The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

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Double Chocolate Buckwheat Zucchini Muffins

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“Ping!” goes the toaster oven. And faster than a speeding bullet, I’m in the kitchen. The aroma of chocolaty goodness is making my mouth water, and I can hardly wait to chow down on my last double chocolate buckwheat zucchini muffin. (I’ve been keeping a bag of them in the freezer for easy access but haven’t allowed myself to finish them off before posting the recipe. Sidenote: Yes – these freeze!) As I bite into the muffin, my face lights up. It’s tender, chocolatey, cakey, deliciousness. Hard to believe this type of decadence can be achieved with gluten-free whole grains and zucchini! I pat myself on the back for having the willpower to save this one – they are pretty hard to resist  – and am then immediately annoyed that I chose to save just one, rather than two. Or three. With these muffins, it’s hard to stop.

While I’ve been sitting on this recipe for a while, the appearance of zucchini at the Greenmarket signaled that it was time to share. After all, while zucchini is one of my favorites (if you’re put off by the texture, try cooking it this way) the sheer surplus of it during the summer months means it’s a good idea to have some zucchini bread recipes on hand. I mean, it’s possible to get sick of eating zucchini, but almost unheard of to get sick of double chocolate muffins or zucchini spice cake. (Btw, while I decided to post this recipe as muffins, you can also make a sinfully delicious loaf of zucchini bread by baking the batter in a silicone loaf pan – see notes below. Plus you’ll still have enough batter left over for 3 muffins!)

Aside from giving you a reason to stay excited about zucchini in the months to come, these muffins have other benefits too. They are made with whole-grains like sorghum and buckwheat, you can freeze ’em for easy snacking, and they don’t contain too much sugar. The only real downside to making these muffins – and this is based on a sample size of 1 – is the risk of getting that Do you know the muffin man? song stuck in your head. I mitigated this unfortunate side effect by stuffing my face with muffins. It seemed to work!

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Zucchini Spice Cake with Vanilla-Nutmeg Frosting

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It started with a gigantic zucchini, surreptitiously hidden amongst many ordinary-sized zucchinis in my mother’s garden. Once it emerged, we were left wondering how something so enormous could successfully remain in hiding for so long. Was something supernatural at play? Not wanting to take any chances, my mother not-so-surreptitiously unloaded the mysterious monster onto me, where it not so much sat as embodied all of the remaining space in my fridge with its girth.

When life – or family, in this case – hands you a gigantic zucchini suspected of  having supernatural powers, breaking it down becomes somewhat of an urgent matter. So I made zucchini bread. And it was awesome. Enjoyed warm, right out of the oven, it was even supernaturally-awesome. Airy, delicately spiced, buttery….so it was true! There was loveliness inside even the scariest monsters.

Once refrigerated, the bread took on a denser, cakier texture and it occurred to me that it might function as a delicious layer cake. (I happen to like my cakes on the denser side, provided there is some light and fluffy frosting accompanying the layers!) So, enter this zucchini-spice cake, which is composed of two zucchini bread layers separated and surrounded by a vanilla-nutmeg cream cheese frosting that you won’t be able to stop eating. If you can, I’d be worried that this recipe unknowingly transmitted some supernatural  zucchini powers to you, dear eater! And what a pickle we’d be in then.

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How to Cook Perfect Zucchini

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Zucchini can be hard to get just right. It often cooks unevenly no matter how evenly you cut it – some pieces will start to get translucent while others are still closer to raw. And it can go from undercooked to overcooked in a matter of minutes; in fact, even if you manage to cook it perfectly, it  has a nasty habit of overcooking itself with residual heat after you take it out of the pan. To be clear, if you know your way around the kitchen at all, you are unlikely to overcook zucchini to the point where it’s unpleasant to consume; however, it’s quite easy for the flesh to end up more translucent than white all the way through, and in my book, that’s just a tad too far.

Why? Because when you hit that perfect zucchini doneness, it’s almost like a different vegetable all together. Tender yet crunchy, with a mild, creamy flavor – it has none of that unpleasant (can I call it squeaky?) texture that zucchini haters always cite when asked how they could dislike such a common vegetable.

So how do you do it? Three simple steps.

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Quinoa-Vegetable Lettuce Wraps (Mexican-Style!)

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Alright – I may be getting ahead of myself with this recipe – it screams summer. But summer is coming!! It really is!! And as the days get longer and the sun shines brighter, I’ve been craving some lighter meals. In my opinion, lettuce wraps are one of the most refreshing and delicious ways to satisfy that craving. And, luckily for me, I am able to get really delicious local, greenhouse-grown lettuce to form the base of my wraps (so don’t judge me too harshly for throwing in a summer-style recipe when it’s still spring :p)

Plus…the filling for these wraps is nice and warm and rich and savory and delicious and spicy and …(I could go on for a while here.) What I’m trying to say is that –– if you look past the fact that zucchini is definitely not in season this time of year –– this dish is actually the perfect prelude to summer. It’s light and fresh, but still warming, hearty, and satisfying.

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