Zucchini Bread
We vacationed at a little cabin getaway this summer with our extended family. By that I mean MY family - Mom and Dad, my three sisters, two of my brothers-in-law, everyone’s kids plus my nephew’s new wife. When you do the math, (and we did have to do the math here) it came to a grand total of 24 people. We had an age range running from nearly born (my nephew’s wife was pregnant) to the sixties. A regular family reunion! We had a great time, hidden away in the woods, on the edge of a small lake, of the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.
Coming from a family of cooks, where we take very seriously phrases like, “homemade”, “comfort foods”, and “from scratch”, we took turns cooking dinner for the entire family. (My dad even made curly fries over a propane burner 2 nights.) For breakfast and lunch, everybody sort of found their own food, usually by taking advantage of a stockpile of lunchmeat and hot dogs in the fridge and pounds of goodies that were prepared beforehand and brought up by my mother and sisters. I had the disadvantage of distance - we had to fly to Michigan so I couldn’t bring pounds of cookies.
The one particular baked good that became our favorite breakfast that week was my sister Sue’s Zucchini Bread. My, OH, My - was it good! She brought - I think- at least 6 loaves of it and I believe we had it all polished off by the end of the week. It became the perfect food to set out and let everyone slice off a serving as they got up and got ready for whatever activity we did that day.
Sue has graciously shared her recipe for Zucchini Bread with me and I, of course, am going to share it with you. A wonderful way to use that zucchini that is so plentiful.
ZUCCHINI BREAD
3 c. flour - I use half white and half whole wheat
1 1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1/4 t. baking powder
2 c. sugar
1 c. oil - but I use 3/4 c. oil and 3/4 c. ground flax seed
you can substitute 3 T. of flax seed for 1 T. of oil when baking, so you can play with this and use more or less flax seed
1 T. vanilla
3 eggs
2 c. shredded zucchini
1/2 c. chopped nuts (sometimes I use them and sometimes I don’t)Sift together dry ingredients except sugar, set aside. In a large bowl using mixer at medium speed, beat sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs until well blended. Reduce speed to low, beat in dry ingredients until well blended. Pour into two greased loaf pans.
Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until done. Cool in pans 10 minutes, remove and cool completely on racks.
If taking on vacation, triple the recipe and bring copies.
September 29th, 2008