How to Save a Frozen Zucchini (Updated)

As anyone ever overrun with squash in their garden knows, your excess zucchini can be grated and then frozen in bags to be used later in zucchini bread. Much later, when you no longer wince at the site of a zucchini recipe.

However, I was faced with a different problem. I don't have a zucchini plant in my garden so I treasure each squash I get from my CSA. My refrigerator has been acting up and freezing the larger cucumbers that don't fit in the vegetable drawers. Last weekend, it froze my large zucchini.

I didn't realize this until I began to peel it. Dang! I had a clean bowl out to toss in trimmings for compost so I just chunked up the squash and tossed it in. I pulled out the little yellow squash from the vegetable drawer and used it in my recipe, but I was still frustrated with the loss of the big zucchini.

I got to thinking about the fact that frozen shredded zucchini was fine for bread and decided to do a little experiment. I'd toss the chunks of zucchini in the freezer and then shred them with my food processor when I was ready to bake bread. First, though, I cut off the tough peel for the compost bin. Then I scraped out the large seeds. After another minute's thought, I pulled those out of the bowl destined for the compost and put them in a saucepan with water to make a little stock. The cleaned chunks went in the freezer for later.

"Later" came today. After letting them sit out for 20 minutes or so to take the hard frozen edge off, I fed them through the food processor chute. It worked! It shredded the frozen chunks, albeit the shreds were a little finer than when grated fresh. I mixed up a double batch of lowfat vegan zucchini bread, hoping it would turn out okay.

It came out fine. Interestingly, there is no sign that it is full of zucchini. The shreds seem to have just dissolved into the bread. I got to thinking the next morning that this could be a good thing for parents whose children don't want to eat their vegetables. They'd have no idea they were eating squash in this bread. I made half the batter into muffins, which would probably go over well. The shreds would also probably almost dissolve away if simmered in a tasty spaghetti sauce for a while.

While I don't plan to start freezing my squash in chunks instead of shreds, it was nice to know I didn't have to toss the whole thing because of a refrigerator malfunction. Now if I could just figure out why my fridge is doing this...