Healthy Zucchini Bread

If you follow The Domestic Fringe on Facebook, you know John (FringeMan) likes to garden. It’s therapeutic for him, and judging by the size of his garden, we must all be driving him absolutely bananas. (Bananas are about the only thing he doesn’t have growing right now.)

I’ve got zucchinis the size of clubs. Every time I pick one up, I feel like I should be on an episode of The Flintstones. It’s like I’ve stolen BamBam’s favorite toy or something.

Anyway, I pretty much hate zucchini unless it’s baked into a bread-like dessert, but adding all kinds of sugar to a vegetable defeats the purpose of eating your vegetables, at least that’s what the healthy people would like us to believe. So, I set out to make a healthy zucchini bread.

Then my family convinced me to drown my healthy veggie bread in a sugary glaze. I’m so ashamed I caved to their sweet teeth (that’s a collective set of multiple people’s ‘sweet tooths’, in case you were wondering), but I’m happy to report that the bread does not need a glaze. Do yourself and your diabetes a favor and skip the glaze.

Here it is – minus all the stunning food photography, because let’s face it, I’m not in jeopardy of missing a cookbook contract. Just ask my kids. Or better yet, browse the food section of this blog.

This bread is absolutely delicious. I pinky-promise. Don’t even be scared to try it!

I guess now is as good a time as any for a cooking confession. It seems like every time I step foot in the kitchen there needs to be a confession or penance done. The moments I’m in the kitchen are not my finest.

When someone compliments my cooking, I always feel a little guilty, because I know there’s a secret story behind the nice meal I bring to a potluck or the dessert I bring to a friend’s house. There are people who actually think I am a good cook, but I know the truth.

The truth is that I set my stovetop on fire all the time. Seriously. The fire department should hire me for kitchen fires, because I don’t even think twice when my pots start flaming. It’s gotten to the point that when I’m on the phone, I could be extinguishing a four-alarm blaze and you’d hardly even notice.

I’m really not good in the kitchen, but I do get lots and lots of practice with cooking. For some reason, my family likes to eat dinner every single night.

I know. It shocks me too, but like clockwork, my kids come in the door and immediately ask “What’s for dinner?”

I hardly ever know what’s for dinner. It’s a mystery right up until the last second.

I made a loaf of this bread to bring to a ladies meeting at church. It was a busy morning and people kept coming into the kitchen and talking to me. Now, it doesn’t take much to get me sidetracked. In fact, I don’t even need help in that department. I do a wonderful job of distracting myself from the task at hand; however, I managed to get this recipe mixed up and thrown into the oven with just enough time to bake it before I needed to leave.

A  few (very short) minutes after I’d thrown the bread into the oven, I realized I forgot to add the nuts. I guess I really wanted the nuts in this loaf, because I snatched the pan back out of the oven, scraped the contents back into a bowl, and added my nuts!

Then I popped it back in the oven like nothing had ever happened.

And, I prayed I didn’t screw-up the bread.

I believe in miracles my friends and anytime something good comes out of my kitchen, it is nothing short of miraculous!

So, if your garden overfloweth and you’ve got giant zucchini’s like me, try out this healthy version of bread and tell me what you think.

If you take a bite and don’t like it, simply make that sugary glaze (powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract) and I guarantee everyone will eat it.