Vegetables in sweets?

A coworker has brought her zucchini bread in on several occasions. I've always enjoyed it, but have never made it myself. Until now--I mean, if I'm going to learn to love vegetables, I should love them in all forms.

Since my coworker likes to brag about her recipe, I decided to find one online to try out. I went to AllRecipes.com, as usual, and found "Mom's Zucchini Bread." After browsing the reviews, I made a few tweaks to the recipe to make it mine.

The recipe calls for 2 cups of zucchini. I had no idea how many zucchinis equal 2 cups, so I bought three. After I began shredding, I realized that 2 - 2.5 zucchinis looked like 2 cups. They also look a lot like chopped cabbage, which was a tad confusing.

After sifting the dry ingredients and mixing them with the wet, I added the shredded zucchini to the tasty pool. The zucchini blended in well, which is good because I don't want people thinking I'm serving them cabbage bread.

Then it was on to the pans to bake. The recipe called for two 8x4 pans, but I'm pretty sure mine were 9x5. I could have measured, but meh.

After about 60 minutes in the oven, the zucchini bread was done! You may notice some sugar on top--I added some raw sugar halfway through the cooking time because that's when I remembered I wanted to add some sugar on top.

Unfortunately for one of the loaves, I forgot to flour the pans in addition to greasing them and there was a slight casualty when moving to the wire rack.

On the plus side, the loaf tearing in two made it easier to justify eating some right away. And it was DELICIOUS. The zucchini bread was incredibly moist and flavorful without being too sweet. One of the great things about this bread is its longevity. It really did taste better the next day, and just as good a day after that. I put the prettier bread in the freezer to serve to visiting family members next month.

I forgot to mention the best part of making zucchini bread--I found something my mother-in-law has never made! My mother-in-law is a wonderful cook and fantastic baker, so it's kind of nice to have made something that my husband can't compare to his mom's version.

Recipe, adapted from Mom's Zucchini Bread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 dash pumpkin pie spice

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3/4 cups brown sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups grated zucchini

Turbinado sugar

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice together in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the wet ingredient mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini until it blends into the batter. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for about 60 minutes. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes, then remove bread from pan to cool on wire rack.