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.