Gad-Zukes!

Anyone who has a vegetable garden inevitably grows Zucchini at least once. I grow it every year. One plant yields a few squash every week. I looked away for a few minutes, and was greeted yesterday by a large one. About nine inches. We normally eat them when they're 4 inches long or less. I don't like them 'alone' when they're that big. So, when faced with a large one, there's always the option of Zucchini Bread.

My mother-in-law, Carol, gave me two family recipe compilations when I joined the family. One of these is a Christmas Cookie book. The other is a blue loose leaf binder, into which she had affixed some of the Bell family favorites. The recipes were painstakingly typed onto loose leaf binder paper.

Along the way, she noted my interest in vegetable gardening, and accordingly, my prolific zucchini harvest. So she gave me several Zucchini recipes, which I added to the binder.

This is one of them:

Zucchini Bread With Dates ("Good", she notes, in pen, on the upper left margin)
My changes are in italics to the right of the ingredients.

3 eggs
1 c. oil (I used only 3/4 cup peanut oil. it worked well. less fat.)
1 tsp vanilla
3 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda1 tsp. cinnamon (I used 1 1/2 tsp.) 2 c. grated peeled zucchinni
2 c sugar (I used 1 cup sugar and 1 cup Splenda artificial sugar.)
1/2 tsp. baking powder (omitted)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. walnuts (I used 3/4 cup grated coconut instead of nuts.)
1/2 c. dates (I put in 3/4 cup.)
Directions:

Beat eggs until light and foamy. Add sugar, oil, zucchini and vanilla. Mix lightly.

Add flour, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon. (Recipe says to mix these separately then add, but I just dumped them in.)

Blend. Add nuts (coconut) and dates.

Pour into two greased and floured (I omitted the flour - no sticking, no problems) bread pans.

Bake in preheated 325 F degree oven about 1 hour. (I baked 55 minutes.)

Can be frozen. (I froze one loaf. The other is almost gone. It may not last 24 hours here at the Bell house!)