I love variety in my life, in my cooking and in my music tastes. There are however, a few genres that I avoid and have never gotten into. One of them is Country. So when I first listened to Lucinda William’s Blessed, where I could certainly hear some of the Country twang, my gut reaction was to put the vinyl back down and walk away. I also enjoy the challenges of things outside of my comfort zone. Plus, honestly, Lucinda is not as Country as I could go. I know this! The wonders that is Wikipedia classifies her as rock, folk, blues and country. I really enjoy this album. The first song, Buttercup, get stuck in my head at least every other day. Plus while I baking the zucchini bread, I was feeling as if I was baking down south in North Carolina (where I went to college) instead of in the PNW. Isn’t it fabulous that music can transport us like that? Food and music always have the ability to make it feel as if our surroundings were entirely changed and we had the supernatural ability to transport from place to place. Trust me, baking this bread while listening to Blessed will change your afternoon and improve your mindset. I think we will all be more Blessed because of it.
Vinyl: Lucinda Williams – Blessed
Summer Zucchini Bread
Prep Time – 15 minutes
Cook Time – 60 minutes
Total Time – 75 minutes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup avocado oil
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup non fat plain Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 2 cups shredded zucchini
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking power
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup of whole walnuts
Instructions
- Turn your oven to 350 degrees F to preheat. Grease and flour a bread loaf pan. (average size 9 x 5 inches).
- Whisk the avocado oil, sugar, egg, Greek yogurt and vanilla extract together until well mixed. Add in the shredded zucchini. In a larger bowl, mix the flours, baking power, baking soda and salt together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mix until just combined. Fold in the walnuts. Pour into the bread loaf pan.
- Bake in the oven for one hour. Check consistency with a butter knife or toothpick. If they come out clean, the bread is done. Otherwise place it back into the oven and check every 10 minutes.
Notes
I call this Summer Zucchini bread because this is a much healthier zucchini bread than most recipes! The avocado oil provides a healthy source of fat, the zucchini to bread ratio has been doubled and the walnuts add protein and Omega 3 fatty acids. If you like your bread sweeter, add an extra 1/4 cup of sugar.
Summer is a great time for this bread because most gardens, CSA boxes and farmers markets are overflowing with zucchini. I remember in Michigan that a zucchini would be normal sized and two days later, look the size of a baseball bat!
If you’d like to cut down the baking time, these may be made into muffins.