Hello, friend.
There is something so peaceful about a mid-summers day. The cooling breeze passing wafts of BBQ smoke through the air. The remains of used smoke bombs and sparklers scattered across the ground. Containers of half eaten potato salad and charred hamburgers and hotdogs fill the fridge up to the brim. We replace our red, white, and blues for the coming autumnal season full of yellows, oranges, and browns. This time is year is where we get to chance to breath before venturing into the second half of the year. And just to think the holiday season starts in less than 3 months.
I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July! And if you’re not from America, I hope you had a jolly day nonetheless. The family and I did as little as possible for our 4th of July. The only exciting part of our day was going to a friend’s cookout to watch some fireworks. Our family friends live out in the country, so you can stretch out in a lawn chair and watch multiple township’s fireworks shows at once! Kind of cool I think (makes me miss living in the country). In great food blogging fashion, I brought Mississippi mud pie for the occasion. The glorious culinary invention that is mud pie is essentially a chocolate lover’s paradise. It’s a chocolate Oreo crust, a chocolate cake layer, a chocolate pudding layer, and then whipped cream on top! I am obsessed!! I hope to make it again and write up post about it. #soon
On the blog I have
done a couple of recipes that belonged to my Grandma Crawford, including her Cinnamon-Apple and Butternut Pound Cakes. Today I wanted change things up and share a
recipe from the other side of my family, and more specifically from my Grandma
Cooley’s recipe index. A few weekends ago was Father’s Day. Being that zucchini
is one of Father’s favorite foods, I decided to make a him a loaf! Being that I
had never attempted zucchini bread before I was in high hopes for my first
attempt. Unfortunately hope quickly turned to failure. I used a recipe from a
fairly popular blogger (who I absolutely
love) but after trying a piece I was greatly
disappointed. The bread was sooooo dry. Wat!? The Sahara Desert was like an
ocean in comparison to this dried up, crumbly excuse for bread. Grappling in
the air of defeat, Momma Crawford asked “Why don’t you just make Grandma
Cooley’s zucchini bread recipe?”, to which I replied “I didn’t know she had
one.”
Long story short:
attempt two was a complete success! Grandma Cooley did not let me down *insert
praise emoji hands*. This bread forms a beautifully golden brown crust on the outside and a warm and melt-in-your-,mouth. What I love most about this recipe, besides being how
tasty it is, is how easy it is to make. Just add all the ingredients into a
bowl, combine, bake, and enjoy! Okay, so maybe it’s a biiiiitt more exciting than that, but you get my gist. This recipe
makes two loaves, so you are going to have left overs (which clearly is not a bad thing). I made a few pieces of
French toast out of some pieces and they turned out marvelous. You can serve this
a la mode for afternoon coffee or cube it up and bake it into bread pudding! Ooooh not that sounds good.
Grandma Cooley’s Zucchini Bread
Yields 2 loaves
Ingredients
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup canola oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups zucchini,
peeled and grated
2 teaspoons
vanilla
3 cups all-purpose
flour
1 teaspoon baking
soda
½ teaspoon baking
powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup walnuts, roughly
chopped
Directions
Preheat the oven
to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9x5 loaf pans. In a large mixing bowl
beat the eggs. Add the oil, sugar, zucchini, and vanilla. Cream together until
incorporated. Sift in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and
cinnamon. Stir flour in cream mixtures until well combined. Stir in the
walnuts. Divide the batter in half between the two loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour. Allow
to cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes before removing the loaves from the
pan. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
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