3 ways to cook this vegetable (that looks like a cucumber)

If you’ve ever grown your own zucchini, then you know how prolific the plant’s fruit can grow – so plentiful you can’t give them away. There are many uses for this versatile summer vegetable overshadowed of late because of the faddishness of other vegetables. Don’t ignore the noble zucchini only because it’s so familiar. What might not be familiar are zucchini recipes to make use of it.

Zucchini is a summer squash, a soft-skinned member of the Cucurbitacae, a New World plant that also includes the hard winter squashes such as pumpkin. Cucurbita pepo, the Latin binomial of zucchini, made its voyage across the Atlantic in the 16th century; it was in the Mediterranean that it became a famous vegetable.