Quick Bread from the Garden?!

Zucchini...you either love it or hate it and I have one child who hates it...no matter how I prepare zucchini, it won't be eaten EXCEPT when I make Zucchini Bread.  When I made this recipe for the first time, I told the kids it was cinnamon bread.  Once they were hooked, I revealed that it was actually zucchini bread, but by then they really didn't care! I received 3 large zucchinis from my CSA this week, so it was time to grate some and create this wonderful bread.

As I think back to where I got this recipe, I realize that it came from one of my mother's co-workers from back in the early '80s.  My mom went back to work when I was in middle school in a small, 3 person office and Ruth was her office mate. As my siblings will agree, my mother was not much of a cook and Ruth was a GREAT cook. My mother's culinary skills never became gourmet, but she did expand her repertoire with the help of her friend Ruth.  Ruth also had a huge garden and, yes, we got lots of zucchini from her.  I still make a lot of her recipes, everything from this great bread to main dish stews and desserts.

This recipe is decidedly NOT low calorie.  I had a lot of zucchini so I actually quintupled the recipe(5x).  As I was making it and started figuring the oil and the sugar, I decided I just couldn't put 5 cups of oil AND 5 cups of sugar in anything! I cut the oil and sugar to 4 cups each.  The finished product is a bit drier than the original, but the sugar isn't missed and overall it is still a moist, tender loaf.  If you do decide to make as large a quantity, I would add a little more cinnamon and nutmeg, the spices did seem a bit weak. Another note, cooking this much bread takes time...I ended up with 8 mini-loaves and 24 muffins.  I only have a small, single oven and each batch of 4 mini-loaves took 50 minutes and each batch of 12 mufins took 20-25.  I had planned on cooking all day, so it wasn't an issue, but the baking time was significant. I have frozen 7 mini-loaves and 12 muffins...stocking the freezer for the months to come.

Ingredients

• 3 c flour
• 2 c grated zucchini
• 1 c oil
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 3 t vanilla
• 1 t cinnamon
• 3/4 t nutmeg

Preparation

Mix dry ingredients. Beat Zucchini with eggs, add oil and vanilla. Mix together wet and dry ingredients. Grease pans. Bake at 350° F for 1 hour for regular loaf pans, 50 minutes for mini-loaf pans and 20-25 minutes for muffins. Test with a toothpick, if the toothpick comes out clean, the bread is cooked. This bread freezes well.