Is she serving sugar cream pie… or zucchini?

RUDOLPH — Sherida Risner can be a sneaky little gal.
In sharing this week’s fantastic pie recipe she is indulging her playful side and you can too.
Serve up this pie and don’t tell people what it’s called. Then see if they can guess the secret
ingredient.
“Most of the time I will not tell people up front — especially kids! Or they won’t eat it,” Risner
admitted.
That’s because her secret ingredient is zucchini and that’s the name of the pie.
Risner, a Rudolph area resident who originally hails from Warren,
acquired the recipe from Betty Marvin, a friend who lives in Findlay.
“We attended a church there and she made it for a potluck one evening,”
Risner recalls. “I thought it was sugar cream pie. Betty is known for
her original recipes. She never measures, never writes one down. It’s
very hard to get a recipe from her,” in fact, “so I was lucky she knew
the ingredients. She told me and I wrote it down.”
Risner didn’t waste any time trying it out herself.
“I made it right away!” Since then she’s taken it to picnics, family
dinners, neighborhood gatherings, or as get-well food gifts. “Whenever I
have a lot of zucchini.”
That particular state probably describes quite a few Wood County residents right about now.
“A lot of people say ‘I won’t eat zucchini!’” Risner’s retort: “You won’t? Well, you just ate some.’ So
it can be disguised.”
The typical response from those who learn they’ve just tasted a zucchini pie is almost always “No way!
This is not zucchini…”
And then?
“Everybody usually asks for the recipe.”
Risner has several good recipes for zucchini. “I make a zucchini relish
and zucchini bread,” and of course there’s always the option of breading
slices in cornmeal and frying it up, which most people like, “but I
guess I’d say (the pie) is my favorite.”
As she points out, “you can plant one plant of zucchini and have enough for an army, so you have to ad
lib a little!”
The zucchini is likely to be around until mid-September, depending on
the weather. “We’ve got some now; it’s still blooming,” Risner said.
She and her husband Glenn have a respectable vegetable garden and also
plant tomatoes, green beans, peppers, onions and squash – “whatever we
might use to freeze or can.”
The couple moved to Wood County from Findlay almost 12 years ago, when they bought their Mermill Road
house at auction.
Risner also flower gardens and has huge flower beds on the property.
“I’m also a quilter. I quilt with a group of ladies in Findlay.” This is
the first year in quite awhile that she hasn’t entered her quilts at
the county fair.
She currently works “very part-time” for Bowling Green City Schools as a
teaching assistant, and previously volunteered in the library at Milton
School for eight years.
She encourages readers to make a zucchini pie of their own.
“I think it’s a pretty straightforward recipe. You just dump it all in and pour it out.
“I usually make two pies at a time, and then you can top off with
regular milk to supplement the evaporated,” instead of opening up an
extra can and only using part of it.
There’s another good ingredient substitution she has tried just for fun.
“I have substituted brown sugar,” which lends the pie a nice caramel flavor. “You don’t use as much” as
you do of regular sugar.
Make sure to plan for the required baking time in your schedule. “It
takes awhile, I guess, because it’s got a lot of liquid” in the batter.
“The high heat sets it,” then you lower the heat and bake for another 45
to 60 minutes.
The recipe calls for one cup of zucchini, mashed and peeled. Risner
likes to make up the batter and then freeze it “so I can have zucchini
pie all year.
“But when I freeze it, I use 1 1/2 cups” of zucchini instead. Also, when
freezing the batter she doesn’t bother to remove the seeds “because
they disappear in the blender.”

Zucchini pie
1 cup Zucchini (seeds removed, peeled, cooked, drained & mashed)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 T. melted margarine
1 cup Carnation (evaporated) milk
2 T. heaping flour
1 tsp. vanilla
Blend all in blender, Pour into 8-inch unbaked pie shell. Sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon. Bake 425
degrees for 15 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes
out clean.