Zucchini bread

What to do when life hands you zucchini. Which it inevitably does, this time of year.

preheat oven to 350F
line two glass loaf pans with parchment

whisk together:
1 1/2 c white flour
1 1/2 c wheat flour
1 T cinnamon
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 3/4 c brown sugar

in a separate bowl, beat together:
1 c vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 T vanilla

Beat wet ingredients into dry. Stir in:
3 c grated zucchini (~3 small or 1 1/2 large zucchini)
1 c chopped walnuts (optional)

Pour into loaf pans. Bake 70 minutes, or until center is dry.

You know that thing that happens where you take the zucchini bread out too soon and you realize only after the fact that it’s way too mushy, and there’s no good way to fix it? Don’t let that happen to you. The relatively low bake temperature and the glass pans are a good insurance plan against burning the loaves, so go ahead and err on the side of letting the loaves linger in the oven.

Waffles

Good ol’ favorite. We’re using an obsolete Villaware. Cook’s Illustrated is now recommending the All-Clad, but it’s crazy expensive.

  • 240g flour (half white, half whole wheat). We use King Arthur. 
  • 20g flax meal
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 3g salt
  • 12 ounces yogurt, milk, cottage cheese, buttermilk or whatever. Usually we use a combination of yogurt and milk.  
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup melted butter

Whisk wet ingredients together, and dry ingredients together, separately; combine and add melted butter at the end. Mix until everything is well-incorporated. Heat up the waffle iron, we use the highest setting on ours. Go. Maple syrup.

 

 

Crepes

We eat crêpes for breakfast. Great with Kozlowski Farms’ Apricot Spread, or with savory fillings like lox and capers.

  • 160g flour: half white, half whole wheat. We use King Arthur. 
  • 15g flax meal
  • 3g salt
  • 8 ounces of milk
  • 2 ounces of water 
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter
  • Circumflexes as appropriate

Whisk dry ingredients together. Whisk water-milk-eggs together in a separate bowl. Combine wet with dry and mix well. Add melted butter at the end. Allow the batter to rest for at least 5 minutes. Butter a crêpe pan or thin skillet, stove temperature moderately high. When the pan is hot, add about an ounce of batter, and tilt pan to distribute evenly. Allow excess to drip back into batter bowl.  Each crêpe takes 10-15 seconds to cook per side, add another 10 seconds of cooking, then slide onto plate.

 

 

Kechlach

Kechlach are addictive onion-poppy crackers of Eastern European origin.

Ingredients for one Batch:

  • 3 beaten eggs
  • 1/2 cup of boiled water
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 2 diced onions
  • 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 4 cups flour (a mixture of white & whole wheat), plus extra flour for rolling out & kneading

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Beat eggs; beat in the hot water; add oil and salt, onions and poppy seeds. Mix well. Then mix in the flour and baking powder until a dough forms. Turn the mixture out onto a well-floured breadboard. Knead for 5 minutes, adding additional flour as necessary until the mixture is smooth and elastic. Roll it out until it is between 1/4 and 3/8 inch (4-7mm) thick; cut into rectangles which are approximately 3×1 inch. Transfer to an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes.

 

 

 

Strawberry Scones

2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/3 cup white flour
2 T flax meal
1/2 t salt
1 T baking powder
4 heaping spoonfuls of sugar
grated zest from 1 lemon

mix all that together well.  cut in:

7 T butter

in a measuring cup, beat together:

1 jumbo egg
milk enough to make 3/4 cup with the egg

beat the egg+milk into the dry ingredients until thoroughly mixed.
take a small handful of dough in one hand, and a small handful of:

chopped fresh strawberries

in the other — press the strawberries into the dough and form a kind of ball/pocket.  Drop onto a buttered baking sheet.  Repeat with rest of dough and strawberries (this recipe used I’d say about 1 cup of chopped strawberries, but whatever — you can also use frozen fruit, other berries, etc. — I was just trying to make use of the quart of berries I had that were too old to be much good for eating straight).  Makes about 6-8 scones.

Bake at 425F for 15-16 minutes.  Glaze (if desired) with:

1 T lemon juice mixed with
4 T powdered sugar