Can You Live on Zucchini Bread?

If you are my son, apparently you can! I made this super yummy chocolate chip zucchini bread yesterday and he ate 5 slices and had another 2 this morning. He was even thinking about taking it to school for lunch. Hold on buddy, what about the rest of us?

I have zucchini everywhere so I've been looking at zucchini recipes all week but I wasn't sure of the reception I would get when they found out there was zucchini in it. We have a bunch from our backyard garden and our neighbor has been sending them over from her garden. Apparently she has radioactive zucchini in her garden because it was three times the size of one of ours. Only half of her zucchini was used for this recipe which made both loaves of bread. Now that's a zucchini!

Yesterday dawned cool and rainy and I know it was the perfect day for me to bake one of my favorite foods from growing up. I've found a great recipe from the Hell Yeah It's Vegan blog http://hellyeahitsvegan.com/vegan-zucchini-bread/. Since the recipe was already vegan I didn't have to convert it too much but I did make a few changes. I cut the nutmeg in half to 1 tsp., changed the type of sugar to a combo on white and brown sugar and used 3 c of all purpose flour. I also used mini-chocolate chips from Enjoy Life instead of the larger ones because I like the mini-chips better and then I chopped the zucchini instead of grating it to hide the "green stuff" better.

This zucchini chocolate chip bread was really "tasty" and the zucchini and flax seeds made it a healthy snack. The top was especially good with the perfect amount of crispness to it. My son actually asked if he could just eat the tops from both loaves. I loved that no only did my son enjoy it but everyone else in the family loved it as well. 

Vegan Zucchini Chocolate Chip Bread (no dairy, eggs, nuts)

Makes: 2 loaves

Ingredients:

6 tbsp ground flax seeds
½ C warm water
1 C light brown sugar
1 C sugar
½ C oil
½ C applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
2 to 2½ c grated zucchini (I chopped ours)
3 C all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 C chocolate chips (I used mini chips) or raisins, optional

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9 x 5 loaf pans. Mix together flax seeds and warm water and let sit for 10 minutes. Add the sugar, oil, applesauce, and vanilla and beat well. Chop (or grate) the zucchini and add to the wet ingredients and stir until combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together the remaining dry ingredients. Add dry mixture to wet and stir until they are mixed well. Add the chocolate chips in then divide the batter between two loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of loaf comes out clean. Let cool a few minutes before slicing.