Zucchini Olive Oil Cake

I saw this recipe the other day on The Amateur Gourmet and I knew I had to make it. There was precious real estate in the freezer being taken up by some grated zucchini and summer squash and I thought aha! that's what we're doing! So, I did a little tweaking, like omitting the walnuts (as in the original post), using wheat flour, brown sugar (and I scaled it back to 1 1/2 cups--1 cup of oil and 1 3/4 cups sugar?? Of course it's going to be good!! Not that omitting a 1/4 cup is going to save much, but...) and I added some lemon zest. I only used two cups of squash, half grated and the other half pureed, with maybe a quarter of it being summer squash.

So, I am pleased to say that this cake came out spectacularly. Spicy and soft. The original has a lemon glaze that looks so perfect, but I think I'll just keep this plain. That way I won't feel so bad when baby and I have big, fat pieces for afternoon snack.

This was done early in the morning while baby napped, so now we are free to head into New Paltz to eat at the Bistro, then hit an estate sale. Pretty much a great start, wouldn't you say?

Baby's Zucchini Bread

Remember: I will not make it unless it's easy. I am incredibly lazy. So, this bread is my favorite savory quick bread recipe, taken from Mark Bittman's The Minimalist column in the NY Times. He does a lot of great bread articles/recipes that are for the everyday loaf-er. (Sorry!) 

Anyhoo, I take lots of liberties with the recipe, and it's very forgiving. For this particular bread, I just added finely chopped zucchini and golden raisins. The rest of the ingredients are as follows: wheat flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, yogurt. That is it, folks. And in 45 minutes this little number dances out of your oven.