Zucchini Bread (the light way)

Zucchini season is upon us and as Garrison Keiller says, in Lake Wobegon, you need to lock your cars or face the prospect of finding zucchini on your seats! Last week, between the two CSAs and my own zucchini plants (what WAS I thinking), I made about 6 loaves of zucchini bread. You know it is zucchini season when you bring a loaf of bread to work and people know what it is before you even unwrap it.

Before Bianca left for Canada, we made a number of zucchini breads using a traditional recipe which uses a lot of oil.  It made a delicious bread but, being the calorie conscious person that I am, I wanted to find a recipe that would be lighter and still use local ingredients and, as Bianca has stated in the past, use things that I have on hand. That is when I found this recipe in Cooking Light, Way to Cook Vegetarian. You all know from reading this blog that we make our own yogurt from Winder Farms milk so we always have some on hand. I also keep a container of Flax-Pro flaxseed on hand to add to some of my breads to kick up the nutrition with omega-3 fatty acids and fiber. The original recipe calls for ground flaxseed but FlaxPro does not need to be ground like raw flax seeds to aid in digestion. With raw flax seed, you need to grind it to aid in digestion but that is not required with FlaxPro seeds. 


As always, I grind my own wheat berries the day prior to making the bread. This time, I added some sunflower seeds I had on hand but you can use pecans (local if you can find them), pumpkin seeds, almonds or walnuts.


Now, I don't feel as guilty having a piece of this bread for breakfast. It is great toasted with a little bit of cream cheese.

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

4 cups shredded zucchini

2 cups plain yogurt

4 eggs

6 tbls. olive oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped nuts

5 cups white whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup honey

1/2 cup flaxseed (Flax-Pro)

2 tbls. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and butter two, 9 x 5-inch loaf pans.
2. Beat eggs, yogurt, oil and vanilla in a medium size bowl with a whisk. Stir in zucchini.
3. Combine flour, sugars, ground flaxseed, and rest of dry ingredients in large bowl, mixing well.
4. Add zucchini mixture to dry ingredients and mix well. Add nuts and stir until well combined.
5. Pour batter in prepared pans. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
6. Cool in pans about 10 minutes on wire rack. 

adapted from Cooking Light, the Way to Cook Vegetarian