Chocolate Zucchini Loaf

These are Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Loaves my mother makes every year during zucchini season. My mother also took this picture, and I have to admire her photography skills and excellent taste in prop styling. Thanks Mom! In August, when the zucchinis are ready to harvest, we always like to have plenty of small ones, like the one pictured here, to boil and eat fresh or to use in stir-frys and other dishes. We also like to have a few bigger zucchinis, the ones that are left to grow a little too long. These big zucchinis don't taste very good fresh, but they are excellent once cut-up, shredded, and used in baked goods. You could always use small zucchinis for baking too, but then you need to shred a lot more zucchini, and they are good for eating fresh, so why not enjoy them like that. However, the giant zucchinis aren't even good for baking. They really have a poor flavor, and they are only good for hollowing out, stuffing with other delicious ingredients, and baking for a long time until tender. 
The large quantity of chocolate in these loaves helps to mask the zucchini quite well. These loaves are double chocolate - cocoa in the batter, along with plenty of chocolate chips. However, small threads of green do poke through all of the chocolate. When my brothers and I were younger, my mother used to tell us that this was simply green coconut. The shape and size did look like coconut, and at the time we didn't know that there isn't really a such thing as green coconut unless it is dyed. But this worked in convincing us to try it, and we have loved it since. We certainly never suspected that it was actually a vegetable. The secret slipped out when we heard our mother discussing the recipe with a friend. By that point though, we had already eaten so much of the loaf and loved it that we didn't care. That made it a lot easier for my mother to make the loaves, as now she could make them when we were around and not have to hide the fact that she was using zucchini. A relative also shared a recipe for zucchini crisp with me. It is just like apple crisp, with an oatmeal and brown sugar topping, except the base is made with cubed zucchini instead of apple. She says no one can tell that it's actually a vegetable crisp and it is delicious. She also sent a recipe for candied zucchini, which I haven't yet tried but it sure sounds interesting.