Just imagine the look on your neighbor’s face when he opens the door on Friday morning and discovers several giant green zucchini sitting there.

In case you forgot, Aug. 8 is National Sneak Zucchini On Your Neighbor’s Porch Day. It’s a day that gardeners around the country anxiously await to share their bounty, or some might say get rid of those unwanted squash which tend to grow faster than weeds once they get started.

Sneaking can be a problem, especially if you do it at night. You don’t want to get shot over a zucchini.

You could try passing one off as a record-breaking cucumber to a non-gardener. Or tell your neighbors you want to bring over “Veggie Tales” for the children — the live version. Then there’s always the old favorite of wrapping it up in a box like a present and sitting that on the porch. Just make sure you don’t put your name on it.

Photo by Jessica Stewart / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Judy Wright, a master gardener, cooks zuchinni at a garden party at the University of Missouri extension office.

But if you actually like your neighbors, you might consider cooking something with the zucchini instead. The reactions are likely to be more favorable if you take over something like homemade zucchini nut bread, zucchini relish or a plate of golden fried zucchini.

To get some more ideas, we stopped by a recent garden party put on by the University of Missouri Extension Service Garden ‘N Grow program. It’s a program where master gardeners teach children how to plant a garden. And like most gardens, they produced plenty of squash, including both yellow and green zucchini, and in the “weird garden,” a round scallop-looking variety they call a Patty-Pan squash. For the party, the master gardeners, parents and children brought in all kinds of dishes made with the squash and shared their recipes with us.

“We make this all the time,” says Chris Drossel, one of the master gardeners at the party. She was chopping up several varieties of squash, onions, garlic and green peppers to stir fry in olive oil. It’s fast, healthy and kids like it, she says.

Janet Parton brought in four dishes: a zucchini casserole, zucchini bread, zucchini brownies and a zucchini cobbler. The casserole has been a favorite in her family for years.

“Everyone cleans the dish up, even the people that don’t like zucchini,” she says. “They will say’ I don’t like zucchini’ and I tell them ‘You just had it.’”

The brownie recipe she got from one of the 4-H children who made it for a Project of Achievement. She says the zucchini makes them good and moist. The cobbler recipe is her mother’s.

Beatrice Thompson, a 4-H volunteer, shared a clever idea for giving away zucchini. She’s going to ship them off to her son at college. She baked them into mini-muffins and placed them in a decorated box with a cheerful note to her son written inside.

We got more recipes from News-Press readers and farmers with the Pony Express Farmers Market in St. Joseph. Zucchini bread seems to be the most popular recipe to make, but you’ll want to try some of the more unusual ones, too, like Diane Peek’s zucchini sauce. And her pen pal from England sent us a recipe that will really fool the neighbors. You scoop out the inside of the zucchini and fill it with mushrooms, tomatoes, onions and peppers, then top with your favorite cheese. The beauty of this dish is not only is the appearance disguised, so is the name. It’s called stuffed marrow, which is what the British and Scottish called zucchini.

Zucchini bread seems to be the most popular recipe to make, but you’ll want to try some of the more unusual ones, too, like Pam Mullins’ zucchini pie. It tastes like Dutch apple and won a blue ribbon at the county fair.

“You cannot convince people that it is zucchini,” she says.

Jan Goben has a recipe for a zucchini loaf, using Swiss cheese and eggs.

“It bakes perfects and sets to a gold brown color,” she says. “Serve warm with thick crusty bread.”

So you can bring some over to your neighbor on Friday, and when they ask suspiciously if this is zucchini, you can say with a good conscience, no.

Lifestyles reporter Sylvia Anderson may be reached at sylviaanderson@npgco.com