Zucchini Bread

Tonight, I made some zucchini bread, because baking is the best way to help me relax and I was feeling sort of uptight. Surprise, surprise. I haven't made zucchini bread in a few years, although many times I have bought like six pounds of the squashes and then let them rot in the fridge because I never got around to baking the bread. But I bought the zucchinis this past Saturday at the farmer's market with the sole intention of making bread this week, even if I had to do it at like 3am one night. I have sorely missed my zucchini bread. My recipe is simple, and I am not sure if its from my mom, although I think it must be. However, over the years, I have evolved the recipe to become my own (like, I have added oatmeal to the recipe), and I am still tweaking it. But it is incredibly simple. In fact, I was sort of shocked, because my handwritten recipe card listed all of the ingredients, and the directions were: mix in a bowl and bake at 325ºF for one hour. There was no order to mix the ingredients in or anything. Although, if you have ever baked with me, you know that I never follow the right order anyway. 

The bread is deliciously unadorned, and could be jazzed up with carrots, instead of zucchini, although then you then might want to add raisins and ginger as well. Either way, the addition of some ginger and fresh nutmeg might help elevate it from simple tasting to sublime. Whatever you choose to do, I suggest having a hefty slice for breakfast, with a mug of lemongrass + ginger tea.

The recipe is as follows, and I will give an order to prepare it in so that it sounds more like a real recipe, and not like my usual fly-by-night sort of baking:

Aimee's Zucchini Bread

1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF.

2. Mix 2 cups sugar with 3 (room temperature, if you remember, which I never do) organic eggs, until the mixture is fully combined. Add 1 cup of safflower oil (or other salad oil OR applesauce) to the sugar mixture and mix until creamed. Mix in 2 teaspoons of good quality vanilla. Add in 1 and 1/2 cups of uncooked oatmeal; mix thoroughly. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 2 teaspoons baking powder and 3 cups of flour. Mix until combined, and then add in 3 cups of grated (I suggest using a food processor), raw zucchini. Mix well, so there are not little pockets of flour mixture left at the bottom of the bowl. 

3. Line two loaf pans with parchment paper, length-wise and cross-wise, and then divide the batter evenly between the two pans. 

4. Bake for at least one hour. Depending on your oven, you might need to bake for additional 10 minute intervals past one hour, until a skewer stuck into the middle of the bread comes out cleanly. My bread actually took 1 hour and 30 minutes to bake.