Too Many Zucchini? How About Zucchini Pie?

SAM_1266

Zucchini season is upon us. Even one zucchini plant can produce too much if you aren’t paying attention, and two zucchini plants can get a small household in trouble. A couple summers ago, I asked what some of you liked to do with zukes, and I ended up with a pile of recipes including two that point to pie.

A recipe for Zucchini Bake, which, accompanied by recipes for Zucchini Parmesan and Zucchini Jam, came adrift from its envelope with the senders name and address; regrettably, I can’t thank the reader who sent it. That one plus a Zucchini Pie recipe sent by Peggy Tracy in Prospect Harbor set me off on tweaking both for the recipe below.

Peggy’s recipe called for crescent rolls pressed into service as a crust, while the Bake called for cracker crumbs. If you use crescent rolls, Peggy says, get the eight ounce package. It will be enough for a nine inch pie plate. Both recipes called for cheese, eggs, various seasonings, and of course, zucchini. Now I happen to love graham cracker crust, and with that in mind, I tried to imagine a savory cracker crust that would firm up enough to press into a pie plate, and hold together after it was baked. Cheese and butter melt together the way sugar and butter do, and, added to crumbs, do the trick. The Bake recipe calls for crushed club crackers but I had on hand our favorite multigrain crackers with enough shortening in them to leave an oily spot on a piece of paper, so I used those. If you use a saltine or water cracker you’ll have to add a lot more butter.

Cracker mixture pressed into a pie plate, ready for the filling.

Cracker mixture pressed into a pie plate, ready for the filling.

Then it occurred to me that the zucchini might be too watery to bake up solidly. The Bake recipe recommended par-boiling and Peggy’s recipe called for sautéing the squash. So I decided to cut the zuke into pretty big chunks, then steam it until it was fork tender, and drain it in a sieve pressing the chunks lightly with the back of the spoon. That worked.

I like garlic, oregano and basil with zucchini, so those were the seasonings I chose, but you could pick onion, thyme, or dill instead. Season to taste.

We ate this pie as a main dish with a green salad and sautéed green beans and cherry tomatoes on the side In fact, you could shred a little ham or crumble a little bacon into the zucchini mix if you wanted to make it more meat-friendly but it is substantial enough on its own.

A perfect piece of zucchini pie.

A perfect piece of zucchini pie.

Zucchini Pie
 
Ingredients
  • 2 cups of crushed crackers
  • ¼ cup or half a stick butter, melted
  • ½ cup grated parmesan or romano cheese
  • 2-3 small, or 1 medium zucchini, chopped
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese
  • 3 beaten eggs
  • ½ cup milk
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • Oregano
  • Basil
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Crush the crackers with a rolling pin and put into a bowl.
  3. Melt the butter and add it and the grated parmesan to the cracker crumbs. Mix thoroughly.
  4. Put the crumb mixture into the pie plate and press it firmly against the sides and bottom.
  5. Steam the zucchini chunks until they are fork tender, drain, and press lightly with the back of spoon to extract a little more water, then arrange over the crumbs in the pie plate.\
  6. Sprinkle the shredded cheddar or mozzarella over the top of the zucchini.
  7. Beat the eggs and milk together and add salt and pepper, garlic and herbs to it.
  8. Pour over the top of the zucchini and cheese, and shake the pie plate a little to settle the egg mixture into the zucchini.
  9. Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes. Let it rest for about five minutes before cutting.

 

Sandy Oliver

About Sandy Oliver

Sandy Oliver Sandy is a freelance food writer with the column Taste Buds appearing weekly since 2006 in the Bangor Daily News, and regular columns in Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine and The Working Waterfront. Besides freelance food writing, she is a pioneering food historian beginning her work in 1971 at Mystic Seaport Museum, where she developed a fireplace cooking program in an 1830s house. After moving to Maine in 1988, Sandy wrote, Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Foods at Sea and Ashore in the 19th Century published in 1995. She is the author of The Food of Colonial and Federal America published in fall of 2005, and Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving History and Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie which she co-authored with Kathleen Curtin. She often speaks to historical organizations and food professional groups around the country, organizes historical dinners, and conducts classes and workshops in food history and in sustainable gardening and cooking. Sandy lives on Islesboro, an island in Penobscot where she gardens, preserves, cooks and teaches sustainable lifeways.