Garden Fresh Zucchini Bread

Last week was spent visiting family back East and hiking in the Adirondacks and boy did we have fun! I’ve got to gather my thoughts and photos before posting memories from the trip, but in between unpacking, catching up on work, and a friend’s wedding – I fit in some homemaking and baked a delicious zucchini bread. The zucchini for this recipie was grown in my mamas garden and hand picked by me – look at the size of this thing !!

I love breads – I like to think they are healthier than the typical sweet treats I like to make but still satisfying. This one must be healthy – because it contains 4 cups of shredded zucchini. I used a recipe from Simply Recipes so head on over there for the details and directions.

Ingredients

4 cups grated fresh zucchini
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/3 cusp sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted melted butter
Dried cranberries
Almonds

This recipe doesn’t take much time to pull together and it’s practically mistake proof – just pay attention to the ingredient sizes, mix the wet and dry ingredients, and then slowly combine everything together – that’s it really. The most important thing to note is that the batter for this bread is pretty sticky and wet because of the zucchini. Be sure you butter your pans and drain the zucchini before adding to the mixture or things will get too watery. This recipe is good for two loaves- but since I didn’t have the right size bread pans – I made three separate loaves of different sizes. One for me, one for my coworkers, and one for my grandmother !