When your nine-year old begs you to buy zucchini, you know something is going on.
The other day, my family made a pit stop to the local farmer’s market. This market appears once a week, on Saturdays for a few hours, in the parking lot os a local business. The vendors all live in the town and grow or make things in their homes or on their family farms.
We pulled across the street from the market and parked. I hopped out, and my son came with me. Immediately he focused on some fresh green zucchini and asked if he could buy it. A few days later, the family made the following recipe together. It is a recipe of questionable origins. A friend gave it to me and she no longer remembers the source. But it is one of the best zucchini bread recipes I have come across.
This recipe makes two loaves.
INGREDIENTS:
2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated zucchini (about one and a half large or three small zucchini)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two 9×5 inch
loaf pans. In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave chocolate until melted. Do this in 30 second intervals and be careful not to overcook the chocolate. Stir
occasionally until chocolate is smooth.
2. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil, grated zucchini, vanilla and
chocolate; beat well.
3. In another large bowl, combine the flour baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry.
5. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean.