5 cups
That's how much grated zucchini I have. 5 cups. Divided into 1 cup portions, 4 of which went into the freezer, and 1 of which is in the refrigerator for making zucchini bread tomorrow.
Now, you might imagine that I had to grate a few zucchini to come up with 5 cups. You would be mistaken. My mom harvested a monster zucchini from her garden, which she graciously gave to me, and that single zucchini resulted in the said 5 cups of grated vegetable. I am in awe.
You also might imagine that it took me ages to grate the zucchini. You would again be mistaken, because I used the incredibly wonderful mandolin that my mother-in-law gave me -- and so the whole thing took about 20 minutes. In the olden days, when I had to rely on graters (aka sponge ruiners), it would have taken me about an hour to accomplish the same feat.
I do have a confession to make: I have never made zucchini bread before. In fact, I know that I have eaten zucchini bread before, but I cannot quite remember what it tasted like. Even though I have made ginger, banana, lemon, orange, and pumpkin breads, I feel at a bit of a loss in choosing a recipe. Usually I at least have some sort of idea for how I want the end result to taste, which leads me to the recipe I want. So if anyone has a wonderful zucchini bread recipe that is tried and true, please send it my way. Extra points if it uses whole wheat flour! :)
Otherwise, I will be making Chocolate Zucchini Bread, which sounds absolutely fabulous. In fact, I might make that anyways. After all, I do have 5 cups of zucchini....
Here is the recipe I use. I got it from a widow lady at church. It is yummy! Sorry, though, no whole wheat. (Although when I make pizza dough I use half whole wheat and half white and it does fine. You might try it.)
3 eggs
2 C. sugar
1 C. oil
3 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
2 C. squash/zucchini
1/2-1 C chopped nuts
Beat first 3 ingredients. Combine dry ingredients and add. Add the rest. (This is real technical, huh?) Pour into 2 greased and floured loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 1 hr. Cool on a rack.
Thanks, Connie. :)
Lucky you! All that home-grown produce! My hubby won't touch zucchini, unfortunately, so I have no recipes for you. I do love zucchini, though, so I'm a little envious of you right now! :-)
I have a mandolin, too. It's a great tool, isn't it?
I made chocolate zucchini cake once--it was a little damp and I didn't much like it. I did eat it because I was desperate for chocolate.
I don't have a recipe at hand, but when I make zucchini bread, I always add lots of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. They seem to go well together.
Zucchini... Yum!
The zucchini bread I have had in the past is like what I think Connie's would be like. It always has cinnamon & nuts & probably nutmeg & cloves also, like c-life said. I have never had chocolate zucchini bread. As much as I like chocolate, somehow I have a hard time envisioning that being good. I could be wrong!