Tastes Like Vintage: Zucchini Bread 1

Vintage yellow mixing bowl by charliesnest

It’s out there. Lurking. Under the big, densely packed leaves of your zucchini vine it lies unnoticed, growing slowly but surely into the creature known as Zucchini-zilla. You know the specimen, roughly the size of a tee-ball bat and twice as heavy. It’s a little too tough for dinner use, and besides, you probably have a couple dozen smaller zucchinis more appropriate for sauteing or grilling or casseroleing. You have to do something with it, but what? I have two suggestions:

Option One–if you’re fast and stealthy, you can leave it on your neighbor’s doorstep after dark and let it become their blessing and/or curse.

Or, Option Two–you can grate it up and make zucchini bread. If it’s really a zucchini of epic proportions and you have a freezer, you can bake enough zucchini bread to get you through the new year at least.

Vintage graters by SummerHolidayVintage, $12

There are as many zucchini bread recipes as there are zucchini-zillas. This recipe from The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash (Knopf, 1982) is dark and ever so sweet, perfect for fall. Marian Morash was the executive chef for the public television series Julia Child and More Company. Her encyclopedic Victory Garden cookbook is organized by vegetable, offering general marketing and cooking advice as well as recipes both sweet and savory for each one. If you live for your vegetable garden or your farmer’s market, it’s a handy book to have on your shelf.

Lynn’s Spicy Zucchini Bread

Vintage baking bread pan by NimblesNook, $14

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups lightly packed coursely grated zucchini
1 cup raisins (optional)
3/4 cup nuts (optional)

Sift the dry ingredients together. Beat the eggs with the sugar, oil and vanilla. Gradually beat in the dry ingredients. Stir in the zucchini, adding raisins and nuts if you like. Divide between two greased 9×5 inch loaf pans and bake in a preheated 350 degree  oven for 50-60 minutes.