First Zucchini of the Season

Today I had the privilege of picking my first zucchini in two years! Last year between the ground squirrels and hail, I lost all of my garden. So this year, I tried again and I was rewarded today with one zucchini. YAY!

Because I'm in the mood for zucchini, I thought I'd pass along my recipe for gluten free, egg free zucchini bread... and, yes, I do realize that it was only one zucchini. (smile) But, I've already started dreaming of a huge bounty of zucchini, which for now is only a dream. (sigh)

Let me preface the recipe with a little bit of information going into it. I ALWAYS grate and freeze zucchini before I make zucchini bread. I've found that freezing the zucchini breaks down the cell walls. So when I defrost it, I squeeze out as much zucchini juice into a measuring cup as I can and add the necessary "milk" to it to complete the required measurement of liquid.

This does two things for the recipe. 1 - It dries out the zucchini, which if not drained makes the gluten free bread mushy and hard to completely bake. 2 - It lowers my need to add rice milk (more expensive than the already present zucchini juice) to the recipe.

If you find that you have all the zucchini juice needed to replace the milk in the recipe, add 1-2 Tablespoons of additional oil to make the bread moister, as zucchini juice has no fat in it.

Zucchini Bread

1 ½ c. frozen, shredded zucchini, drained

2 c.GF flour + 1 ½ tsp. xanthan gum (or 2 c. flour)

½ c. sugar

1/8 c. brown sugar

¾ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

2 ½ tsp. baking powder

¾ c. milk of choice/zucchini juice

3 Tbsp. oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 ½ tsp. egg replacer + 2 Tbsp. apple sauce (or 1 egg)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 3 mini loaf pans.

Mix the dry ingredients together in one bowl. In a separate bowl, combine milk/zucchini juice, oil, vanilla, egg/replacer (and apple sauce). When both sets are mixed, combine both until well mixed. Gently add the zucchini stirring until moist. You want the mixture to be mixed, but not smooth textured. Pour evenly into the three mini loaf pans. Bake 40-50 minutes. Poke a toothpick in the zucchini bread in several places to make sure that it comes out clean. If not, continue baking. When finished, let cool in pan a few minutes before taking out of pan. Let completely cool on wire rack.

Note: Because this is three mini pans and one kid with allergies, I will freeze the extras to use at a different time.