucchini an invasive species?

[Marthe48]

I've got 4 free squash today, had to ask I didn't have to ask for free zucchini, since we are appraoching the slipping it into cars when the drivers aren't looking

[paleotn]

1. Yes. It's zucchini-o-rama at our house.

The payoff is zucchini bread in the dead of winter. Yum!

[blueinredohio]

2. I've already made ten loaves and now have 4 more zucchini to shred.

[paleotn]

4. Load up the freezer!

[Ferryboat]

5. Add a bag of toll house chocolate chips

Chocolate zucchini bread! So good.

[smirkymonkey]

10. Yes, all zucchini bread is good, but you can't even taste the zucchini in the chocolate version so

it's good to make for those who don't like veggies, but do like chocolate.

[Blue Owl]

3. Just had zucchini lasagna for dinner tonight

Using zucchini strips in place of pasta. Good stuff!

[Brother Buzz]

6. Years ago, I learned the surefire way of assuring that zucchini walk out the door

When the zucs are tiny, I scratch children's names on them with a small pointy thing. Parents may give me stinkeye, but the children walk out the door with their zucchini with huge smiles on their faces.

[Marthe48]

13. Great idea!

If I garden next year, I might try that

[Rhiannon12866]

7. My neighbor (on the next street) had a huge vegetable garden and gave zucchini to all the neighbors

[jmowreader]

8. There's one sure cure for zucchini overload

Buy a plecostomus catfish, and about a 100-gallon aquarium to keep it in. When you get them, they're about two inches long, cute and harmless looking. On a proper diet of zucchini and in a properly-sized tank, your baby pleco will grow to the size of your forearm in about one year's time.

Proper tankmates for your pleco are anything except other plecos and piranhas. Plecos are "territorial toward conspecifics" which means if you put two of these in one tank, one of them will kill the other. As for piranhas...well, let's just say your pleco isn't the one in danger in a pleco-piranha matchup. These fish are extremely heavily armored and hate piranhas so much they'll track them down and kill them. (Of course, if you're a sick bastard and like to see bloodshed, you could always name your pleco Merrick Garland and your piranha Donald Trump. Come to think of it, a tank of piranhas should have fishes named after Trump Administration officials.) They will get along well with violent cichlids like Jack Dempseys.

[Laffy Kat]

9. This cracked me up.

[Marthe48]

14. I'll mention that to my daughter

She has an empty tank. Having some fish, especially as you mention, might get the kids off their devices for awhile

[jmowreader]

16. If it's not a huge tank, Bristlenose Plecos are the way to go

They only get five inches long, and you can safely keep more than one in the same tank.

[Marthe48]

17. I thought it was huge, but I'm not sure

of the capacity. Someone left a goldfish in her mailbox in a styrofoam cup, and she put it into a small bowl. Later her kids won 7 goldfish at the fair. She made them give some of the other kids trying their luck most of those. She turned out to be very successful raising fish. They all lived several years and as they got bigger and bigger, so did the tanks.

[yellowdogintexas]

11. I grew up in the country where everybody has

at least a half acre garden.

I can't tell you how many time my Dad left for work and came back in the house with a basket full of cucumbers, yellow squash, corn and tomatoes. (squash and cucumbers are also invasive species.)

You can make pickles with it too. A friend of mine used to make hot pickled squash and it was divine!

Here's a tip on the excess zuchinni. Instead of making a ton of bread, shred up the zuchinni and bag it up in the amount the recipe calls for and freeze it. It keeps in the freezer a long time. I used some that had been in the freezer a year and the bread was fabulous. (not my freezer)

Now I want to make some but I no longer have access to stealth vegetable drops in the early morning.

[Marthe48]

15. I'll freeze some for sure

I like zucchini in stir-fry, but it is hard to find unbreaded in the winter. I'll slice some, blanch and freeze. I can use it how I want to.

The ones given to me are huge and I want to try different ways to get the most of out of them

[smirkymonkey]

12. We always had a big garden growing up and the zucchini would grow like mad.

Of course we gave a lot away, but my mother would freeze some (shredded and cubed), pickle some, make zucchini bread and muffins and we would often have zucchini stew, which is a good way to use zucchini that might be a little bigger and tougher. It is definitely a family favorite, especially in the summer!

You would just dice the zucchini and start with sauteeing some onions and garlic in a large dutch oven in EV Olive Oil, and then when they have softened, you add a can of tomato paste, a few cans of crushed tomato, the cubed zucchini and the rest of your veggies (this is where you can pick and choose the ones you want, we would use what we had on hand in the garden, so maybe swiss chard or spinach, carrots, diced potatoes, green beans or pole beans, mushrooms, and a can or two of red or white kidney beans (optional)).

You can also add meat, by either sauteeing sausage or ground beef (or chicken, pork, whatever) with the onion and garlic, or you can cook in a separate skillet and add later if you want to pour off the fat and not have it in the stew. Toward the end I usually add grated romano and/or parmesan cheese and a little fresh chopped parsley, basil or oregano. You can be creative though and add/remove anything you don't like. It's a pretty forgiving stew.