I freaking love zucchini bread, even if it is healthy zucchini bread. Which is sort of weird, since I don’t really like zucchini. But when this time of year rolls around and the grocery store/farmer’s market starts selling them 3 for a $1 I find myself with a whole fridge full. Last year I did a bit of incredibly rare planning ahead and shredded up half a dozen zucchinis, popped then in the freezer and then made bread all fall whenever the urge hit.

When I posted about our lack of healthy food choices I got a TON of great suggestions, including one from my friend Ernie Bufflo who said healthy baked goods like zucchini bread were the only “junk” food she kept in the house. Which seems like an excellent idea on the surface, except that even zucchini bread is bad for you if you eat the entire loaf in one sitting.

So I set off across the internet to find a recipe for healthy zucchini bread. But because I am NOT willing to sacrifice the tastiness of actual bread for whatever the totally vegan, gluten-free, no-calorie sweetener, enriched with twigs and sticks option is, it’s not truly healthy. We’ll call it healthier.

Suzanne’s Healthy (er) Zucchini Bread
(I started with this recipe but used several commenter’s suggestions as well as my own adaptations)

Please ignore the ridiculously large bag of baking soda. I read a list of like 1,001 things to do with baking soda and planned to clean the whole house or make my own tooth paste or cure cancer with it or something. So far, I’ve used 2 tablespoons for baking.

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons vanilla
2-3 cups zucchini, grated (2 medium sized zucchini)
1 1/2 cup white flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Raw sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl & mix until smooth. Stir in zucchini. Add remaining ingredients to bowl and stir stir stir.

Go ahead and stick your finger in it. You know you want to. Just remember the raw eggs and don’t complain to me if you end up puking out your eyeballs. That was a stupid thing to say in the middle of a recipe.

Pour into muffin tins or loaf pans that you’ve sprayed with non-stick spray. Add the SUPER SECRET INGREDIENT: Sprinkle the top(s) with a little raw sugar*. When doling out the batter, remember it rises but not an enormous amount so don’t skimp on filling them up. For loafs, bake at 350 for 60 minutes. For muffins, 350 for 25 minutes.

Get in my face

See the sugar on top? SO GOOD.

With a little *real* butter it’s a fantastic breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.

I’m not going to lie, using whole wheat flour instead of all white changes the texture a little, but not so much I would know if I didn’t know. Y’know what I mean? You could also get away with using a little less sugar – maybe 1 1/2 cups white plus the brown – but you might want to add a bit more flour to keep them from getting to liquidy. Overall I am deliciously pleased with these. Any baked good that contains both a fruit and a vegetable counts as health food in this house!

*Super Secret Ingredient:

I buy it in the little packets so I can toss some in my tea. I only used 2 packets for all 27 muffins.

When Baby Evan was just a couple months old, my little sister Carolyn came to visit. She wanted a chance to meet her only nephew before moving to Africa for two years, since it’s not exactly a place you just fly home on the weekends from. I would like to tell you her visit was lovely, full of hugs and laughter and hair-braiding but honestly, I was still in that oh-my-God-I-just-had-a-baby-and-I’m-never-sleeping-again stage of new motherhood and I barely remember it. I’m sure it WAS really fun though. Since we got past the stage of hating each other we have a lot more in common than you’d expect a homebody Navy housewife mom and a traveling Peace Corp volunteer artist to have. Starting with we both love Arrested Development and dessert. Although most of the visit is a blur the part that is CRYSTAL CLEAR is the apple tart she made. I think we ate the entire thing between us before it was even cool. But, hey, I was nursing 24/7 and she was about to leave for a place without ovens. Or indoor plumbing.

Of course I wouldn’t let her leave the continent without giving me the recipe, but in true free-spirit fashion, she wrote it in some sort of crazy shorthand on the back of a Gerber onesies cardboard insert. No, seriously:

To make things a little easier on myself, I got my Google on and tracked down what I think is the original recipe which provides useful information such as what exactly do I DO with the apples and the apricot jam? Although first I had to figure out what “fraugipani” was. Turns out it’s bad-handwriting for “frangipagne”, which is a kind of almond filling.

Are you getting hungry yet? I bet you are. And I haven’t even told you Carolyn spent a semester in France so she knows good pastry. Ready for the recipe? Allons!

Pastry:
1 1/3 cup flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg yolk
3 Tbsp cold water

Mix the flour and salt, then add in the butter and egg yolk.

Oh those French and their love of butter.

Stir it together with a fork and then add the water a little at a time until you can press the dough together. If it’s still too dry, add a little more water.

My pastry took exactly the 3 Tbsp called for to look like this.

Wrap the ball of pastry in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Remember, it has raw egg in it. Not that it's ever stopped me, but at least CONSIDER not eating it.

Frangipane filling

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp apple brandy (or whatever kind of liquor you have laying around)
2/3 c ground almonds*
2 Tbsp flour

Topping
2 – 4 apples (I used Braeburns)
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup apricot jam (or whatever you have in the panty)

Cream the butter and sugar, then add in the eggs.

I guess you could use a mixer, but it goes pretty fast by hand.

Dump in the brandy Kahlua and mix well. Combine the almonds and flour in a separate bowl, then add it to the wet ingredients.

The only thing in my liquor cabinet that seemed like a good substitute.

I suppose I could have used vanilla or almond extract instead. Oh well.

Roll out your chilled pastry crust so it fits in a tart pan or a pie plate. Fold up and flute the edges so it looks pretty.

Shockingly, I don't have a tart-specific dish, so this is just a 9 inch pie plate.

Preheat the over to 400 degrees.

Spoon the filling into the crust evenly.

The filling gets puffier while it bakes, so don't worry if it looks a little empty.

Peel, core and slice the apples into thin wedges. Arrange them super fancy and all artistic-like over the filling, pressing down firmly. Or if you’re just going to eat the whole tart yourself, just throw them on there.

This is just two apples, not the 4 my sister called for, since they were on the large size.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temp to 350 degrees.Bake for 10 more minutes, sprinkle the tart with sugar and bake another 10 minutes.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

While the tart is still warm, brush the apricot jam over it so it gets nice and melty.

You could water down the jam a little so it spreads without messing up your pretty apples.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or just eat it strait from the pie plate before anyone else can get their grubby hands on your tart. I’m taking mine to knitting group tonight so I don’t snarf the whole thing down myself. Although they won’t get to see it looking this pretty since there’s going to be a piece missing.

*A note about the ground almonds. I was going to just use almond flour but I couldn’t find any at my local Stop & Shop, so I used my handy-dandy mini-Cuisinart to just grind them up myself. Several other versions of this recipe call for marzipan instead, which would be an easy alternative.

Absolutely the BEST kitchen appliance ever.

I’m going crazy cleaning and finishing all the decorations for Baby Evan’s 1st birthday next weekend so I’m a little lacking in the creative department right now. Although I have no aspirations to be the ACTUAL Pioneer Woman, this is my attempt at a PW style recipe post, hence the eighty bazillion pictures. Please to enjoy.

Like I’ve said before (just this week actually) I am not a very good cook. I am, however, a more than decent baker. In fact, I once won first prize at the Ledyard Town Fair for my two crust apple pie and went on to do fairly well in the state-wide competition. Considering I was the only entrant under the age of 50 I’m just pleased I wasn’t last. It helped that I lived in an honest to God apple orchard at the time. Being able to bake with fruit that was still growing just minutes before I peeled it definitely gave me the motivation to really perfect my pie.

Since a regular old two-crust is old news, I’m always on the look out for new apple pie recipes. I recently heard about buttermilk pies and was intrigued. I’ve never been exactly sure what buttermilk is (sour milk? unfinished yogurt?) or what it’s for (biscuits? pancakes?) but when I found this recipe that claimed it turned into CUSTARD I knew I had to try it. CUSTARD is one of the top three things I absolutely cannot resist in a dessert, along with meringue and lemon curd. Oh and graham cracker crusts. Or key limes. And marzipan. Ok, I just REALLY like dessert. But this pie is special. Really special. From the pastry crust to the sugar topping it is delicious and sweet and tart and creamy and SO GOOD I almost divorced my husband when he tried to eat the last piece without sharing.

I highly recommend this pie. Or you could just invite yourself over for dinner and I’ll make it for you.

Apple-Buttermilk Custard Pie
Adapted from Cooking Light (and when I say adapted, I mean I made it a lot less “light”)

Crust*
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
4-5 tablespoons ice cold water

Throw the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Toss in the shortening too and then mash it up with a fork until it’s in little pieces. Don’t mix it TOO well, since the little pieces of shortening in the crust is what makes it flaky. Add cold water about a tablespoon at a time until the dough is sticky enough to hold together. Do most of your mixing with the fork but make sure you test it by squishing it together with your hands or you’ll end up adding too much water.

Sometimes I just make pie crust and eat it without baking a pie. I know it's weird.

Streusel Topping:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons chilled butter

Filling:
5 cups sliced peeled apples**
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup granulates sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups buttermilk***
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Roll out the dough large enough to fit in a 9-inch deep dish**** pie plate. Try not to handle the crust any more than you have to, the less touching you do the better it ends up.

I got this Roulpat mat just this week and it made my pie crust sooooo much easier to roll out. I didn't have to add any extra flour to keep it from sticking so the crust was super flaky.

Fold over the edges and pinch them to make a fluted edge.

I once bought a fancy fluted edge maker. It was crappy. Just use your fingers.

To prepare the streusel, lightly spoon 1/3 cup flour into a measuring cup. Combine the flour, brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a fork (or pastry blender, if you’re fancy) until mixture is all mealy. Put it in the fridge.

Try to resist eating all the sugar-butter right out of the bowl.

Preheat over to 325 degrees.

To prepare the filling, heat a large skillet to medium heat and throw in the butter. Add sliced apple, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Cook for about 10 minutes, or until apples are tender.

My apples are sliced into little rings like that because I use an apple peeler-corer-slicer that attaches to my countertop. It's an absolute necessity if you plan to make more than one apple pie a year.

Pour into prepared crust.

Mmmmmm....appley goodness.

Combine 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, salt and eggs, stir with a whisk. Add buttermilk and vanilla, and stir a little more.

I had to steal this whisk from the baby. He LOVES whisks. Is that weird?

Pour over apple mixture.

Yikes, that's a full pie!

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Reduce over temperature to 300 degrees (do not remove pie) and sprinkle streusel topping over filling.

Try to sprinkle it around evenly, but it doesn't really matter since all the butter melts anyways.

Bake at 300 degrees for 40 minutes or until pie is set. Let stand 1 hour before serving.*****

All puffed up right out of the oven. DON'T EAT IT YET.

*The original recipe suggests using a store-bought crust, which I personally consider just plain un-American. Only communists use store-bought crust. Communists who kick puppies and burn flags and hate freedom and don’t want to find a cure for cancer OR save the whales. But really, my recipe for pie crust is the easiest thing in the world and impossible to do wrong. At least try it before using the crap from a box.

My pie crust/pie recipes - as you can see they've been well loved

**Granny Smith is the most popular pie apple but unfortunately they don’t grow here in New England. When apples are in season I prefer Cortlands or Mutsus. Just try to avoid Macintosh in pies since they cook down really quickly and you end up with mush.

***The “light” version calls for fat-free buttermilk but my grocery store didn’t have fat free (OH DARN) so I used low-fat. I’ve had trouble finding buttermilk at all at some grocery stores so just use whatever you can get.

****My pie plate is NOT “deep” so I just built up the edge of the crust. It still came really really close to overflowing. I recommend using an actual deep-dish plate.

*****NO REALLY, LET IT SIT. If you don’t the custard is all runny and soupy. I KNOW it looks delicious and I KNOW you just baked a whole pie all by yourself and you deserve to eat a huge chunk right now but it will be even better in an hour. For the record, my recipe says “Yields 10 servings”, but I think they’re talking about doll-servings. It yields 8 actual person sized servings, but you’ll probably eat two pieces at a time, so at least try to save some to share later.

OK, NOW you can eat it. Better hurry though, looks like someone else already started.

Dinners in our house fall into two three categories:

1. Real meals using recipes I’ve marked in cookbooks/torn out of magazines/found on food porn websites and involve complicated grocery lists, several pots and pans, and careful measuring.
2. Stuff with ground beef.
3. Fast food.

I’ve never considered myself much of a cook, even when it comes to casual family type meals. I’m intimidated by all aspects of cooking, from chopping vegetables to knowing if the meat is done, to adding a “pinch” of anything. Cooking is art – the balance, the nuance, the improvisation – and art has never been my strong suit. Baking, however, is science, and baking is my friend. It’s exact, it’s chemistry, 2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 40 minutes at 350 degrees. I can bake anything you can write a recipe for, even if I end up using a wine bottle as a rolling pin and a light bulb powered oven.

So my anxiety levels always get very high right around 4 pm when it’s time to start thinking about what’s for dinner. I’ve tried making meal plans, with one epic trip to the grocery store for a week’s worth of ingredients, but invariably something isn’t in stock or the potatoes start molding before I get to them or no one really FEELS like having chicken again so why don’t we just have a pizza delivery…and the whole thing falls apart. I’ve tried deciding what’s for dinner at 3 pm and making the Stop & Shop run once E gets home and I can pop in and out without the baby, but I always come home with a cart full of avocados, Pad Thai in a box, brownie mix, and oranges. Which, surprisingly, are NOT the ingredients for tacos. Or anything else. So one of us runs out and grabs burgers and fries and I sit on the couch hating myself for eating that junk again.

My other obstacle to cooking is my super picky husband. If you’ve ever tried to eat a meal with him, you probably already know how he feels about mushrooms (FUNGUS ISN’T FOOD), which rules out about half the recipes in both of my trusty, easy to follow Rachel Ray cookbooks. He also hates olives (no Mediterranean food), curry (no Indian food), pretty much anything green (no vegetables) and soup. Yes, soup. And chili. Seriously, if you ever consider marrying someone, FIND OUT IF THEY EAT SOUP before accepting a proposal. I’ve done a pretty good job expanding E’s previously even more ridiculously limited diet – for example, he now eats fish – but nothing is more frustrating than making a nice dinner and discovering he hates it after two bites. A few times I’ve just made whatever I felt like making and told E “if you don’t like it, don’t eat it” and left him to forage for himself…but I always feel guilty because dinner falls under my tasks per our very delicately negotiated household responsibility list and feeding both of us shouldn’t be that hard. But my cookbooks have all been read and bookmarked and my list of family approved recipes is still woefully short.

It’s times like this that I really admire my mother and her ability to get a home cooked meal on the table every single night, without a single frozen lasagna in my memories. The only chance of that happening in my house is if I win the lottery and hire a personal chef. Or if I legally adopt the pizza delivery guy.