Zucchini Meditation

Zucchini is cheap at farmers’ markets now. Zucchini is your friend. It will never let you down. It loves you no matter what. It would vote for you or your party if it could. It would curl up and cuddle with you if it had anything to cuddle with. Am I confusing this vegetable with your dog or your best friend?

A dog can’t be made into bread, but a friend can eat it. We can all eat it together and be glad. We can all bask in the bad ingredients that make it taste good, like white flour, fat and sugar, and, oh yes, zucchini, the one good ingredient. I don’t stand behind zucchini bread as a healthy food, but I endorse it as a way to use up all the zucchini that awaits us at the farmers’ market. Zucchini bread is easy to make. Zucchini….it’s what’s for lunch. And breakfast. And dinner.

I learned to make zucchini bread a lot of years ago when my daughter, Elizabeth, a.k.a. Libby, came home from her friends’ house with a card with a zucchini recipe on it. Her friends were Leah and Erika, and their mom, Randee, had given the information to Libby. I received it in Libby’s own handwriting as only a kid about eight years old can write it. At least that’s the way I remember it.

Zucchini Bread  (2 loaves)

2 cups sugar                                                                1 teaspoon salt

1 cup cooking oil                                                         1 teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs                                                                          3 teaspoons cinnamon

2 cups chopped zucchini or summer squash              3 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons vanilla extract                                         2 teaspoons baking soda

Beat the eggs. Add sugar and oil and mix until well blended. Add the zucchini.  Stir together the dry ingredients and add them to the first mixture. Mix well. Put it into two medium sized greased and floured loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Use tooth pick test for doneness.

I chop the zucchini in the food processor.