Zucchini Bread

This past weekend a bunch of us piled into Dan's tiny Mazda and headed into the boonies of Virginia for some good old fashioned fruit picking. The original plan was to pick peaches and blackberries, but once we got to the farm, we realized they had a whole lot more to offer than just those two fruits. In the end, we came away with a huge bagful of peaches, six ears of corn, and four massive zucchinis. And it only cost us $11!

The peaches will definitely get eaten, and I already have plans to use the corn for upcoming dinners, but I must confess...I have never actually cooked a zucchini. In fact, I've only recently worked up the nerve to try eating zucchini, period. I just don't like squash, you know? But I ate zucchini bread a few weeks ago, and then had some roasted zucchini in a veggie lasagna a few days later. To my surprise, they were both delicious!

With four pounds of zucchini in my fridge, I'm definitely going to have to get inventive with my cooking. Last night we ate one two ways -- oven roasted, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt; and, breaded then baked into crispy fries. Yum! Zucchini may be my new favorite vegetable. Even so, that leaves...three more gigantic zucchinis in the fridge in the meantime. Yikes. 

So, I decided to try my hand at zucchini bread this morning. The recipe reminded me a lot of carrot cake, which I love -- cake-like batter flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and filled with several cups of soft, grated vegetables. Out of the oven, the bread was crusty on the outside and moist on the inside. Not too sweet, with an almost savory after taste from the combination of zucchini and olive oil. Delicious!

Zucchini Bread (Adapted from the Smitten Kitchen's recipe)

Ingredients:
- 2 cups zucchini, grated

- 3 large eggs

- 1 cup olive oil

- 1-1/4 cup sugar

- 2 tsp vanilla

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 3 tsp cinnamon

- 1/8 tsp nutmeg

- 1 tsp salt

- 3 cups flour

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 350.

(2) In a large bowl, whisk eggs until thick and yellow. Add olive oil, sugar, vanilla and zucchini until well-combined.

(3) In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Slowly add to wet mixture, stirring after each addition until ingredients well combined.

(4) Pour batter into well-greased bread pan. (Smitten Kitchen divided the batter into 2 pans, but my batter fit into one pan.)

(5) Bake for about 50 minutes. Serve warm with tea, or smeared with cream cheese frosting.