Zucchini – Gotta Love It- With Chocolate, That is

Gardens are overflowing with zucchini, mine included.  I happen to like Zucchini – I like it in pasta, I like it grilled, I like it with chocolate.  I’m  starting to sound like the Green Eggs and Ham Book!  LOL

Do you like Zucchini?  Or must you disguise it, hidden in chocolate?  Either way this chocolate zucchini bread rocks!  It is moist and chocolate and only the most discerning of palates can tell there is zucchini in there.  There is a good reason it received 4-1/2 stars out of 5 on Allrecipes.com by 500+ reviewers.  So whether you like zucchini or not, go and make this bread … ENJOY!

INGREDIENTS:

2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate 3 eggs 2 cups white sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 2 cups grated zucchini

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9×5 inch loaf pans. In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave chocolate until melted. Stir occasionally until chocolate is smooth.
2.	In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil, grated zucchini, vanilla and chocolate; beat well. Stir in the flour baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
3.	Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean.SOURCE:  Allrecipes.com

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Sage, Bacon and Cheddar Biscuits

What herbs will you be growing this year?  I planted sage last summer, discovered a new love for sage, and will be planting it again.  You cannot even begin to compare fresh sage to dried.  In my opinion, they are worlds apart.  This biscuit recipe is delicious and incorporates fresh sage.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage leaves
• 5 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 5 bacon slices, cooked crisp and chopped
• 3/4 cup grated Cheddar
• 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F. and grease a large baking sheet.

Into a bowl sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Stir in sage and with fingertips blend in butter until mixture resembles meal. Stir in bacon and Cheddar. Add buttermilk and stir until mixture just forms a dough. Gather dough into a ball and on a lightly floured surface knead gently 8 times. Pat out dough into a 6- by 5-inch rectangle. Cut dough into 9 rectangles and arrange about 1 inch apart on baking sheet. Bake biscuits in middle of oven 15 minutes.
Source:  Epicurious.com

Cranberry Orange Nut Bread

This is perfect for a brunch or any time for that matter.  It is not super sweet and quite refreshing after all the sweets that have surfaced this holiday season!  Moist and delicious.  Enjoy!

cRANBERRY ORANGE lOAF  Source:  Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest
• 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
• 1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup orange juice

 Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in orange zest, cranberries, and pecans. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in orange juice. Beat in flour mixture until just moistened. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched. Let stand 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Wrap in plastic when completely cool.

Extreme Banana Nut Bread

I wish bananas didn’t get ripe so quickly.  It’s a catch 22, if they didn’t get ripe so quickly I wouldn’t have made this delicious banana bread; however, if bananas lasted a long time, I might not have to worry about what number the scale showed when I weigh myself.

I had an excess of over-ripe bananas to use up and I discovered this recipe on allrecipes.com.  I’m not quite sure why it is named “Extreme” Banana Nut Bread, except that it is extremely good.  Enjoy!

(Note:  Check the bread after it has been baking approx. 45-50 minutes – mine did not take nearly as long as the recipe indicated.)

Extreme Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups mashed overripe bananas
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9×5 inch loaf pans.
2. Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the butter or margarine and sugar until smooth. Stir in the bananas, eggs, and walnuts until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture, and stir just until blended. Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans.
3. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaves cool in the pans for at least 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack, and cool completely. Wrap in aluminum foil to keep in the moisture. Ideally, refrigerate the loaves for 2 hours or more before serving.

 

Rosemary Garlic Rolls

This “Sweet Roll Dough” is a recipe my mother gave me.  I have such wonderful childhood memories of my mother baking every Saturday morning and helping her.  She taught me to bake and I always looked forward to helping – it was our time together in the kitchen.  Usually when we had “company” for dinner or for the holidays she would bake cloverleaf dinner rolls with this recipe.  I could easily eat 3 or 4 of them, they were that good!  She also made cinnamon rolls as a special treat.  What would we do without our Mothers?  I know I am lucky to have the mother I do – thank you for this favorite recipe for “Sweet Roll Dough” and for all the special memories!

I was making tortellini soup and still had some rosemary in my garden to use up and thought a rosemary garlic roll would be a perfect accompaniment.  This recipe is very versatile and I’ve used it for cloverleaf dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls and now garlic rosemary rolls.

Sweet Roll Dough (Cloverleaf  Dinner Rolls)

Measure into bowl – ½ cup warm water (not hot) add, stirring to dissolve 2 packages of dry yeast.

 Stir in the following:

•  1-1/2 Cup lukewarm milk
• ½ Cup sugar
• 2 Teaspoons salt
• 2 eggs
• ½ Cup shortening
• 7 – 7-1/2 Cups flour

 Mix with spoon until smooth.  Add enough remaining flour to handle easily.  Mix with hands.  Turn onto lightly floured board; knead until smooth and elastic (approximately 10 minutes).  Round up in greased bowl, greased side up.  Cover and let rise in warm place until double (approximately 1-1/2 – 2 hours).

Punch down and round into balls, placing three balls into muffin tins. Cover and let rise until double (approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour).

 Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

For rosemary garlic rolls I followed the recipe above except instead of shaping into balls I rolled the dough into a rectangle and spread a mixture of chopped garlic and rosemary, with softened butter onto the dough.  I then rolled the dough and cut slices to make the rolls and let rise for approximately 1 hour.

The scent that filled the kitchen was heavenly and the taste was divine!  Enjoy!