Rustic Zucchini Bread

It's that time of year! Our zucchini plants are valiantly fighting powdery mildew (with a little help from their farmer–did you know that a 1:1 dilution of organic milk sprayed on the leaves after dusk does wonders for this ailment?), and are producing at an astonishing pace. I keep remembering last year when all we got was one armload of zucchini before the plants succumbed to the fungus that we are successfully fighting organically this year!

In any case, with so many zucchini on hand, how could I not make zucchini bread? I found a standard recipe online, which we tried as written first, then made it a tad heartier and healthier with my own variations, including substituing whole wheat flour for half the white, increasing the amount of nuts, and decreasing the amount of sugar. I was expecting the worst, but really it was beautifully moist and very flavorful. Better than the original, if I do say so myself.

Ingredients:

● 2 eggs
● 1 cup sugar
● 2.5 tsp. vanilla
● 3 cups grated fresh zucchini, skin on
● 2/3 cup melted butter
● 2 tsp. baking soda
● 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
● 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
● 1 tsp. nutmeg
● 3 tsp. cinnamon
● 1.25-1.5 cups chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix in the grated zucchini then add melted butter. Sprinkle baking soda over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour, a third at a time (I mixed the two flours together first). Sprinkle in the cinnamon and nutmeg and mix. Fold in the nuts.

2 Divide the batter equally between 2 buttered 5 by 9 inch loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour at 350, or until a wooden pick inserted in to the center comes out clean (check for doneness at 50 minutes). Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks to cool thoroughly.