One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday morning from around April-September, is get up early(ish) and head to our local Farmer's Market! Usually it's like pulling teeth to get Luke to go, but this Saturday he got up with me and off we went. The place was packed, as usual, but that makes me happy because all of those people were out supporting their local farmers and, hopefully, they care just as much about knowing where their food comes from. I really like how our farmer's market is ran because a person from the committee who runs it goes to each and every vendor's farm to ensure that what they claim about their food is actually truthful. So when they're telling me their veggies are grown organically with no pesticides or hormones, I don't have to wonder if that's just an advertising ploy. This week I picked up some amazingly perfect peaches (I had one for breakfast this morning and was just blown away by it...I think Luke was concerned that someone could go on and on about a peach as much as I did), fresh green beans, basil and the focus of today's recipes, zucchini! They were absolutely enormous zucchini too, so just 2 of them will last through a couple recipes. Oh and I only spent about 10 bucks for all of that. Not too bad! I'm happy!

I got home from the market and was thinking of all the ways that I like zucchini best, and I kept coming back to this recipe, Glazed Lemon Zucchini Bread. It's so delicious! It's a "quick" bread, which means it doesn't use yeast, and it's sweet just like banana bread. This one is doubly awesome because it has a bunch of lemon zest in the bread itself and then you pour a lemon glaze over the top. Amazing! I made the recipe into 2 smaller loaves rather than 1 large one because I wanted to take some to share with friends we were seeing last night, and I don't need that much sweet bread laying around my house or I'll eat it... all. Don't be weirded out by zucchini being in something sweet, you can't even really taste it and it just makes the bread so so moist. You do see some green flecks in there, but just grate it smaller if that bothers you. Enjoy!

Glazed Lemon Zucchini Bread

Prep Time: 15 min. | Total Time: 1 hour | Difficulty: Easy

Bread Ingredients:

·         2 cups cake flour (all-purpose works just fine too)

·         ½ tsp. salt

·         2 tsp. baking powder

·         2 eggs

·         ½ cup canola oil (I only had vegetable on hand)

·         1 1/3 cups sugar

·         2 tbsp. lemon juice

·         ½ cup buttermilk (see note about this below)

·         Zest of 1 lemon

·         1 cup grated zucchini

Glaze Ingredients:

·         1 cup powdered sugar

·         2 tbsp. lemon juice

·         1 tbsp. milk

Preparation Instructions:

1.      Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside.

2.      In a large bowl, beat eggs. Then add oil and sugar until well blended. Add lemon juice, buttermilk, lemon zest to this mixture and blend all together.

3.      Fold in zucchini until it is mixed well.

4.      Add dry mixture to the wet mixture and blend all together until well combined.

5.      Pour batter into greased 9x5 loaf pan.

6.      Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes, testing with a toothpick to check that the loaf is done.

7.      While still warm, make glaze and spoon over the bread. Let the glaze set up before cutting and serving. 

Notes:

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have buttermilk on hand…ever. So I learned about a nice little trick and I use it whenever I need it buttermilk. For this recipe, measure ½ cup milk and add ½ tbsp. lemon juice. Let the mixture sit for about 5-10 minutes. Done! Voila!

To grate the zucchini, I use my box grater set on bunch of paper towels on a plate. I grate the zucchini directly onto the paper towel and then when I’ve grated all that I need, I pull the corners of the paper towel in to a nice little bundle and squeeze out all the excess water. You’ll be amazed at how much water will come out of just 1 cup of grated zucchini. But then that’s why everything zucchini makes everything moist and delicious!

You can used bottled lemon juice if you need to. But really why would you if fresh lemons are an option. And you’re going to need the zest anyway. I used 1 good sized lemon and got all the zest I needed and had excess lemon juice.