Cooking with the Shaws - Zucchini Squash Bread

I had a zucchini left from my trip to the farmer’s market and I’ve pretty much decided that I don’t like zucchini. What do people do when they don’t like zucchini? They make bread with it. I thought that if I was going to make some zucchini bread, then I might as well make it from a recipe from the family cookbook. So here is Lillian’s Zucchini Squash Bread (p 98)

Zucchini Squash Bread

3 eggs, beaten

1 c oil

2 c sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 c plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp cloves

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

3 tsp cinnamon

2 c grated zucchini (1 ½ to 2 zucchini depending on size)

½ c chopped nuts

1-8 oz can crushed pineapple

Sift together flour, baking powder, cloves, soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Combine oil and sugar; stir in beaten eggs.

Add egg mixture to dry ingredients. Stir in nuts gently.

*Now this is the point in the recipe where I realized that no mention was made of zucchini and pineapple in the instructions. So I stirred mine in at this point. *

Grease and flour 2 loaf pans and place batter in pans (3 pans may be used if desired).

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

It is a miracle in itself that this bread turned out. Not because of the recipe. No..because of the spazzy mind set I had when I made it. You see, I was trying to get this bread together and baked before I went to my yoga class. Michael was supposed to be stopping and getting me some crushed pineapple on his way home from work, so it was all working out beautifully. After he called and said he was at the grocery, I got everything else going. But things just went wrong from the get go…

First of all I sifted my sugar into my flour mixture instead of mixing it with the oil….so I just mixed the oil and eggs for my wet mix. Then Michael got home but he was on the phone and didn’t get out of his van for 15 minutes or so. I couldn’t go out and get the pineapple because then Joseph would want to go outside and he was a meltdown a minute yesterday anyway. So I waited. In my waiting, I forgot what I was waiting for and dumped my batter in my pans and got it in the oven for a minute before I realized I was waiting on pineapple. So…out the bread came and back into the bowl to wait for pineapple. I mean, I sent him to the store specifically for that….I wasn’t about to not use it!!

Finally, Michael came in and I got the bread in the oven. I was also boiling some noodles for supper and I guess when I turned off the timer for them, I also turned off the oven. So, 50 minutes later, I found a raw zucchini bread in the oven. Grrr. I turned the oven on again and left for yoga (much needed at this point). I left the timing of the bread baking in the hand of Michael. And it turned out pretty good in the end. The bread is moist and I really love the addition of the pineapple. I love a bread that makes you feel like you are eating something healthy. Of course, you would probably have to eat half a loaf to get a serving of veggies, but still. I feel good about it.

So, breathe…find your center (and a zucchini) and make this bread. Don’t go at it all spazzoid like me.

Oh and FYI, my crescent roll dough did some back from the dead and my apple dumplings were AWESOME. Recipe to come later. :)