Zucchini and Cookies Don't Mix

As I usually do, I went overboard on my zucchini plants this year.  It's not my fault really.  The seed package comes with so many seeds and you can never really be sure they are all going to sprout (they all always do) so I plant a bunch just to make sure. And as usual, I have a LOT of zucchini.  With no zucchini recipes in the magazine, I, of course, turned to Martha's website.  Bingo, she had a feature on zucchini with 75 zucchini recipes! I chose several to try, the first of which was for Zucchini Nut Bread Cookie Sandwiches http://www.marthastewart.com/349243/zucchini-nut-bread-cookie-sandwiches.  Although I wouldn't normally think zucchini would be the best fit for a cookie, the online reviews were good and the cookies looked really good (here's Martha's picture) so I gave it a shot.

Photo Credit: Martha Stewart

Dough was simple enough.
 

Then the recipe called for the "finely" grated zucchini.  Hmmm, which side of the box greater would be "finely" grated?  I went for the second smallest grate which seemed to result in a product that wouldn't be identifiable as zucchini in the finished product.

And, into the mixer.

At this point Martha directs that we chill the dough for an hour, but she had already instructed me to preheat the oven.  Martha, that's not very environmentally friendly!  So, I turned off the oven and chilled as directed.  After an hour, back to the oven and ... this was the unfortunate result.

As my son would say, "What the heck!"  I followed the directions exactly.  There was even a discussion in the reviews about whether to drain the zucchini and not draining seemed the way to go.  Annoying!  So, I added more oatmeal for the next batch.

Better, but these were a little too puffy.  When I added the cream cheese filling they became these giant cookie ball sandwiches. 

I wouldn't make these again.  Although my kids liked them and my husband even ate all the cookie mush from the first batch, I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong, so I'm also not sure how to fix it.  I guess I could say that at least my kids ate some zucchini, but I have never really bought that idea that disguising vegetables in pile of sugar to get kids to eat them makes any sense. 

I will say that the cream cheese filling was really good.  It just needed some crisp cookies to go with it. 
- Jacqui