Recipe: zucchini bread

Healthy Zucchini Bread

Since I'm trying to take this blog more seriously, and food is a big part of a healthy lifestyle, I am going to post recipes I try out that are successful, and I hope you take the time to try them out if they sound good, and share them or let me know in the comments what you think! I was vegan for a long time (8 or 9 years) and it really influenced my cooking. I was also broke for a long time, which possibly influenced my cooking even more. I got out of the swing of things for a long time, and am trying to get back in the groove. I look for and create recipes that are fun to make, pretty simple, and have a good amount of nutritional value. It's all a learning process for me.

This recipe for healthy zucchini banana bread is a variation on a recipe I found on food.com while searching for a zucchini bread recipe that didn't have too much oil and that utilized applesauce. I changed up a few things, based on the ingredients I like and also had in the house, and replaced the white flour, oil, and sugar. Try it out and let me know what you think! I was very happy with the results, and E. liked it a bunch too.

3/4 cup rice flour

1 cup whole wheat flour (pastry if you got it)

1 cup rolled oats (I use gluten free but you can of course use any kind)

1 2/3 teaspoons baking powder

1 2/3 teaspoons baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon (look for qualify cinnamon, because as an herb it helps break down sugars

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

15 grams Stevia extract - I used Stevia In The Raw, because it was given to me, but the main in gradient is Dextrose, so if you are buying Stevia, look for something with ONLY stevia as the ingredient.

1/4 cup whole yogurt

½ cup applesauce

2 medium bananas, mashed (the riper, the sweeter)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups shredded zucchini (shred first, before mixing ingredients, because dough rises immediately)

½ cup dried cranberries or other dried fruit

½ cup raw sunflowers or other nut

1. Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease two loaf pans (I used coconut oil)
2. In large bowl, mix flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt
3. In smaller bowl, beat eggs
4. To eggs, add stevia, oil, yogurt, applesauce, bananas
5. Add vanilla to wet mixture
6. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and mix until “just mixed”
7. Add zucchini, fruit, and nuts
8. Pour batter into two prepared loaf pans and bake approximately 50 minutes, until brown on sides and cooked through the center. Check center with toothpick or fork to make sure it's cooked through.
9. Cool on cooling rack and serve warm with Earth Balance, or as is.

This bread is sweet, flavorful, and packs a nutritional punch! As alternatives, you can switch out the oil and yogurt for ground flax seeds, and substitute the eggs with your egg replacer of choice. I imagine these would still hold a bind, with the bananas and applesauce already in the recipe, but traditional egg replacer would certainly work.

I'm no food photographer, and this is all that's left of the first loaf, so that should tell you something.

Oh, I'm Really Thriving Here

I received some great scores in the mail the other day. I ordered them and expected them to arrive, but it was still nice to come downstairs and see a box waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I went on a bit of a splurge, prompted by some sales and coupons, and bought Vega One bars in chocolate cherry and chocolate-chocolate, as well as a container of the Vega One shake powder. I apparently went elbow deep in that website because I forgot I had also ordered a copy of Brendan Brazier's nutrition/recipe book, Thrive Foods.

I've started reading the book and am pretty stoked so far. It falls somewhere between a cookbook, nutrition book, and self help book, but in a way that doesn't feel too put on. So far, a lot of what I've read isn't anything that's shattered my world view, but it does put some hard facts and figures to things I had only felt before but no doctor or other specialist was really able or willing to validate. The recipes are all vegan and allergen free, which is a wonderful relief from the other vegan cookbooks I have, which rely heavily on soy and gluten which upset my stomach, and cause headaches and inflammation. E. has also been reading it, so hopefully he'll be on board with taking it to heart and it will be a lot easier to move in a healthy and positive direction (if we can afford it….I did just quit my job, after all).

I also brought along a Vega bar on my bike ride today to hang posters in some farther reaching neighborhoods, and it helped to tide me over until I got home, so I didn't buy any food while on the road, and I also maintained my nutrition which helped me 1) make a healthy dinner of zucchini, eggplant, and tomato sauce once I came home (based on a recipe from the book), and 2) eat Ben and Jerry's from the container with a reckless irony not lost on me.

However, prior to receiving my scores, I did make some healthy zucchini bread which does not fall in line with Brendan Brazier's rules for Thriving. But I'll post the recipe next in case anyone would like to try.

In the woods, I feel safe, no one cares about my ways

Went on a mountain bike ride with E. this afternoon. Wow, who tore up the trails in Frick? All roots and no time. I think I need to head to Hartwood or North Park this weekend (or next week) to get my groove back. On the brighter side, it was good preparation for my Great Divide ride, but all things considered I doubt there are going to be too many similar riding situations. On the bigger scale, it raises to question our responsibility as riders to trail stewardship and the need to volunteer to fix the trails and keep these roots from being too exposed. Not only does it take some flow from the ride, it also can cause damage to the trees. If they are Japanese sugar maples, then no big deal I suppose since those are an invasive species, but I'm fairly confident a lot of the trees being dug up are native to this soil and we'd like to have them around. I guess this is my way of saying you can call me out to volunteer the next time you hear of a trail stewardship day happening in Frick Park.

In other news, however, we did see a young 6-pointer, fuzz still on his little whipper snapper antlers. Neither of us got a photo, but it was nice to just have a quiet moment on the trail, making eye contact with an animal some consider to be pests, but after almost 8 years living here, and having them in my back yard, I still consider to be beautiful and graceful creatures entitled to their own space and quietude.

Finally, here's a little confession: I assume we all see things. I see people stepping out into the highway when I'm driving at night, the faces of dead friends constantly haunt me in the otherwise empty stares of strangers, and I also see pull-up bars in just about every doorway or passage, whether or not there's one there. I love pull-up bars, and especially the ones in doorways. I also love doorways that don't have bars, but are just meaty enough to grab on and pull. It's not that I can do 50 pull-ups or anything, I think I just appreciate and try to emulate the idea that fitness is all around us, the ability to use our strengths and maintain our muscles. Our bar, for instance, is in between the living room and the kitchen. Sure, a lot of the time we just walk underneath it. But I also spend conversations simultaneously reaching for that additional chin-touch, or try to bang one or two out while also sneaking in an extra piece of chocolate. Why should fitness and leisure be mutually exclusive? So few things in life reasonably are.

Big Plans Ahead, or: The Paths of Most Resistance

So, since I quit my job, life has ramped up to take its place! I went to Raystown Lake a couple weekends ago with a large group of friends. We spent the weekend mainly mountain biking, but also swimming, rafting, and some folks took kayaks out. We also of course ate and drank and stayed up late singing songs by the campfire. It was Meghan's first time riding single track since knee surgery, and it was great to get back on the bike with her. She also totally shreds when she isn't in recovery, and we rode around the rock garden for a while. She nailed it after a few tries, but I road it only a couple times and then called it quits while she tried it a few more times. This is probably why she's a better mountain biker than I am. I run over the things that scare me, while she tries them again and again until she can do it.

The weather was great, except for the last night when it started raining around 4 a.m. Luckily, this was also my and E.'s first test trip of our adventuremobile, Nelson Vandela. It wasn't a great build and there are a lot of changes we plan to make before we take it on a longer voyage, but it certainly did the job of carting us to our camping spot, along with all our food and gear, stashing our two bikes, and also providing a comfy bed. We were protected from both bugs and rain, and I'm very excited for all the trips the three of us (and maybe four, once Major Tom finally decides he is content to just hang out at the camp site rather than run off into the woods) will have in the future months and years.

That piece of plywood folds down to become a bed, and tucked behind it are crates full of all our goodies. One of the bikes has a fork mount for the van, but we're still waiting for the other.

Otherwise, I've been working a lot hanging posters, which requires a lot of walking with a heavy pack full of paper, and riding around Pittsburgh to hang them in various neighborhoods. I'm excited for the job, and the mountain bike trip because of a few big plans I have lined up:

1) 2015 I'm walking up the Newfoundland portion of the TransCanada trail from St. John to Terra Nova National Park with other vivacious women writers. It's a long hike - I think it's going to be roughly 200km (roughly 125 miles) so while I'm in shape, I need to be in shape enough to carry my pack and walk for long days without my back flaring up (a genuine concern).

2) in 2016 Meghan and I will be riding our bikes down the Continental Divide. According to that Adventure Cycling write up, which is very helpful, we should ask another person or two to ride with us. Luckily we have 2 years to plan for all of that, but I also need to start riding my bike and training for  a 3,000 mile bike ride.

My kickboxing gym is running their contest again for 45 days of butt kicking, and I'm not sure if I'm in or not yet. You have to show up an average of 2 times per week, take pictures and do a weigh in at the beginning and end of the 45 days. It might be a way to get my ass in gear, literally, but I'm also very busy for someone who just quit her job.

Anyway, those are the reasons why I started up this blog again - we'll see how things go and if I end up breaking some other part of my body (pretty likely to happen, let's be honest here).

I'm Back, Back in the New Work(out) Groove

In my defense, I was at the chiropractor a lot, and then a physical therapist, and a doctor, and dislocated my shoulder, and went on some vacations. I was also trying out this empowering new attitude of loving thy self, for all thine flaws. Since I'm practically perfect in every way (PPEW), I had to create some flaws (lol) so I stopped exercising and got kind of a belly again and tried to stop focusing on fitness so much, and for the sake of my body working in the long term, tried to focus less on physical challenges and more on appreciating the gentler side of things. I did go hiking in New Mexico in October and then again in April/May, climbing mountains and enjoying fresh air and the feeling that one's body can do both everything and nothing.

I should have blogged then, but I was convinced it would turn my trip into a travel excursion, turning this place I love and dream of nightly into just another destination, just another place to conquer, like a mountain itself.

I probably gained some weight and it didn't bother me. Then I was stressed out and probably lost some weight and it didn't bother me either, though I was concerned about the stress. I quit my job. I went to Rhode Island where I walked around Providence searching for a magazine I'm now convinced doesn't actually exist. I'm freelancing and hanging posters for a living, and will hopefully get to the gym every day that I don't go mountain biking, and hopefully I'm not in the gym too regularly.

I went riding in Frick Park yesterday and for having been away from my mountain bike for a month, I handled the switchback better than I ever have, and I rode up some steep ascents I previously couldn't clear (and rode down some as well).

I think a lot when I'm riding trails how mountain biking teaches me so much about myself, which is why I think I need to ride more. I'm going to put it all down soon, once I can collect all the data. But a big thing I remembered is the need to look ahead, to do so with only limited fear, and to trust myself as I continue forward. To look where I want to be, rather than where I feel I am, or where I fear I'm headed. So all those switchbacks I cleared, I finally decided that, just like in life, I need to look at the point at the end of the curve, where I will end up after I succeed, and trust that if I keep upright, I'll make it.

I received a fairly nasty letter from an editor last week that I keep harping on with friends, trying to figure out where I went wrong. I think I know the answer now, but the main point is that I keep moving, keep looking beyond the curve, keep pedaling and focus on the clearance at the top of the climb.  It's important to know why we dab our feet, why we get suddenly knocked off the trail (which also happened, and which - just like the letter from the editor - is fine and I'm no worse for the wear), but we can't keep looking at that spot, and we can ruminate over where we are on the trail now, or else we'll never be able to move forward with momentum.