Monster Zucchini

It always happens. This sneaky squash hiding in your garden growing in its hiding spot into a giant monster that your kid wants to try out as a baseball bat. Stop! Don't do that! Mom needs it for making dinner. Or rather 3 dinners plus desert...

Here is one delicious recipe you can use it for. I call it Zucchini Pesto Soup  (recipe has been adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks called The Book of Soups by Lorna Rhodes)

Ingredients:
1/3 of that large 3 pound out of control monster zucchini =)
1/2 onion
1/4 cup of olive oil plus a little bit more
1/2 cup of rissotto rice
5 cups of chicken stock
salt and pepper
two handfulls of basil leaves
pine nuts
1 garlic clove
more salt
grated parmesan cheese

Dice the Zucchini and onions very finely. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large soup pot. Stir in the zucchini and onion and cook until they are soft. Add the rice and coat it with the olive oil. Pour in the hot chicken broth and bring everything to a boil.
Make pesto while the soup is simmering in the pot.
Wash and clean basil. Put basil leaves, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, and a healthy dash of salt into an electric blender. If you feel ambitious you can do this with a mortar and pestle...Add about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese.

Add 1-2 Tablespoons of the pesto to soup.

You can serve the soup with crispy slices baguette that has the rest of the pesto spread on it or serve with bruschetta.

Our son who normally considers zucchini his mortal enemy will eat two bowls of this soup when I make it. Not bad for a scary green monster zucchini!