Monday, October 17, 2011

I loaf Monday's

First of all, sincere apologies to the 10 people who actually enjoy my blog. A near death experience and starting a new job have kept me from posting as often as I should be, and I resolve to....resolve that. So here we go loaf lovers! 

It's squash season! I think 90% of people cringe when hearing the word "squash" and I don't blame them, because these tasty tube shaped veggies are often ill-prepared. Luckily, I have found that there is no better way to introduce zucchini to a veggie weary pal than to bake it up into a nice loaf of zucchini bread! 

Forgive me as I get a little nostalgic, but this recipe started from a copy of The Good Housekeeping Illustrated home cookbook, circa 1970's. I learned to bake because we had a garden that only produced zucchini for whatever reason. It only took a few weeks to realize that we would not be able to pawn off the 20+ a week that were ripening in our garden, so i would bake them into bread and give the loaves to friends and neighbors. I tweaked the recipe, removing the nuts and adding lemon, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg to round out the flavor. This bread is light and airy and perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack. 

Zucchini Bread: 
3 cups all purpose flour. 
1 1/2 cups sugar 
4 1/2 tsp double acting baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 eggs 
2/3 cups oil
2 cups grated zucchini 
1 tbsp lemon juice
A few shakes of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon. 
1 tsp vanilla 

1- Pre-heat oven to 350 and grease 2 loaf pans....or one loaf pan and a mini loaf pan, or muffin tin. I would advise you to bake the mini loaf or muffins separate as they obviously will cook faster and you don't want to disrupt your loaf by opening the oven. 
2- In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. shake in ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon an stir until fully combined. 
3- Beat eggs and mix in zucchini, add vanilla, oil and lemon juice. 
4- Stir liquid mixture into flour mixture until just combined. Seriously, if you over mix it, you will ruin it!! Spread evenly into pans.
5- Bake bread for one hour. Let cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then pop the loaves out and cool on rack for another 15 minutes or until cool. 

Enjoy my friends, and don't forget, I loaf you :)

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