Chocolate chip cake with zucchini

Lately I have seen so many zucchini cake recipes on the net and I had heard of it before but until now I haven't had the opportunity to give it a try. Now that's changed and I proudly present to you the first zucchini cake of my life. To be honest I haven't got the foggiest idea why the zucchini is needed in the dough, or how does it make a difference but it doesn't really matter in the long run. It gives you an extremely flexible and soft cake with lots of cocoa and chocolate. I couldn't tell what difference the zucchini makes but honestly I don't really want to...:)

Ingredients:

• 20 dkgs of grated zucchini (approx. one and a half pieces)
• 10 dkgs of butter
• 370 g of plain flour
• 3 tbl spoons of cocoa powder
• 10 dkgs of dark chocolate
• 15 dkgs of icing sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1.5 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of rum flavour

Wash the zucchinis, cut the ends off and grate them. It's important to grate them as fine as possible, we don't want big pieces of zucchini in the cake. It still needs to be in pieces though, don't mush them. When it's done, squeeze the juice out of it and put the zucchini aside. Mix the flour with the baking soda, the cocoa and the finely chopped chocolate. Add the zucchini too. In another bowl stir the eggs with the sugar and the butter and the rum flavour. Put the two parts of the dough together and if it's too thick (as it wa for me) then you can add a tablespoon of plain yoghurt in the end. It needs at least half an hour or 40 minutes in the oven at 180 deg Celsius. 

Zucchini stew with sweetcorn

It's quick, light and easy. I ate without any garnish, but rice is perfect with it. You can leave the sausage out, then you get an even lighter and fully vegetarian dish.

Ingredients:

• a couple of zucchinis
• canned sweet corn
• chorizo sausage, chopped
• sour cream
• spring onion
• salt, pepper, seasoning (according to taste)

Fry the onions in a bit of oil and add the pieces of sausage, let it fry for a bit. Cut the zucchinis in half, then in half again and then cut them into pieces of 1 cm. Add them to the onions. Add salt and cover it. When its soft, add the corn, the seasoning and the sour cream and cook them for some time more.

Zuchini salad for rainy days

Because what else you can do when its gray and rainy outside than start cooking...:)

Ingredients for a relatively big batch

• 2 big zucchinis
• 2 smaller ones
• several cloves of garlic
• fresh basil leaves
• tomatoes
• olive oil, salt, ground black pepper
• 1 dl of sour cream
• juice of a quarter of a lemon
• roasted sesame and sunflower seeds

Wash the zucchinis. Pare the two bigger ones in order to obtain 3-4 mm thick circles. In a bit of olive oil start frying them, add a bit of salt and cover it. We dont want to overcook it, just until they become soft enough.
Chop the other two zucchinis into smaller pieces, and start frying them too in another pan. The point is to cook them absolutely soft, because it will be the basic element of the dressing. Add smashed garlic to the smaller zucchini pieces, add salt and freshly ground pepper and wait until its done.
When the zucchini circles are done, put them into the bowl where we will finally mix the salad and let it cool for a bit. Chop the tomatoes and the basil leaves and add them to the cool zucchini. Also add the lemon juice.
Add sour cream to the zucchini made for the dressing and mix it with the electric mixer. Taste it, if its salty enough then mix it with the rest of the salad.
In a dry pan roast the seeds and sprinkle them onto the salad.

Zucchini with walnut and feta cheese stuffing

Ingredients

• zucchini
• ground walnut
• feta cheese
• onions
• sour cream
• mexico grill seasoning
• condensed tomato can
• salt, pepper
• basil
• thyme
• rosemary

Chop the onions into circles and start frying them in a bit of oil while preparing the zucchinis. Cut the previously washed vegetables into halves alongside, and hollow them out. Not too much, just make some space for the filling. Add the inside parts to the onions which will be perfectly soft by then, and cover the saucer so that it cooks quicker. When its almost ready, add the seasoning and the condensed tomato sauce, leave it for a bit more, and then take it off the heat. Take a hotproof dish and pour this whole thing into it.
Mix the sour cream and the feta cheese and add the walnut, the thyme, the rosemary and the basil. You will need the least of the rosemary because it has the strongest taste. Taste it, and if its not salty enough, add some extra feta.
Put the cream into the zucchini halves and put them onto the zucchini inside and tomato mix. Cover it with aluminium foil and put it into the oven, 15 minutes at 180 should be enough to be ready but you can check its softness by sticking a fork into it.