Zucchini Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Like every good midwestern gardener in August, I've got an abundance of zucchini.  I've been expecting this, and I've been keeping a list of potential recipes as I've seen them.  When I saw this zucchini carrot cake with cream cheese frosting from Tiffany at Eat at Home, I knew I wanted to give it a try.  I've always been a fan of carrot cake, and I expected zucchini could only make it better.  It does!

I used zucchini I had shredded and frozen earlier in the week.  As I've been warned, there was quite a lot of liquid in the thawed zucchini.  I wasn't exactly sure whether I should drain it first or just add it in.  I did a quick search online and saw most people omitted the liquid when using frozen shredded zucchini, but a friend of mine had suggested I add the liquid.  The cake batter looked pretty dry, so I ended up using about half of the liquid. 

This frosting is really, really good.  Emphasis on really.  You've been warned.  I was generous with the frosting, and I still had plenty left over, so I guess you save it for another baking project.

Also this week, I cooked up this Betty Crocker recipe for zucchini meat loaf.  It uses 2 cups of shredded zucchini in place of other liquid (my usual recipe calls for milk).  It was good.  And an easy way to get my non-zucchini eating daughter to eat zucchini.  She did notice the green bits and asked about them, but I told her they were tiny pieces of green beans, a vegetable she likes. Yep, that's me lying to my daughter!  It totally worked.

I've got zucchini cakes (think fritters), zucchini boats, cheesy baked zucchini, and zucchini quesadilla recipes bookmarked and ready to try. My go-to zucchini is just sauteed in olive oil with onions, garlic, salt, and pepper.  Yum!  So how do you use up your zucchini?