Ginormous Zucchini

I find it interesting that blogger thinks ginormous can pass as a word, but thinks Truitt is misspelled.

Interesting.

As a kid we always had a decent size garden.  I remember that sometimes we got punished by picking weeds, or snapping green beans.  I hated that.  And I always remember that we had zucchini that grew to epic proportions.  But I truly do not have one childhood memory of eating zucchini.  My mom would probably beg to differ.

So when my parents took pity on our family and decided to grow a garden for us (and my brother too) I was super excited.  Last week when we went home to visit we were told that they had some zucchini ready for us.

Now we absolutely love zucchini at our house.  Our favorite way is probably to toss it in a pan with some olive oil, onion and garlic with salt and pepper.  Sometimes we add tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.  Yum.

But then we saw the zucchini my mom had for us.  And these were seriously the mother of all zucchinis, over two feet.

There is only one thing to do with a ginormous zucchini, and that is make zucchini bread.  With chocolate chips.  People who make zucchini bread without chocolate chips confuse me.  

Here is the recipe that I used:  (from all recipes, which seems to be the main place I get my recipes off the internet)

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

I left out the nuts because I also think people who put nuts in things like this are strange as well, and added chocolate chips which are not in this recipe.  Just dump in what you think looks like a good amount.  

And then eat that stuff up.

I can just hear Chris wanting me to make lots of these.  This past summer I had to knead and all that jazz Amish Friendship bread for a whole month so I could make and freeze 12 loaves of it.  What a pain in the neck.  At least this recipe doesn't require sitting on my counter for 10 days at a time and daily smooshing.