Zucchini Bread, Moose Style

Katie Moose, Nantucket native and cookbook author, offers a very simple, super moist and delicious zucchini bread recipe in her book, 'New England's Bounty'.  Let me reiterate: v-e-r-y simple, and super moist and delicious!  With nearly six pounds of zucchini to get through from Saturday's farmers' market, I'll be able to freeze loaves.

Her recipe, including my modifications...
Oven 350 degrees

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

3c all purpose flour
1tsp each baking soda and baking powder
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp each salt, ground cloves, ground ginger and ground nutmeg
1/2 finely chopped pecans (I used walnuts for one batch, and pinenuts for a second batch)

In a large bowl: mix together 2 (really healthy) cups grated zucchini and 3/4c vegetable oil (I used 1/2c canola and 1/4c evoo).  Add in 3 beaten eggs and the zest from one orange (this is quite a bit of zest and might be too much for some).  Mix in 1-1/2c granulated sugar until well blended.

Immediately add in the dry ingredients.  Go ahead and just dump it all in.  Mix gently but efficiently until flour is just worked in.  Pour equally into two buttered, glass loaf pans, or one large bundt pan.  Bake for 55-60 minutes if using glass loaves, 40-45 minutes for the bundt.  Use a skewer to gauge doneness 10 minutes beforehand.

Let loaves cool for ~10 minutes in pans, then invert into hand and place bottomside down on racks to cool a little more before stuffing your face.

Katie Moose's cookbook, 'New England's Bounty - Cooking with Regional Favorites', her fourth, was published in 2004 by Conduit Press.  She provides lots of interesting historical cultural tidbits throughout the book.  For example, Martha's Vineyard was named after the daughter of English explorer, Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, and Portland, ME, was actually called Falmouth, Me, until 1786.  She also notes the name of America's first cookbook for uniquely American foods, published in Hartford, CT, by Amelia Simmons: 'American Cookery, Or The Art Of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, And The Best Modes Of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards And Preserves, And All Kinds of Cakes, From The Imperial Plumb To Plain Cake, Adapted to This Country, And All Grades of Life.'  What a title!  Viands, btw, is a term for delicacies.  In the case of its placement in her title, I suspect she was referring to certain organs or cuts of meat.