Very Grateful

Keystone Light cans are randomly strewn across my lawn, with an occasional RedBull tossed in for flare. Several are gathered around a smashed solar light, discussing the crime and getting their stories straight. Others have been crunched by a massive hand and tossed under the shade of an apple tree. There’s one by the road…the mailbox, the clothesline and a car that’s not mine.

Don’t look at me.

This story begins with a nicely trimmed field and a naive couple. This couple believed that if they let this pasture grow out of control, muscle and will power would help them mow down the unwieldy weeds with a reel push mower. Well… they huffed, puffed..and only made it two inches into the mess before calling it quits. Then this couple took out their weed wacker…for the stalks of grass were wrapping around car axels and sliding under doors. Bindweed was attacking innocent squirrels and lassoing annoying joggers. Milk Thistles and Cacti were uniting to beat up the neighborhood kids. When the weedwacker croaked and the couple found themselves deliriously spitting up knapweed seeds, they knew it was time to visit craigslist.

Ahh Craigslist. How you love bringing the crazies together. After vowing to never let this happen again, we called in the “professionals”..and then ducked our heads. As embarrassed as we were that we let things get to this stage, we laughed when we saw them drinking beer…and we fed them cupcakes….and chocolate zucchini bread. We are grateful, oh yes.

This Chocolate Zucchini Bread is by far the best quickbread I have ever made or tasted. Perfect. Moist. Decadent. I have even been using the batter to make cupcakes. Topped with ganache, they have blown everyone away.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread from One Ordinary Day

Ingredients

1 & 1/2 Cups Shredded Zucchini

1 Cup All Purpose Flour

1/2 Cup high quality Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder

Dash of salt

1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Cup Canola Oil

1/2 Cup Sugar

1/2 Cup packed Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

3/4 Cup Dark Chocolate Chips

Directions

In a mixer, combine your oil, sugars and vanilla. Mix in your eggs and shredded zucchini. In a separate bowl, sift together your flours, salt, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder. Slowly add this dry mixture into your wet mixture. Beat until combined. Mix in your chocolate chips.

Scrape your batter into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 50-65 minutes, or until done. Eat and moan.

All pictures were taken by the man who tried to give every bit of our food away, Evan Lentz.