The Zucchini Prince and other Zucchini Notes

I have been extraordinarily scattered all weekend. I can’t seem to focus on anything and I just have pictures of Jeff Evans flipping through my head.

*^{Jeff and his beloved Carmel. Jeff and Carmel were kinda like Ernie and Bob.}*

I certainly am in no shape to write anything too terribly articulate or thoughtful so I decided that it’s time to report on the Zucchini Prince.

In our well intentioned but half assed planting this spring, we did finally get some seeds in by the back door where there is one lone section of our patio fence standing. I had gotten some seeds for what was supposed to be a climbing zucchini so in those went, albeit very late. They’ve been doing well and flowering like crazy. My whole trence/fellis concept didn’t really work because I didn’t train any of the vining plants but the plants are happily growing.

Despite the copious flowers all this time….no zucchini. Not a one. I have only so much I can obsess about so I’ve just been mentally shrugging whenever Ernie mentioned it. However, the other day Ernie excitedly told me we had a zucchini. Honestly we’ve grown zucchini before and been overwhelmed with it, but you know, it’s been a long hot summer, so this was a THING.

I admired our new lone zucchini as I clumped to the car with Little Guy. Because the vines are all over, the little guy (zucchini, not the walker) is laying on the stone of the patio. This was right before our recent hot stretch so we were a bit worried he would overheat. Ernie put a little dish towel under him. We began referring to him as the Prince.

Today Ernie went out to get his paper and reported that the prince was growing. I questioned him so he left again and came back with this picture. I gotta say, it just made me laugh and laugh and laugh. God, I love my husband.

Ernie has searched and searched, but can not find any other contenders. Lord knows we have tons of bees buzzing around. We can’t quite decide when to pick the prince.

In other zucchini news, Ernie got some when he went to the farmers’ market with Heather (he comes home SO perky….but I have warned Heather he’s very chatty in the morning). Last night the plan was for zucchini from the farmers’ market and salmon. I diced up one of our zucchini and sautéed it quickly in some olive oil. I wanted them to still have some bite.

I stirred in a good sized pile of chopped basil (Ernie is much better than I am at chopping things neatly and finely and by the way, none of the seeds came up in my window boxes but I guess the basil is enjoying the space).

We had some leftover cooked rice, a combination off the bottom of several bags; basmati, long grain and Cahokia. I stirred in the zucchini, basil and salt and pepper and then the juice of half a lemon.

Wow.

More and more I think simple flavors are the best. Ernie made some crispy skinned salmon and sliced up some cherry tomatoes to serve with the zucchini rice.