Testing zucchini breads because I am a fishing widow

As I am a fishing widow this weekend (it's the walleye opener and Travis went up north to fish with some buddies), I decided I would be extremely domestic this evening and bake some zucchini bread. Now zucchini bread is a longtime favorite of the Schmid family, and Grandma Darlene's recipe is pretty much the bomb. However, tonight I decided I would make the original recipe and then a few variations on it. Grandma's recipe makes some extremely unhealthy (but absolutely delicious!) bread as it calls for an entire cup of oil, and two cups of sugar. Whoa.

My arteries are clogging just thinking about it. And my mouth is watering. :)

The variations I baked tonight include a cinnamon-free variety (Amanda is allergic to cinnamon) that includes the oil and sugar, an oil-free recipe (substituting applesauce for oil) that includes the sugar, and an oil-free (applesauce) and sugar-free (using Splenda instead) recipe. They're not all quite out of the oven yet - this was a full evening event. By the way, it does indeed mean that I made 15 loaves of zucchini bread so there is plenty for everyone!

Want to see what five medium zucchinis shreds into? Check out this picture. That's a little less than eight cups. To make zucchini bread, you essentially have two processes going on. You mix up the shredded zucchini with flour, and in a separate bowl, you mix up oil, sugar, eggs, baking soda and powder, salt, cinnamon and vanilla. Once the two things are mixed separately, you mix them together, and then you have dough.

You bake the dough for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees, and then you end up with delicious and wonderful zucchini bread. You could also make this dough into muffins - that works wonderfully. I've made bars from it as well. My favorite remains the bread...it reminds me of Grandma.

I'll be bringing some of these loaves into work and to my family to test out what is best. I know my mom will appreciate some tasty zucchini bread for Mother's Day this weekend!

Let me know if you want to be a taste tester - I've got 15 loaves to work through here!! :)

What other things should a fishing widow do? I have Mass a few times this weekend (I'm cantoring twice), and we have Mother's Day dinner tomorrow night at Axel's...mmmm. I'll definitely do some laundry, and I should clean my house. I might also start reading the Septimus Heap novels - they are sort of like Harry Potter, but not as good. I'll give them a shot.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great weekend as well!

-SKH