Zucchini Toll House Cookies

Permit me for a moment to poke a little good-natured fun at "city folk" who like to "help" you with your "zucchini problem."

"I have so many zucchini," you say, half terrified and half boastful.
"Oh, then you need the recipe for the chocolate zucchini cake," they say.  "I'll send it to you."

The infamous chocolate zucchini cake, whose recipe I have received, it seems, from at least a half dozen well-meaning acquaintances, is a recipe designed to "use up" zucchini if your entire supply consists of three zucchini that a gardener-neighbor gave you.  It takes absolutely forever -- including the cooked frosting for the recipe I have -- and it uses up one, measley, tiny, medium-sized zucchini.

Guys, when I say I have zucchini, I have zucchini!  I have a pyramid of them on the counter, and they need to go into every baked good and starchy dish I make every single day.  I love the chocolate zucchini cake, but I simply don't have the time or the caloric expenditure to make a homemade chocolate cake every time I bring in a zucchini; I'd be making about three cakes a day and I'd have to quit my job and dig a potato furrow five miles long to burn off all that cake.

So, in addition to zucchini pie, zucchini orzo, and zucchini-roni for dinner, I put zucchini into baked goods that take very little time to make.  One of the best ideas is Toll House cookies.

Now, this idea will still only use up a medium sized zucchini, but cookies just don't take that long to make.  If you alter the recipe as I did here -- with pasture eggs, pasture butter, turbinado sugar, and maybe a bit of whole wheat flour -- you have a fairly healthy cookie once you add a shredded zucchini.  Also, the zucchini adds additional moisture, so you will have to increase your flour (from 2 1/4 cups to about 3 cups) and will consequently make more cookies in the process.  The cookies stay moist, too, having an almost cake-like quality that hangs in there for days.  I would eat these for breakfast -- I think they are just as healthy or healthier than many breakfast foods.

Now, where else can I hide a shredded zucchini?