zucchini walnut loaf

My mom would be very proud!

One thing I love about zucchini bread is that the zucchini is pretty much a secret. AND it's delicious!

So on a Wednesday afternoon after coming home early from work, I decided it was time to begin this cooking journey...with zucchini bread. I followed a recipe I found on smittenkitchen.com. See recipe below :)

Zucchini Bread

Yield: 2 loaves or approximately 24 muffins

3 eggs
1 cup olive or vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1 cup dried cranberries, raisins or chocolate chips or a combination thereof (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease and flour two 8×4 inch loaf pans, liberally. Or line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Mix in oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla.

Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt, as well as nuts, chocolate chips and/or dried fruit, if using.

Stir this into the egg mixture. Divide the batter into prepared pans.

Bake loaves for 60 minutes, plus or minus ten, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Muffins will bake far more quickly, approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

I only had one baking pan so I cut the recipe in half which didn't really affect the taste but the size of the bread was a little...small. The bread turned out really moist and delicious! However, my bread was not as plump as I would have liked and so next time I might use the full recipe or 3/4 of the recipe to make one loaf...i like it tall!

The bread received rave reviews from its tasters (myself, my boyfriend and his friend).

SUCCESS! yummmm

I need a hobby

I think I've realized, I'm doing pretty well in most aspects of life. However there's this one thing that's taking over. That thing called laziness. The following are examples of recent bouts of laziness:

I bought a bicycle and was really excited about riding it around my neighbourhood. All I needed was a bike lock so I could lock it up after riding instead of bringing it up to my apartement.

Did I buy a bike lock? No. Have I ridden my bicycle? .........no :(

There's a great outdoor fruit and veggie market near my apartment. I can walk there, it's cheap, the people there are great! The market is open only on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday rolls around....

Do I go? No. On Sunday morning I wake up, thinking about the market, ready to go.

Do I go? ....no :(

I think we get the idea.

So while talking to a friend today about enjoying life more, he mentioned the brilliant idea of taking up cooking. I've recently been doing this myself after watching many episodes of Top Chef (as a form of being lazy) but with his idea I thought I'd take my dabbling in cooking a little more seriously. So, here we go.

Welcome to 'yummies'. The blog where I try to cook stuff and then tell you (whoever reads this) how it went! And when I'm too lazy to actually cook, I'll write about a great dining experience I had.

Feel free to leave recipes and other banter. :)