To me, zucchini bread is a comfort food. It's like a plane ticket home in a pan. I remember eating it a lot as a child and have always loved this slightly sweet, spiced bread with crunches of pecan tucked inside. When I went away to college, I remember calling home for just a few recipes -- and my mom's zucchini bread was one of them.
Last week we received several summer squash in our CSA shipment. Since I was home alone for most of the week, I needed a quick and easy way to use up a lot of zucchini. Zucchini bread was a great option. It's super easy and doesn't even require you to plug in a mixer!
Lots of people joke that zucchini bread is a "healthy" snack -- after all, it has vegetables, right?! Of course, no quick bread that I've ever seen is exactly a poster child for nutrition, but my version of zucchini bread does a lot to beef up the nutritional value. I've included the regular version below with notes about how I often adapt it so that I can eat my favorite quick bread with a clearer conscious.
One last thing -- the hardest part of this very easy recipe is grating the zucchini. You can do this in a snap if you have a food processor with a grater attachment. You'll have perfectly grated zucchini in...oh, about 5 seconds. Funny thing is, I actually enjoy grating the zucchini by hand for this recipe. I guess it just adds to the nostalgia...and the healthiness factor, since it gives my arm a nice workout!
One last thing -- the hardest part of this very easy recipe is grating the zucchini. You can do this in a snap if you have a food processor with a grater attachment. You'll have perfectly grated zucchini in...oh, about 5 seconds. Funny thing is, I actually enjoy grating the zucchini by hand for this recipe. I guess it just adds to the nostalgia...and the healthiness factor, since it gives my arm a nice workout!
Here ya go...
