Jeff, the A.D.D. Chef

You’ve got your vegetable garden and found that the zucchini is growing like mad. What better way to use up your surplus zucchini than by making chocolate zucchini bread. From a nutrition standpoint, it’s a home run. It has zucchini - a known vegetable - and vegetables are good for you. It has chocolate - known to be derived from beans - and beans are good for you. So in terms of “health food,” chocolate zucchini bread has it all.

INGREDIENTS

* 3 eggs
* 2 cups white sugar
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 2 cups grated zucchini
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease two 9×5 inch loaf pans (PAM spray works fine…and lightly flouring the inside of the greased pan doesn’t hurt).
2. In a large bowl combine eggs, sugar, oil, grated zucchini and vanilla. Beat well. Stir in the flour (you might want to sift it in), baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Fold in the chocolate chips and then pour the batter into the greased loaf pans.
3. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Check doneness by inserting a toothpick which, when pulled out, should be clean. Since there is melted chocolate in there, you’ll need to poke the loaf in a few different places till you get only batter as opposed to chocolate.
4. When done let it cool for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes you’ll then be able to get it out of the loaf pan. Then let it thoroughly cool. When completed cooled you can wrap it in aluminum foil and place in the refrigerator.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Right after removing it from the loaf pan, it is still warm. This is the OPTIMAL time to cut a few slices for yourself just to make sure that you cooked it correctly.

See this comment at Experiencing ADDvantages.

[post was retitled on Sept. 22, 2007. Original title: “Chocolate Zucchini Bread”]

[Nutrition information added on Sept. 22, 2007]

Q: My zucchini bread turns brown on the outside but it does not cook through the middle. Any idea why this happens?

Ans: There is no reason why it should not cook through. If the outside is browning and the inside is not cooking, the problem might be that the temperature is too high. You may want to get an oven thermometer. In addition, if you have a very old oven (I had a 50 year old oven) it may not be heating evenly. That can also cause uneven cooking.

[Information above added on Sept. 22, 2007 in response to an email request]