1.      Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.

2.      Grind the cloves in a mortar & pestle or a coffee grinder as finely as you can get it.

3.      Cream the butter with the sugars, baking powder, salt, and cloves on low speed (Kitchen Aid 1 or with a hand mixer) until very well blended and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the mixer several times. This should take 10 minutes in a cold kitchen and about 6-7 in a warm kitchen.

4.      While the butter is beating, grate the zucchini on a box grater or with a Microplane ribbon grater. Gather up the zucchini into paper towels, a clean tea towel, or a nut milk bag and squeeze out as much of the zucchini juice as possible.  You should get at least 2 Tablespoons of liquid out of your zucchini and more if you’re using a slightly heavier zucchini than I did.

5.      When the butter mixture is fluffy, add in the egg and vanilla, then beat for a few more seconds.

6.      Mix the squeezed out zucchini into the creamed butter.

7.      Scrape the bowl and beater well, paying attention to the bottom of the bowl which always likes to hide a little pocket of unmixed butter.

8.      After you’ve finished scraping, pour in the oats, flour and chocolate chips.  Mix just until you see no flour–about 10 seconds.

9.      Scoop balls about 1 and ½ ounces onto a piece of parchment.  Chill the dough balls for 10-15 minutes to firm up the butter.  This will help keep the cookies from browning too much.

10.   Preheat the oven to 350 F (180C).

11.   Place the dough balls on your prepared cookie sheets. Place 8 cookies to a sheet, leaving plenty of room between cookies.  Flatten the dough balls with your hand.

12.   Bake two prepared sheet pans of cookies for 16-18 minutes, rotating the sheets 180 degrees and swapping them from top to bottom halfway through baking for the most even baking.

13.   Allow the cookies to cool about 5 minutes on the sheet pans before moving them to a rack to completely cool.

14.   Bake extra dough on cooled sheet trays. If they’re too hot, you can place them in a cool table outside, or stand them vertically against a cabinet for a couple minutes.

15.   Melt half of the chocolate you have set aside for decorating in a double boiler just until melted.  Take the chocolate off the heat and add in the rest of the chocolate.  Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted completely, thick, and glossy.  Either pipe stripes of chocolate over the top of each cookie or swizzle it over with a fork.

16.   Set the decorated cookies in the fridge just until the chocolate sets. 

17.   Keep the cookies at room temperature for up to 4 days.  These also freeze well.