Monday, August 11, 2008

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread


Zucchini is one of those non-automatic words for me. I try to spell it and pause for a few seconds every single time. One of my childhood claims to fame was winning a spelling bee in the 4th grade. Not my class spelling bee, but even-beating-5th-graders-and-the-rest-of-the-school-bee. I know, I'm just cool like that;)

Where were we? Zucchini...right. Friends of ours from church (the husband works for the local military yard) got called to San Diego for a few weeks and offered their zucchini to us if we'd come and pick it. I am one who never turns free produce down (but it is rarely offered to me...yes, pity pity) so we swung by their house last night and picked. Next week should be better, but for now there were only two tiny ones ready to be picked. It was a tough decision: sauteed zukes or zucchini bread? You can guess which won;)

My trusty friend, allrecipes.com, to the rescue again with a 5 star recipe! As per usual I changed almost everything, but used most of the measurements as a guide. We were looking for healthy here people!

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread
Makes 2 loaves

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup oats
1 1/2 banana
2/3 cup applesauce
2 cups shredded zucchini
2 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tsp. cinammon
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup agave or honey
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts would be great, we used peanuts because I have a ton)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 2 loaf pans. Stir flours, salt, baking powder, soda and cinnamon together in a bowl. Mix eggs, bananas, oil, applesauce, vanilla, sugar, agave nectar/honey and oats together in a large bowl. Let stand for 10 plus minutes to soften oats. Mix all ingredients together. Squeeze excess liquid out of zucchini and add to mixture along with nuts. Stir gently, careful not to overstir. Pour 1/2 of the batter in each pan. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Mine took right about at 1 hr. Tastes best warm, but is less crumbly to cut when completely cooled.
~As always, please let me know if my directions don't make sense!


For more kitchen related tips, visit Tammy's Recipes!

7 comments:

Tami said...

Sweet! Thanks, chica! I'll make this either today or tomorrow :)

Unknown said...

This looks very yummy and I like your blog layout!

Deb Schiff said...

Wow! That looks fantastic. Love your background to your blog. So festive!

valley view farm said...

Great healthy food, now Im hungry!! Also, I LOVE the new look. Very pretty, modern and hip!!

Becentsable blog said...

Rachel! Love the new design and what a great story!

I was the girl standing next to you at that spelling bee!

Daniel and Teresa said...

Looks good! Any ideas what I can substitute the apple sauce for? Apple sauce here is pricey!

Rachael said...

Thanks for all the sweet comments...I hope the bread works out for everyone! As for alternatives to applesauce (to Daniel and Teresa;) (for the oil sub), here are some possibilities. I do like to leave it some oil (like in this recipe) because the recipe flavor stays truer that way. Possible subs include: prunes (pureed), yogurt, bananas(mashed) or pureed pumpkin. I have tried the banana sub in brownies which works great, but the banana flavor is strong. I have had the pumpkin sub in cupcakes and I couldn't really taste the pumpkin and it was a really moist product. Hope that helps!