Stacey v. Kitchen: Zucchini Bread!

I've been told by a few male friends that they would offer their left testicle for the trade-off of a lifetime supply of my chocolate chip cookies.  Considering a few of them have yet to produce offspring, I take this as quite the compliment. 

I'm not a baker by any stretch of the imagination, yet.  Even my chocolate chip cookies took about four or five tries to get them just right.  Then we moved, meaning I had to change the temperatures with the acquisition of a new stove.  We assumed ownership of an outdated stove from the previous homeowner.  He built this house in 1959, I believe, and I have no doubt that this is the stove that was used when the house was built.  It was probably the best on the market at that time, and it still works, so I use it.  I especially love it because it is retro, and it is HUGE.  It has a nice big range and even a "work area", as I like to call it; or it's a cooling space, but not really because the heat from the oven keeps the top warm.  Regardless of the empty space's purpose, I love my stove. 


We have been trying to garden these past two years in our new house, and as a result of our attempts, we have grown quite a few zucchini.  I've made zucchini fries, straight-up fried zucchini, snacked on zucchini, did many-a-things to said zucchini.  I recently tried my mother-in-law's zucchini bread recipe and found another useful solution for our zucchini production!  Hooray!

I had no plans today other than an eye appointment for this evening and regular house cleaning, so I figured I'd give it a try.  Luckily I barely had all ingredients on hand.  I used the last drop of vegetable oil and was just a hair short of the 1 cup that I needed.  I only found one loaf pan of regular size and needed two.  Then I stumbled upon three mini loaf pans that I have no idea where they came from.  It looks like my baking pan and loaf pan procreated in their spare time.   I figured I would just use those and see what happened. 

I proceeded to make the batter.  I hand-mixed the batter with my trusty wooden spoon.  I love hand-mixing because I tricked myself into believing that those few extra calories I burn using my hand I can keep in reserves for tasting the batter; which is my initial test of recipe success.  If the batter is good, I all-out assume that the final product will be excellent.  I think that is fair. 

I also hand-grated the zucchini.  Mother-in-law said she used the food processor, but again, whatever calories I can burn using the "hard way" I can later use making sure the batter is up to par.

Batter was to die for, so into the three mini loaf pans, and then oven, the bread went.  Note:  I'd like to take this time to thank my younger sister for leaving her PAM Baking Spray in my spice cabinet.  I thought today would be the perfect day to bust it out.  

Overall, the recipe was quite easy to make, so that means I will make it again in the future.  My house smells amazing, too.  I think Husband will be very impressed when he wakes up from his slumber.  Unfortunately he doesn't really eat baked goods, so I will have to find some volunteers to take my creations. 



Enjoy!





Stacey: 1 v. Kitchen: 0