Summer Bucket List - Zucchini Bread

Land-O-Lakes had a challenge to create a summer bucket list for the last few weeks of the season. It seemed like a great way to celebrate the coming end of the hot, humid weather to me! So, I scurried off to Pinterest and created a special board just for the challenge. I'll try to write up everything I manage to try, provided I don't get distracted by other shiny ideas.

Right now I want to share my zucchini bread recipe. Tomorrow my Tuesday afternoon gaming group at the Wizard's Guild/Universe of Super Heroes starts meeting again. Since I know how famished the girls usually are after school, I thought I'd take in something they can snack on. And really, this is the time of year for zucchini bread, even if I did cheat tonight and use the frozen stuff because it was already grated.

With the exception of my mom, everyone who's ever tried my bread loves it. It must be one of the few things I really get right. (And it's not that mom doesn't like it, she's just more partial to pumpkin bread, which was part of her Christmas present last year.) And it's really very easy to make. I mean, I use the recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook! But I've learned a few things over the years that make mine really moist and tasty and I wanted to share them with you today.

First of all, if you don't have one of BH & G's cookbooks with the Zucchini Bread recipe in it, you can also find it online. Very nice for pinning to my Summer Bucket List board.

Melinda's Easy Zucchini Bread
3 cups flour (1 1/2 cup all-purpose and 1 1/2 cup wheat?)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten slightly
2 cups finely shredded zucchini and/or summer squash
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup totally mix-ins (raisins, cranberries, nuts, chocolate chips, etc...) (Optional.)

Preheat oven to 350 and grease two loaf pans. Set aside pans. In a large mixing bowl, combine everything from the eggs on down to the mix-ins. Stir well and set aside while you mix the rest of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add contents of the smaller bowl to the larger one and stir well. Stir in the mix-ins as well.

Divide batter between the two loaf pans - it'll be about 2 1/4 cups each. Bake for 45-55 minutes until a tester inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool on wire racks for 15 -30 minutes before gently turning the pan over to let it release the loaf.

Secondly, this recipe works wonderfully with yellow summer squash as well. You can mix it with the zucchini or use it on it's own.

Thirdly, here's a gratuitous, badly lit pic of my two loaves. It's badly lit because, well, that's our kitchen in that area at night AND I'm using one of the girls' video camera for a camera camera. Sorry.

Fourthly, toss the walnuts. Seriously. Don't use 'em. There are so many other fun, tasty, and interesting things to add in their place. My family's personal favorite is chocolate chips, which was the add-in in the upper loaf above. My favorite is raisins or cranberries, and since I've been on a cranberry kick lately, that's what the bottom loaf contains. The only dried fruit that I haven't liked so far is dried dates. They just don't have enough flavor to either add anything to the taste or to stand out on their own. Oh, and I've been known to mix fruit and chocolate. We all win!

Fifthly, you can make it healthier by substituting half whole wheat flour and half of the sugar with a sugar baking substitute. I used a stevia blend in these loaves, although we were out of whole wheat flour. If I hadn't been feeling so lazy, I might have ground up some oats and tried an oat flour instead.

Also, I love to add some extra fiber to the mix. If you can find it, Beneful makes powdered, unflavored product that's perfect for adding to foods. For two loaves - a double batch - I use between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of the stuff. The bread sticks with you longer and slows down the sugar absorption, which is just the thing for diabetics like me.

Sixthly, have fun with the spices. The actual recipe calls for cinnamon, but I forgot that I used the last of it a week ago making zucchini bread. So I ground up some cardamon and used that instead. Since cardamom can have a strong flavor, I figured out the total of cinnamon and nutmeg needed and then halved it. One half was cardamon and the other was nutmeg. I've also used ground ginger to good effect.

Seventhly, don't hesitate to freeze loaves for later eating and gifting. We love pulling a loaf out of the freeze come January. I usually wrap them in cling-wrap and then place them in gallon bags. You can get about two loaves to a bag. If you're thinking of gifts, you might want to bake them in a small, disposable aluminum pan. You can leave it in the pan to freeze.

If you want to gift zucchini bread but don't want it to be frozen for that long, just chop/shred the zucchini and freeze it in pre-measured portions. Since I usually do at least a double batch, I freeze two cup allotments.

Finally, I pretty much always make a double batch. And very little of it goes to waste. Also, I've been using glass loaf pans and have discovered that, in our oven, 45 minutes is all it takes. The 50 minutes listed in the recipe was just 5 minutes too much.

And there you have it! Tryllyam's Tips for Zucchini Bread. Go! Bake! Enjoy!

Now, to finish out that bucket list...

Oh Dear!

Almost three months since I've written anything on here, let alone posted some fiction. I'll try to post the end of "Divine Visions" over the weekend, really I will. And next year? I'm already planning to just take January off as much as possible. Between the work/stress/creating of November and December, I'm pretty much a mental zombie by January and shut down regardless. It's been that way the past two years, so I may as well plan for it. I did win NaNo this year again though, while sick. And I got to enjoy seeing some area winners cross that finish line for the first time as well. It was a heady month.

In the meantime, I've been promising a friend that I'd write up the following recipe for the most heavenly black bean soup. It'll warm you to your toes with its tastiness. And, it's vegetarian!

Heavenly Black Bean Soup

4 cans black beans, rinsed
2 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
3/4 c. button mushrooms, sliced and then loosely chopped
2 tbsp. preserved garlic in oil, heaping
1 packet dried onion soup mix

Toss it all into the slow cooker with about 4 cans worth of water, more or less, and let cook for at least 4 hours. Enjoy.

Yep, pretty easy. You could probably do it on the stove as well and just let it simmer for at least an hour. If you need to cut the amounts, try for a ratio of about 1/2 black beans to 1/2 veggies. This served six people, although a couple of us didn't eat that much for various reasons.

Ultimate Veggie Soup

I posted on FaceBook earlier today that we were having soup tonight, which led to at least one request for the recipe. Now this is one of those dishes that doesn't really have a recipe. I was actually surprised the first time I saw a recipe for vegetable soup. I mean, come on, you get out a pan and start adding. That's how my mom always made it and that's pretty much how I make it. So, this is, more or less, how I made veggie soup for dinner tonight. Next time it'll be different. That's the beauty of vegetable soup - some ingredients I always use but the rest is decided by how I feel and what I have on hand.

Ultimate Veggie Soup

1. Begin by getting out the largest soup pot you have. It still probably won't be big enough.

2. Brown beef in the pan. You don't need to do this, but it does give it more flavor. Oh, today I used maybe 1 pound of leftover grilled steak from dinner last night. My in-laws use ground beef.

3. Providing you haven't forgotten it, brown the onion as well. Yes, I forgot the onion this afternoon. We're going to add it in after dinner.

4. Start dumping in veggies. Tonight's dinner has a 28 oz of chopped tomatoes, a can of green beans, the rest of the green beans from dinner the other night, chopped potatoes (about 2 large), carrots (a couple), sweet potatoes (same as potatoes), chopped discard bits from celery stalks that I cleaned the other night, broccoli. We would have put in about a cup of corn, but didn't want to bother digging into the deep freezer.

The broccoli is from some fresh stalks I bought a few weeks ago. When I cleaned them for steaming, I also cut up the stalks and tossed them in a freezer bag. The celery is from where I cup some up from lunches. I took the bits of stalk that were good but not really celery stick material, as well as the leafy bits, and chopped them. Tossed them in the freezer in a bag as well.

The potatoes, sweet potatoes, and some of the carrots are from our garden, so amounts are estimated. I also like lima beans, but didn't have any. Okra is also good. Really, toss in veggies you think would taste good when cooked for a long time - peas get mushy, but keep their taste. Regular broccoli tops just get mushy.

Sometimes I toss in 2-3 beef boullion cubes for added flavor. We don't mind the extra saltyness, even if it isn't good for us.

5. Add water to cover. Add even more if you like more broth. We're more of a less is more household in that area. Also add in garlic, salt, pepper. I like to add barley (if I remember) and other seasonings closer to when we're going to eat. I really like to use summer savory - one of my favorite herbs to season with - and basil, but use what you like. I also added 4 tbsp of Beneful fiber. We'll never taste it and my blood sugar will be at a happier level with the addition.

Cook for at least an hour. I bring it to a boil and after about 15 minutes set it to simmer on the lowest setting for as long as I can. It's even better the next day.

We serve it in big bowls with a loaf of bakery bread. Fresh baked bread would be even better, but I never seem to be that coordinated.

That's it: how I make vegetable soup. Hope you're enjoying the Friday Fiction posts.