Zucchini Bread!

Side note:  One of my good friends had a baby girl a few weeks ago, and she just posted a blog with her birth story.  I shed a tear and my heart swelled while reading her story.... and here I am posting about zucchini bread.  It seems sort of... lame... compared to childbirth!  :)  Well, congratulations Reyanna, and hopefully this gives you something mildly entertaining to read when you are up in the middle of the night.  :) 




This is my favorite time of the produce-year.  Not cherry season, not apricot season, not peach season... but zucchini and pumpkin bread season.  Mmmmmm, you just can't beat good zucchini or pumpkin bread.  I have to work really hard to not eat the whole loaf at one time...

 So my friends Kim and Chris have an awesome garden (they are so motivated!) and shared some zucchini with me.  My first one of the year!  Yay for the start of zucchini bread season!

Believe it or not, I actually follow a recipe from a cookbook.  What's a cookbook?  In the age of I-look-everything-up-online-before-I-make-it, this is one of the things I just keep using the same old standby.  So, unfortunately, no link available.   :) 

(Although, now that I think about it, I probably could find the website of the cookbook...)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 cup finely shredded, unpeeled zucchini
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Here are the instructions from the cookbook:
Preheat oven 350, grease 8x4x2 inch bread pan (I'm assuming that's what mine are?).  Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.  In a separate bowl, combine sugar, zucchini, oil, egg, and lemon peel; mix well.  Add dry mixture to wet and stir just until moistened, batter is lumpy.  Fold in nuts.   Spoon batter into pan, bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, cool on wire rack completely, wrap and store overnight.  (Yeah right.)


After I shredded the zucchini, I had 1 1/2 cups, so I made enough for all the zucchini.  I usually go a little heavier on the spices, and sometimes I put chocolate chips in!  (But not this time.)   I also made them in muffin cups instead.... Oh, and I forgot the nuts, and just remembered when I was filling the muffin cups.  So half the muffins got nuts on the top! 

They turned out great.  I usually freeze several loafs of zucchini bread, so I went ahead and froze about half of these also.  I put them in freezer bags and suck all the air out, they keep really well. 

Also, the recipe says to wrap it and store overnight... well in my experience, after it's been wrapped it does taste really good, but so far I have yet to conclude whether that is because it is actually better after it sits wrapped, or if it just tastes better because we have been WAITING AND WAITING to eat it!!  The loaf just sits there, taunting us...       

When I make it in a loaf, I usually do wrap it and refrigerate it until the next day, but muffins get eaten up right away.  And they are mmmmmgood.


The Verdict:

The research team ate all the zucchini muffins before dinner.  (Alright...I helped him.)  So I guess he liked them alright.  And I guess we won't be having any for breakfast!   :)


Something about muffins is more fun than a loaf.  Maybe it's because they look like cupcakes...   maybe it's because it's harder to eat the whole loaf at one time...   maybe it's because it's easier to justify putting chocolate frosting on muffins than it is on a loaf...   (Am I really that bad?   In the words of one Phineas Flynn:  "Why yes, yes I am.")