Trying Zucchini Bread for the First Time

We at A Book of Cookrye, having only just had zucchini for the first time, decided to try something we've wondered about for a long, long time.

Zucchini Bread ½ c butter 1 c sugar 2 eggs 2 good-sized zucchinis 2 c flour 1 tsp baking soda Dash of salt Cinnamon Nutmeg Heat oven to 350°. Grease a loaf or 9x13 pan. Grate the zucchinis, shove them through a grinder, or put them in a food processor (don't thoroughly liquefy them). It should be about one cup of zucchini pulp*. Mix butter and sugar. Stir in the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda. Beat in the eggs, then add the zucchinis and mix well. Lastly, mix in the flour. Pour into the pan and bake. A loaf pan will take about 40-50 minutes, a 9x13 pan will be done in 20 or so. *You needn't peel the zucchinis unless having green flecks in zucchini bread bothers you. Note: You can use lemon extract instead of spices.

Yes indeed, we're making zucchini bread! This is territory we've long avoided. You see, my mother's massive Betty Crocker book lists banana bread (which we make a lot) as a one-sentence variation under the zucchini bread recipe. We often shuddered at the thought of making bread of zucchinis (which we always thought were cucumbers that taste wrong), yet had to stare at the zucchini bread recipe every time we made banana bread.

Now that we were finally going there, this was a very confusing experience. The recipe seems like a dessert, but it felt like we were doing a Thanksgiving squash casserole.

I feel a deep-seated urge to microwave these with butter then bake them with bread crumbs on top.

Adding to the disorienting experience, it turns out the microwave is home to a vampire.

We hope it sucked the calories out.

Aside from the zucchini bowl lurking to the side, this started off quite normally. We had to close our eyes while taking what looked like a really good cake and dumping this on it.

It's too late to turn back...

On sight, it resembled a casserole that involves multiple cans of undiluted cream of mushroom soup. The smell was... oddly mixed up like anything that doesn't know whether it's casserole or dessert. We had to seek reassurance at this point. One of our friends was downstairs and she promised us that she'd had zucchini muffins before and they were good.

The reassurance wore thin when the zucchini bread proved oddly flexible.

We tried it and... it's actually good! Who knew? We shared it with everyone downstairs. A few people got seconds and thirds, one person thought it tasted like cornbread, but I think the best explanation for this was "It's like pumpkin bread, but with zucchini!"

It's so... green...