Zucchini and More Zucchini

I mentioned in previous posts that we have zucchini the size of footballs growing in our little garden. I threw a couple of huge ones away, thinking they wouldn’t be good. Then yesterday we were at the Madison County Farmer’s Market, and I saw…yep…HUGE zucchinis for sale. I asked the farmer if they were good when they were that large (like I thought he would say no?), and he assured me they are. So, I decided I’d try using the huge ones to make bread.
It wasn’t hard to find a huge one out there.

This is the ingredient list I used:

INGREDIENTS
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 c. whole wheat, 2 c. white)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil (or 1 c. applesauce, 1 c. oil)
• 2 cups white sugar (or 1 c. white, 1 c. brown)
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. I used my pure vanilla that I got in Mexico last week. You can’t beat pure vanilla.

Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well.

Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. I suggest leaving it in as close to the max as possible without it burning, at least 50 - 55 minutes if possible. It’s very, very moist, and might be a bit too moist at 40 minutes. In my oven 50 min was good.

Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

The one zucchini made these 2 loaves, and I had about 1/4 of it leftover. About 40 more loaves, and maybe I can use up the large ones I have left.