Bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers from our garden:



and the second zucchini bread I've made. We're getting so many zucchini I can't keep up with it all.

Recipe: Brown Sugar Zucchini Bread
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup packed light or dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3 large eggs
¾ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium zucchini)
Turbinado sugar or other crystallized brown sugar, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
Stir the flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large mixing bowl. When cominbed, mix in the oats. Make a well in the center of the ingredients. Whisk the eggs, oil, and vanilla together in a small bowl and pour the mixture into the well. Combine lightly, then stir in the zucchini. Do not overmix.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, mounding it up in the center. Sprinkle with the turbinado sugar if you wish. Bake for 60 or 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack covered with a clean dish towel to prevent indentations. Let the bread cool at least 10 minutes longer before slicing. The bread can be served warm or at room temperature. It keeps well and makes good toast, too.

Variation: Brown-Sugar Carrot Bread

Replace the zucchini with 2 cups grated carrot. Because the carrots are a little starchier, reduce the oats to ¾ cup.

notes to recipe: This time around I used a cup of whole wheat flour and a cup of white flour. I swear, using the whole wheat made such a difference--the bread is so much heartier and delicious. I didn't do the Turbinado sugar-thing.

The first time I substituted the oil with applesauce, but I didn't this time around--I used oil--but only about ½ a cup

For future reference, it is good to know that the applesauce works fine as a substitution for the oil.

***************
I don't like to eat my vegetables too altered from their natural state so making this bread wasn't because I don't like zucchini, I do--in fact, I usually just slice it, boil it up and put butter on it--it's just that we're getting so many of them at once and this makes good use of it. I have a slice every morning for breakfast.

I have a zucchini casserole idea from a woman I work with--may try it out!

Dinner last night was salmon and fried up bell peppers in olive oil--and of course, a delicious salad of tomatoes and cukes--very good, I must say.

**Oh, and in case you're dying to know, the back and front are now knitted up to the Gypsy pullover. Tonight, after dealing with this made-in-China-fiasco, I will begin the shoulder-seaming and pick up stitches to begin a sleeve.**

Labels: cooking/baking, life in the BerryKnitty household