Zucchini...and lots of it.

Thursday July 21:
Whether or not you live on a farm doesn't mean you can't plant yourself a garden.  Before I was ever born, my father planted his own garden in the very backyard I look out at as I sit writing this blog.  He did everything himself from tilling to planting each seed by hand and nurturing them until the plants grew all big and healthy.

Once I finally came into this great world, my first  taste of garden-fresh produce came to me at a young age with me, my sisters and my grandmother at her house just 10 minutes away.  I always knew the food you plant is the best food you'll ever taste.

As I grew up, my father and I took on the task every summer of planting a garden together.  I helped him where I could with purchasing the plants from our local nursery Stradders right down to harvesting the vegetables once they came about and cooking up something amazing with them.  As time went on and I grew up, we still continued this summer tradition until I left for college. Once I left for college, our garden became one with the grass.  Now that my grandmother is living in a nursing home and my sisters moved into her house to revive it some, my oldest sister, Julie, has taken on the task of growing a garden where my grandparents once did.  Now that it is mid summer, her plants are all full with veggies to pick and cook with.  One plant she grew of course was zucchini.  Us Italians can't have a garden with out zucchini in it!  The only down side about zucchini is how rapidly the vegetable grows.  You pick a few one day and the next day the same amount is there yet again.

Zucchini is a versatile vegetable to cook with; it has many uses: sweet and savory.  Having such an abundance of zucchini at my disposal, finding different dishes to make may almost be as difficult as putting away the laundry, let alone folding it.  Zucchini isn't just another vegetable to cut up and toss in a saute pan, simply with some salt and pepper.  It is great in fritatas, bread, fritters and even cupcakes!  The uses are endless...

Last week when I was visiting my sisters, I was given some zucchini to take home and conger up something to make with them.  My sister, JoAnna, said to me when ever someone mentions zucchini, the first thing people say is "I'll make zucchini bread".  And that is exactly what I made.

Zucchini Bread

There is nothing like the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg in the air when delicious zucchini bread is baking away in the oven.  Everyone has their own recipes they always use for one thing or another.  I can't quite say I have that one recipe I always use...yet.  There are so many recipes out there for zucchini bread, but I was just looking for a simple basic one to use.  I looked at several online, comparing what they all had in it and choose one from www.allrecipes.com 

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/4 cups white sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Once the zucchini bread was out of the oven after checking it numerous times, it had a beautiful brown crunchy shell, securing something delicious inside.  After removing it from the pans and letting it cool, I could not wait to try a piece.  

As I sliced the bread, it was perfect.  Not too dry; it didn't crumble as I cut it and not too moist either.  Just the right texture and taste.  It was sweet and delicious.  Bet you wish you had some ;)