the backyard invasion…zucchini anyone?

 

do you have a glut of zucchinis viewers? are you a beginner farmer or do you happen to live next door to some neighbours who could possibly be growing them illegally or are part of some kind of zucchini worshipping cult?

i think my neighbours are part of a cult. seriously their backyard looks like it has been invaded, so much so, the zucchinis are beginning to infiltrate. they are making their way through the fence and i am wondering what they are going to plant next. in any case i have been one of their recipients and not being the type who likes things to go to waste i decided to test a few recipes and use up the box of jars in my cupboard.

and travelling back through childhood memories mrs. roberts is my cooking inspiration for this post. growing up we lived next door to the lovely mrs.roberts who was of the country women association type. and one of the things that i distinctly remember (apart from her sewing my angel costume for school) were her home-made mustard pickles that were simply delicious. mind you hers were made with cauliflower and as a young child i wondered how she made them so yellow. and being of the ethnic variety this was the first time i had ever encountered the mustard pickle. and i liked it, sweet, vinegary with a slight crunch. i could have eaten the whole jar by myself.

i figured i could find something that might come close and use up the 20kgs of zucchini my neighbours had off loaded, hee-hee, of course that might be a slight exaggeration but we won't let that get in the way of a good story. besides i  could tell my neighbours were suffering from zucchini exhaustion.

the zucchinis they were growing were the light green coloured ones. using my best friend the internet i started to research some recipes and ended up testing two. the first one was a zucchini mustard pickle presented by bonita’s kitchen, the link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkfGp9OjKjY&ab_channel=Bonita%27sKitchen

this recipe was reasonably good, i rate it a 7 out of 10 but out of the two i personally prefer the zucchini relish, it is thicker and reminds me of mrs.roberts cauliflower pickles the most. they are both easy to make. however, my mustard is on the relish which i have made twice, it really doesn’t take that long at all. the most time-consuming part is making sure your jars are sterilised.

https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipes/zucchini-pickles-2/t77nkebq

 

zucchini relish pickles from link above

Ingredients

• 1 kg zucchini deseeded and grated
• 2 tbs salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups white vinegar
• 1 brown onion large, diced finely
• 2 tbspns cornflour
• 2 tspns ground turmeric
• 2 tspns mustard powder
• 1 tspn curry powder

 Method

1.  grate zucchini into a container, add salt and cover with water. soak for 15 minutes

2.  drain and squeeze excess moisture out of zucchini and place in a saucepan

3.  add finely chopped brown onion, sugar and 1 cup vinegar and bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 mins

4.  add dry ingredients to the other cup of white vinegar and mix. add to saucepan and simmer slowly for a further 15 mins until thickened

5.  bottle in clean, sterilised jars

*you can use gluten free flour for thickening also