Zucchini Bread

I was recently at a farmer's market in Boulder. I always love going to a farmer's market, but I admit that I am usually a little disappointed in Colorado farmer's markets. They are always a little too heavy on bread and meat, and too light in actual produce. Often there is produce from out of state...a vendor may shout enthusiastically, "fresh from California!" Not exactly the point. This particular one had a fair amount of local produce, including lettuces, green garlic, and zucchini.

I bought an obscene piece of zucchini. It was about a foot and a half long and about three inches in diameter. You could probably cause some serious damage with it if you wanted a weapon. In any case, it was not suitable for small children to see. It was the biggest one in the basket, and the moment I spotted it, I knew it would make at least a double batch of zucchini bread.

I do not like zucchini much on its own. Occasionally in a ratatouille or veggie lasagna, and of course, fried, but that doesn't really count. I once had a fantastic pasta dish made by a friend who had recently gone to Italy. I have no idea what was in it, but it seemed to be only zucchini, olive oil and parmesan cheese. I have tried to replicate it to no avail.

But I make a pretty mean zucchini bread. Some recipes I've found are more like zucchini cake. Cake is nice, but if it's going to feature a vegetable, I'd prefer it to be more healthy than not. I don't feel this way about, say, chocolate cake. You will not find me substituting sweet potatoes into a chocolate cake to up the fiber, or adding wheat germ, or any other "tricks" my health magazines try to see me on. But with zucchini bread, I've felt the need to doctor recipes so that this can be a somewhat healthy snack, especially if I'm going to make 4-6 loaves at a time, which I'm prone to do.

Zucchini is pretty easy to come by during the summer, when it's in season. If you grow it in your garden, you will inevitably have more than you know what to do with. If you have a small garden and don't have space for it, such as I do, then you will probably have a friend or coworker that's looking to get rid of some of theirs.

This recipe is adapted from James Beard's Beard on Bread, which has a lot of delicious, basic bread recipes that you should learn how to make.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs (egg substitute works well if you're a cholesterol-watcher like me)
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups grated, peeled zucchini
3 tsp. vanilla (I forgot to put it in today, which resulted in a more savory bread)
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
1 cup walnuts

Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, oil, applesauce, zucchini, and vanilla and mix. Combine flour, salt, soda, baking powder and cinnamon; add to zucchini mixture. Stir until blended, add nuts, pour into two 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pans. Bake in 350 degree oven for one hour; cool on rack. I spray the pans with nonstick cooking spray and put a rectangle of waxed paper into the bottom, as I've found these loaves prone to sticking. You can also make 2 dozen muffins in lieu of two loaves, or one dozen muffins and one loaf.

This bread freezes exceptionally well. The recipe makes two loaves, so if you double or triple it, you will have a nice supply. I have played with the ratio of oil to applesauce and the flours. Using all whole wheat flour made the loaves heavy and a little dry. My next experiment may be to use equal parts whole wheat and whole wheat pastry flour. I also considered adding a bit of ginger in place of some of the cinnamon, but shied away for today. Next time.

The Saddest Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

First, here is the "picture is worth a thousand words" version of The Saddest Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever:


I should mention a few details as to why I even tried making these. First, chocolate chip cookies are not my favorite. My mom made really great ones when I was growing up, and although the neighbor kids loved them, I liked others. Probably an early indicator that I would one day grow into an obsessive palate was that my favorite cookies were Ghiradelli Chocolate Crinkles. Or snickerdoodles. My mom's cookies really spoiled me. I mean, what kind of 4-year-old does not list chocolate chip cookies as her favorite?

Despite the fact that they are not my favorite, I was craving chocolate chippers, and nothing else would do. So I followed the good ol' Toll House recipe. You can see the disaster. Now, at this point I might have gone to my high altitude cooking guide I downloaded from Whole Foods, which has wonderful, detailed suggestions for altering recipes.

Instead I shunned cookies, and turned to something I've almost never failed at: bread. Baking bread in Denver is a revelation. The altitude and air pressure and dryness combine in a superb way that translates to your bread dough rising in about a half hour as opposed to up to two hours. While this goes somewhat against my slow food, take-your-time tendency, I can't tell you how happy it makes me to throw together a pizza dough when I get home from work on Friday and have it be ready so soon.

Speaking of pizza dough, I've been making it every week, playing with the ratios of white and whole wheat flours. The thing I love about bread is, once you've got the hang of it, you can substitute practically anything and just adjust the amounts by feel. If it's not springy and elastic, you've done something wrong; you just add water and flour until it feels good again. Pizza dough was initially challenging for me; I tried it a few times in San Francisco, but never got the results I wanted.

Enter Alice Waters and her recent bible, The Art of Simple Food. Her pizza dough recipe is the best I've made so far--and, although she calls for an initial 2-hour rise followed by a 1-hour rise, in Denver that translates to a 1-hour rise followed by a half-hour rise. It puffs up wonderfully in the crust but is still chewy--and light. Curiously, it does not call for proofing the yeast with any sugar or honey, which I haven't had success with in the past, but no problems with this one.

If you've never tried your own pizza dough before, this is a good one to start with. It's not too fussy and can be done in a mixer, if you have one. It does take some time, especially if you're not living above 5,000 feet, but it will spoil you off delivery or take-n-bake forever.