Zucchini Bread

If you've never tried zucchini bread, you may be skeptical. 

A vegetable? In a baked good?

Absolutely.

Similar to carrots in carrot cake, when baked into a cinnamon-spicy batter, zucchini takes on a mildly sweet flavor and makes the bread incredibly moist. People often confuse this treat with banana bread (which sometimes works to entice your picky eaters!), and can hardly believe that a green veggie is the star ingredient.

Although nothing fancy, I have to say this recipe is one of my favorites. My grandma has been making zucchini bread for as long as I can remember. For me, this is comfort food. Soft and sweet with a hint of spice, I always crave it when I'm feeling a bit nostalgic and missing home.

This bread makes for an indulgent breakfast bite or yummy snack. I particularly like to cut a big slice cold out of the fridge, and smear a dab of butter across the top. It tastes wonderful plain, but you can also throw a few handfuls of chopped pecans, walnuts, or chocolate chips into the batter before baking.

If you try this, I promise is will quickly become one of your well-worn recipes!

Zucchini Bread via my Grandma Mary
Makes 2 medium sized loaf pans, or 3 small disposable loaf pans

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt (scant)
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 1/2 cups grated, peeled, medium sized zucchini (leave half of the peel on)
Optional: 1 1/2 cups or so chocolate chips or nuts

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease the pans.
2. Sift together: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Beat in: eggs, sugar, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, and zucchini. The batter will be stiff until you add the zucchini, and then it will start to loosen up.
4. Optional: stir chocolate chips or nuts (or both!) into the batter
5. Bake in greased loaf pans for 50-60 minutes. The zucchini bread will be done when the top looks dry and a skewer can be inserted into the loaf and come out clean.
6. Let cool in the pan 10 minutes then remove and let cool

Toll House Cookie Pie for Colgate Day!

Where I go to college, we have a special tradition where we are obsessed with the number 13. As the tradition goes, the school was founded by "thirteen men with thirteen dollars and thirteen prayers." The first two numbers of the zip code are 13, and the rest add up to 13. The president of the school encourages us to get over our "triskaidekaphobia" (the fear of the number 13) because as a student, the number will be lucky for the rest of our lives.

And today, Friday the 13th, is the luckiest day of the year. (Unless, of course, there is more than one Friday the 13th).

There are a number of ways to celebrate Colgate Day. Alumni and students alike wear Colgate gear wherever they are, students held a dancing flash mob in the dining hall, and 13 members of the Colgate community even rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on a Colgate Day in 2010.

One tradition that is especially exciting to people with a sweet tooth (hint: me) is that the Colgate Inn serves its famous Toll House Cookie Pie at a discounted price of $13 a pie.

Although I am over 1,000 away from campus today, I decided to make my own Toll House Cookie pie to celebrate Colgate Day.

If you're a Colgate alum or student, you can use this same recipe to help celebrate your love for Colgate. But even if you have no idea about Colgate, Adam & Eve, Willow Path, or triskaidekaphobia, you can still make this gooey, chewy, chocolatey treat for your own celebration.