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.

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.

One of the reasons I’m not a very good cook is I’ve never had somewhere really great to practice. At least that’s what I tell myself. Growing up my mom was always shooing us kids out of smallish kitchens while she cooked since little people underfoot while you chop and boil and bake and heat is a good way to end up in the emergency room. Since I never loved cooking I never focused much on kitchens when I picked out apartments and until recently would have sacrificed everything but a fridge and a microwave for a walk-in closet. When I first saw the house we live in now, I fell in love with the hardwood floors to the incredible mouldings to the front porch…and was THRILLED with the newly remodeled kitchen. Stainless steel appliances! Corian counters! Ceiling height cabinets! A gorgeous stone tile backsplash! It’s so PRETTY and SHINY and FULL OF CHARACTER I knew I would just love baking pies and boiling water (my specialties) while admiring the grape arbor out the window.

Unfortunately, I soon realized “full of character” is the real estate term for “almost no counter space” and “nowhere to put the mail” and “where the **** am I supposed to keep any FOOD?!” Over the years I’ve tried adding tables, carts, baskets, chairs, hooks and bowls in various places but nothing has helped control and organize the overflow of junk. It’s gotten worse since the baby, since my diaper bag and camera have permanent homes on the counter by the back door and when I come in carrying a baby everything else just gets DUMPED. Even when the kitchen is super clean (which, honestly, it almost never is) I only have about three feet of counter top to make dinner on, divided in the middle by the stove. I’ve set more than one pot holder on fire because I was using the stove top as a work surface. Setting things on fire is NOT GOOD when you have a toddler.

Since we won’t be moving in the next couple of years, I finally decided it was time for a permanent solution to my lack of counter space. Lucky for me the guy who did the original kitchen remodel left his name and contact info under the sink. Lucky for HIM the custom cabinets he put in are impossible to get anywhere else so we’re trading him our first born for an island/peninsula/breakfast bar thing. Well, we tried to trade him our first born but with the economy as bad as it is right now he wanted cash instead. Babies just aren’t worth what they used to be. Luckily, we had saved a little of our tax return for home repairs (in case we did have to put the house on the market) and I convinced E it would be best spent on this project. I may have also promised a large number of homemade meals, cookies and pies IF ONLY I HAD THE COUNTER SPACE TO MAKE THEM. I guess it’s time to dust off those cookbooks.

Unfortunately, it’s going to take at least two months before the elves hobbits blind nuns cabinet…eers? make the cabinets and then another week to get a big slab of countertop in so until then I’ll just have to try not to burn the house down with a tea towel. Wish me luck.