Monster Zucchini Part I: Zucchini Bread

Last week I was greeted at 8am with a bag of fresh vegetables from one of my co-workers.  There were beautiful red cherry tomatoes, a couple of bright green jalapeños and the biggest zucchini I had ever seen!  My first thought was zucchini bread.  I love how moist and wonderful zucchini bread is, and I like that it has vegetables in it…even if none of the original nutritional value remains after it’s been mixed with sugar, oil and eggs.

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Back to the huge zucchini.  I really wish I’d weighed this monster before using it yesterday.  Just use this picture as proof…it was a big vegetable.

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Ginger was scared of it.  I took it out of the fridge and when I turned around she saw it and tucked her tail in between her legs and ran out of the kitchen.  Strange.

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This recipe is from Paula Deen, which explains the odd mixing techniques and large amounts of sugar, oil, and eggs.  The ingredients were simple.  I resisted the urge to add pineapple or chocolate chips.  I’m glad that I did because I enjoyed the simple flavor of the zucchini and the rich pecans.  Sometimes simple can be perfect.

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I sugared the pans after greasing them, a new favorite trick that gives the bread a nice crunchy, sweet exterior.  I had mixed up some cinnamon sugar for the rice pudding last week, so I used the cinnamon sugar in one of the pans, so that loaf was a little extra special.

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The memories of the Amish bread catastrophe made my palms get all sweaty when it came time to remove the bread from the pans.  Hooray!  Only one little corner of the bread remained this time.

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Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

  • 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 2 cups grated zucchini
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, greased and sugared, for 50-60 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.