Thursday, September 4, 2008

Reaping the Harvest

More to come on our trip to the south (I just uploaded lots o pics) but when we got back, I was overwhelmed at the bounty in our garden. Mind you, I was gone 3 weeks of August, which is my excuse for not having looked after things more closely. In any case, we now have 50 pumpkins, all kinds of tomatoes, berries, squash, cabbage and lettuce. My bell pepper and artichoke plants died, may they RIP, and somehow, a lot of my onions disappeared? Do rabbits eat onions? That's neither here, nor there at this point, as I was overwhelmed just trying to tame my zucchini monstrosity. The whole neighborhood now has some, and I wanted to share this great recipe with you all:

Blueberry Zucchini Bread (I make 2 large loaves per batch, and they're delectable!)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.
In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.
Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

*I used whole wheat flour, added way more zucchini than called for, and baked the 2 large pans for 1 hr 20min. You can add a coffee cake/streusel-esque topping to them if you want, as well. If you have lots o squash and summer berries like we do, give it a try, you won't be sorry:)

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