Zucchini Overload

I've recently been responsible for maintaining my father's Vegetable garden. This has overwhelmed my fridge with zucchini and cucumbers. With the bountiful harvest now in my hands, I've come to the conclusion I can't just give this all away. Some mass pickling, jamming and loaf making needs to take place. In which I'm very very excited for.

Tomorrow night is Viki's going away party, so I'm going to bring a zucchini loaf among a cherry pie (maybe) to her house for dinner. I'm sure we will post what we make later this weekend. So stay tuned! But this post is only gonna be the delicious zucchini loaf!

Ingredients!

walnut & cranberry zucchini bread
(recipe adapted from Simply Recipes)
2 large eggs
1 1/3 c sugar
2 T molasses
2 t vanilla
3 1/3 c grated zucchini
2/3 c roasted walnut oil (or melted unsalted butter or another oil)
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t nutmeg
2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1 c chopped pecans or walnuts
1 c dried cranberries or raisins

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine the eggs, sugar, molasses and vanilla together until well creamed.

Stir in the zucchini, oil, salt and baking soda. Add in the flour, a cup at a time, until well blended. Sprinkle in the spices and fold in the nuts and the cranberries.

Butter and flour 2 loaf pans. Divide the batter between the two pans – each will be about half full which will give the loaves room to rise. Bake for 1 hour or until the done – when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then invert them onto racks until thoroughly cool. Makes 2 loaves.

This is a great recipe for Zucchini loafs. Very wintry. More suitable for end of September, than this balmy 30 degree heat we're having today. I haven't tried to many and look forward to testing out more!

Grandma Guy's Energized Banana Loaf of Awesome!

A dear friend of mine passed along this recipe to me some six months ago, as I had been searching for a good banana bread recipe. And it is glorious. So easy that I make changes every time I bake it. I also triple the recipe (baking for me is done in bulk), making enough to have that same banana bread every morning for a month. Breakfast consists of a decent sized piece of bread coupled with plain yogurt and berries. Om nom nom.



Grandma Guy's Energized Banana Loaf of Awesome!

Standard recipe x 3:

3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup butter
6 eggs
4.5 cups flour
3 tsp baking soda
7 mashed bananas

Additions:

Lots of walnuts.
2 tbsp (or more) cinnamon
2 tsp (or more) vanilla
2 tbsp (or more) pumpkin puree

I often put less mashed bananas and instead a decent amount of pumpkin puree. I play around with it. Just so long as it has the right consistency to bake.

Bake at 400* roughly until done.