Happy Insides

It is gardening season. Unfortunately we weren't able to plant a garden this year, but we do know plenty of people who did. So many people seem to plant zucchini in their home gardens and if you have ever had a zucchini plant in your garden you know that those little buggers can easily and quickly go from a small zucchini to a monster in the span of 2 or 3 days. That is how this zucchini bread came to be. Cassie's co-worker brought in a giant zucchini from her garden that had to be at least 10 lbs. The thing was so big that there was really only 1 thing to do with it and that was to make zucchini bread. We made 3 loaves and froze enough shredded zucchini that we still probably have enough to make another 3-4 loaves. Good thing we like zucchini bread.

We made two types of bread. A sweet and a savory. They were both super good. The sweet recipe was your classic zucchini bread, but we used whole wheat flour and some oats in it. The savory we made a cheddar loaf. We added some jalapenos to it and it was wonderful. I think the loaf probably could have been cheesier so I changed the recipe to show that.



Zucchini Cheddar Bread
adapted from Honey and Jam
Makes 1 loaf

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/2 t. baking soda
1 c. shredded zucchini
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c. scallions
3 T. cilantro
1/4 c. pickled jalapeno slices
2 large eggs
1 c. buttermilk
4 t. unsalted butter melted

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

2) whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add the zucchini, cheddar, scallions, cilantro, and jalapenos tossing them to coat them in the flour mixture.

3) In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, buttermilk and butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just incorporated. Do not overmix. The batter will not be smooth.

4) bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Will take about 55-60 minutes. Let it cook completely before slicing.



For the sweeter version of the zucchini bread we used a recipe from Eating Well. We unfortunately did not get a photo of this loaf because one loaf got eaten too quickly and Cassie took the other loaf to work to share with co-workers.

Zucchini Bread
adapted from Eating Well
makes 2 loaves

1 1/2 c. rolled oats
3 3/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 T. baking powder
2 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cloves
1 1/2 t. salt
2 c. sucanat
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
3/4 c. apple sauce
1/3 c. canola oil
3 c. shredded zucchini

1) preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 2 9x5 inch loaf pans with cooking spray. Spread the oats on a separate baking sheet and bake until lightly toasts, about 5-10 minutes.

2)Stir together all but 2 T. of the toasted oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a mixing bowl.

3) In a separate bowl, whisk together sucanat, eggs, egg whites, apple sauce and oil. Stir in zucchini. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until just combined.

4) Divide batter between the loaf pans and sprinkle 1 T. of the reserved oats on to each loaf. Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45-55 minutes. Let the loaves cool completely before serving.