Dill It Up!

Mary Ann Wallace, MD
www.maryannwallace.com

We gardeners share certain maladies of abundance. If you garden, I’m sure you’ve encountered at some point in your illustrious efforts a full-bore attack of zucchini glut. I’ve been struggling of late with keeping my attitude of gratitude for abundance in the face of ever growing hordes of ever-enlarging zucchini.

You know what I mean.

Leaving completely out of this conversation the question as to whether I have a sufficient supply of good natured friends willing to divest me of this so-called bounty, I will steer us along the lines of a few good discoveries I’ve made about how to work up all this good stuff. (See? Am I displaying a great attitude or what?)

We often have zucchini for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner! In one exemplary day recently, we had zucchini bread for breakfast, sautéed zucchini with zucchini flowers and basil and zucchini pickles for lunch with zucchini cookies for dessert, dried zucchini rounds for a mid afternoon snack and zucchini frittatas for dinner. That wasn’t all we had – but you get the idea.

I have, thus far, steamed, sautéed, minced, mashed, baked, broiled, boiled, dried, breaded, lasagna’d, omelette’d, cookie’d, cake’d and mixed zucchini with every imaginable combination and spice. Even zucchini juice is tasty. And – of course – we all know that a requisite in every Christmas basket from those such as us is a nice (un)frozen loaf of zucchini bread.

And then I found the standard recipe for dilly beans in one of Rodale's time honored ancient texts. My beans and I are getting along fine, thank you. But the zucchini. That’s where I’m in a pickle! Hmmm. Why not? It just so happens the renegade dill volunteering all over the garden and associated pathways are also rampant. Replace beans with squash and call them Dill Zucchini.

It worked! So – here’s the recipe only slightly modified with gratitude to those who have gone before us, bearing the fruit of their labors:

Dill Zucchini

4 pounds zucchini
1 garlic clove per pint jar
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper per pint jar
5 cups vinegar
½ tsp. whole mustard seed per pint jar
5 cups water
½ tsp. dill seed per pint jar
½ cup salt

Wash and cut zucchini into slices to fill pint jars. Pack slices into clean, hot jars; add pepper, mustard seed, dill seed, and garlic.
Combine vinegar, water, and salt; heat to boiling. Pour boiling liquid over the zucchini, filling jars but leaving ¼-inch headspace. Seal and process in a steam bath for 5 minutes.

Yum - What a dill!