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Posts with tag zucchini bread

'Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash' - Cookbook Spotlight


cooking with pumpkins and squash
Photo: Amazon.com.
'Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash'
By Brian Glover
Photography by Peter Cassidy
Ryland Peteres & Small -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

Despite early fall's T-shirt weather and last-summer's-hurrah barbecues, Brian Glover's "Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash" beckoned. Although it largely consists of hot autumn colors and warming recipes, this exquisite cold-weather cookbook could not sit one week in the kitchen before we cracked.

We blame Glover's seductive prose: "Some flavors stand out as having a real affinity with squashes and pumpkins of all shapes and sizes; their nutty sweetness works well with salty tastes such as goat cheese, feta and olives..." His understanding of squash's potential as an adaptable base -- to be spiked with other bold ingredients and not merely to be devoured on its own -- intrigued us.

Though many niche cookbooks devoted to a particular ingredient can be characterized as too centric toward their subject, "Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash" reveals refreshingly complex recipes with unexpected flavors. "Light bites" recipes like Grilled Zucchini, Halloumi and Fava Beans with Tomato and Mint Dressing expertly showcase and complement the light, springy flavor of summer squash, while heartier entrées like the Pumpkin Risotto with Pancetta and Sage suit the rich, silky texture of pumpkin and butternut squash.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Continue reading 'Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash' - Cookbook Spotlight

Heavenly zucchini/squash bread

zucchini/squash bread
Maybe I lurked near some zucchini bread once or twice over the course of my life, but if I did, I wouldn't know it. My beginning years were free of the cakey breads like zucchini and banana. Vegan 'Nana bread brought me into the world of banana bread, but it wasn't until last night that I finally dove into zucchini bread. It was silly of me to wait this long. It's so d*mn good.

Adapting a recipe from 101cookbooks.com, I set out to make my first loaf of zucchini bread. Being allergic to nuts, I skipped the walnuts, subbed fresh for crystallized ginger, shredded a collection of zucchini and squash, and used only 2 large eggs since I didn't have 3. The rest remained as-is and offered one of the best baked goods to ever pass through my lips. The whole wheat flour is great, and the curry powder is the perfect balance to the sugary sweetness. There's a savory depth to this sweet treat that sounds contradictory, but actually merges into perfection.

It's also really forgiving -- I ignored the 2-pan thing and put it all into my cast iron loaf pan, and added no extra moisture for the missing egg (besides only half-squeezing the water out of the shredded squash). The center caved just a little bit after cooling, but the taste has remained excellent, getting more and more moist as the hours pass. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Vintage Recipe: Zucchini Bread


You may be feeling like it's been all-zucchini, all the time around these parts lately, but it is the season for squash so I keep offering up the recipes. I plucked this one from my grandma Bunny's recipe card file. It's a fairly standard recipe (not as vintage as some of the others I've posted), although I do like the addition of the raisins. They were the one thing I thought was missing from the zucchini muffins I made earlier in the week. I also think that if I made this bread, I'd reduce the sugar (especially with a cup full of raisins), because 2 whole cups seems like an awful lot. If you want to make these lower fat, you could also use apple sauce in place of some or all of the oil.

Happy National Zucchini Day!

zucchini

I never, ever buy zucchini. I just never think of it. I mean, I like zucchini, but I never think of buying it when I'm at the supermarket. I'll have it in meals at restaurants and in some frozen meals I buy at the supermarket, but that's about it. I should really change that.

Today is National Zucchini Day, not to be confused with National Zucchini Bread Day (which is April 25). But that doesn't mean you can't make some zucchini bread. Here's Apple, here's blueberry, and here's chocolate wave. But you can do more with zucchini of course, including this recipe for Marinated Zucchini Salad, one for Zucchini Quiche, and this one for Zucchini al Forno.

Community gardens yield more than the harvest

You don't have to be gregarious or adventurous to start or be part of a community garden. If you're lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with an available spot of ground, say 80'x80', you have the beginnings of a great social experiment. Here in Boulder, this was inclusive to the development plans in my neighborhood so procuring growing space wasn't a problem. I thought getting people to sign up and rent plots (this wasn't my job) would be an issue. Not so. It was what should be grown that got thorny. Most wanted veggies and flowers. Some wanted only flowers and vice versa. In the end it was an even mix. We even had edible flowers: I ate carnation petals right from the plant, and later steeped in sherry. The point is, a typical 9-5 person doesn't have time to tend a large garden. When folks come together and each grow their specialty, we all get to cook the many varieties of squash, cabbages, onions, roots and shoots. I never cared for Zucchini but my neighbor three houses down traded me some zukes for a futures claim on my pumpkins. The zucchini bread was eaten in one sitting; she plans to make pumpkin bread next month. It may sound corney, so to speak, but growing food with people you didn't know really brings food into focus. At least that's been my experience.

Our garden's first year was a success. Nothing was poached and there was a healthy competitive nature to the venture. The only "failure" was the tomatoes. Hard to grow at altitude with minimal care. Other than that, if you have the opportunity, you might start here.

Tip of the Day

December may have peppermint bark, but have you thought to incorporate the taste of autumn into white chocolate with a rich pumpkin swirl?

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