Lately I can’t seem to get enough zucchini, raw with hummus, spiralized into pasta, sautéed with coconut oil. Ooooo that last one is good one.

But the one thing I’ve never tried my hand at is zucchini bread. If I’m being perfectly honest the idea has never really appealed to me. Zucchini… in bread… sounds a bit weird. Especially when it comes to “sweet” bread. I like to keep my desserts and my vegetables separate thank you very much.

Like avocado icing or an adezuki bean cup cake (vomits in mouth) I’m sure they can be delicious but I feel as though I may have gotten off on the wrong foot and my taste buds may forever be tainted… Bad experience once that i’m still working through.

About 7 years ago I started working with a nutritionist, and at this point the only thing I was eating and felt as though I was able to stomach was squash.

 

Side note for all you folks out there that find it hard to tan, just eat 2-3 kombucha squash a week, you’ll turn a lovely shade of orangey yellow. It’s like a spray tan minus all the chemicals.

So we thought maybe my body might need a little bit of a detox? So first we eliminated all processed foods, then it was night shade vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds closely followed. But then it was the worst one of all… Sugar, but not just processed horrible for you white sugar. Oh no no no, she went all hard core on my ass and even took out fruit.

Pre detox I used to get a mug and just fill it with chocolate chips and go to town. Why the mug you ask… Well because then it just looked like I was having a cup of tea instead of a cup of soon to be diabetes. Believe it or not I have worse stories, but we’ll save those for another day.

So in an attempt to consume something that resembled dessert I decided that I would try these black bean brownies that everyone kept raving about. While I was making my first batch I thought you know what I’m going to make a second tray and give them as a gift to my friend, cute little homemade xmas present (I’m giving like that). Only after I made the first round I skipped the important step of testing them first. So second batch was now en route to there new home all wrapped in a pretty red bow. Only this bow should have been made of barbwire.

As I arrive back home my family and I decide to dig into these black bean beauties. The smell, yep, smells like brownies, the texture, yep, looks and feels like brownies, but the taste, OMG… If ass was a flavour these brownies encapsulated it perfectly. Just as I finish gagging the phone rings and all I hear on the other line is “ummmmm thanks for the brownies???” I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

So you can imagine my reservations when I first tried my hand at zucchini bread. I learnt my lesson early on and now only use my family as taste testers, I don’t mind serving them ass every now and again, but the good news is this zucchini bread was ass flavour free.

Ingredients:

2 small to medium zucchinis grated (I did one yellow and one green)
1 ½ cups GF flour (I enjoy Bob’s Red Mill all purpose)
¼ cup almond flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ cup flaxseeds ground
2 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. ginger
½ tsp. salt
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
½ cup walnuts
1 tbsp. vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a loaf pan with some parchment paper, allows for an easy exit when the bread is done.

 

Grate your zucchini and wrap in a clean dish towel, you’ll need to use a little muscle here to ring out all of the liquid you can manage. I should really post a picture of what I have to do to accomplish this; I’m only a wee thing…

Next in a large mixing bowl toss in all of your dry ingredients and set aside, in a separate mixing bowl toss in the remaining ingredients (hold off on the zucchini and the walnuts) and beat with a hand mixer until everything is combined.

Add the wet mixture into your dry ingredients and again beat with a hand mixer. Once everything is looking just about ready for the loaf pan, fold in your zucchini and walnuts. If you like you can hold a little bit of each back to sprinkle over top of the zucchini bread as a topper before you bake it.

Pour the batter into your loaf pan and sprinkle with reserved toppings. I also added just a little drizzle of honey and another sprinkle of cinnamon for good measure.

Pop in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes. You’ll know the bread is done once you insert a knife until the middle and it comes out clean.

Now if I could only figure out a way to incorporate chocolate into my salad…