[24] Grandma L.’s Zucchini Bread

Well, near the end of living in the old place, I dipped into “_How to Cook Everything_”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764578650?ie=UTF8&tag=metaco-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0764578650 quite a bit to figure out how to use up perishable goods, especially veggies from our CSA (which we had delivered through the whole process).

This recipe is the last of the recipes that was made in our old house, and is one of the few from that time that did not come from How to Cook Everything. Instead, it came from my dad’s mother.

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of this zucchini bread. My grandmother makes it often, it freezes well and is generally delicious. Also, in case you are already thinking about the upcoming holidays, my grandmother makes a basket for every household that contains all sorts of super things. Like tiny loaves of zucchini bread wrapped in pretty plastic wrap. She’s pretty cool like that. By making this zucchini bread, you could be almost as cool as her.

h2. Ingredients

1 c oil
2 c sugar

3 eggs

2 c grated zucchini (Admission time: Bill and I don’t own a normal grater or a food processor. Only a fine microplane grater. I don’t know why.)

2 tsp vanilla

3 c flour (I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I bet she meant all-purpose. It’s certainly what I used.)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (Someday, we’ll buy “normal” salt. Until that day comes, we use kosher.)

1/4 tsp baking powder

3 tsp Cinnamon

(Man, doesn’t this sound tasty already? Best way ever to get veggies into your diet.)

h2. Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Beat eggs, then add oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla. Mix well. Sift together dry ingredients, then add to wet mixture.

Pour batter into two greased loaf pans and bake for ~50 minutes. Loaves are done when a toothpick or fork inserted in the center comes out clean.

h2. Cooking and Consumption Notes

h3. Cooking

I don’t intentionally make things harder on myself, but it happens a lot anyway. Overall, this recipe is exactly the kind of recipe you’d expect a grandmother to give her cooking-impaired grandchild. Delicious, full of great memories, and easy. (Don’t tell my family I was always good at baking. If they remember, they might want me to bake more. Or worse, to ask why the hell I hated cooking so much.)

However, like all good grandchildren, I totally had to go and mix it up. Namely, at the time I was not on speaking terms with my full-size oven, so I had to punt. Also, I had to call my grandmother and ask her how many mini-loaves this recipe makes. Mini-loaves are also good because then I can give one or two or so away to guests and not be without zucchini bread for myself.

The answer, in case you’re wondering, is about six. And most of them came out very well in the (evil) toaster oven. They did, as you can imagine, require a lot more baby-sitting than normal loaves. I rotated them a couple of times in the oven to ensure even baking, and two STILL came out undercooked. I’m not entirely sure why this is, especially since I did do the fork test, but I think it had to do with the orientation of the mini-loaf pans in the toaster oven. So, test carefully.

h3. Consumption

For me, there’s not much to say. It’s my grandmother’s awesome zucchini bread. Made less awesome, of course, by the fact that she didn’t make it and I did. I imagine there’s some secret grandmother hand gesture or something that makes the goodies you remember coming out of their kitchens a million times better than what you make at home, even if they gave you the recipe.

Bill and our house-guest Amy, however, strongly approved of this recipe. Then enjoyed it immensely, both alone and when Bill was inspired to add ice cream. I’m not sure why he did that. My grandmother never served ice cream with zucchini bread. But it was pretty tasty, I have to admit. Though I’d probably just stick with butter.

My only regret? That one of the two loaves that was underdone went home with Amy. That’s sad.

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