A Feast of Fridays: Zesty Pineapple Zucchini Bread

It won’t be long now until our gardens are overflowing with zucchini squash!  Those vines are one of the most prolific producers EVER!

We all make zucchini bread in the summer and freeze it for the winter.  But this recipe for Zesty Pineapple Zucchini Bread is the best EVER!

I never make just plain zucchini bread any more.  My family wants the zesty kind.

Ingredients:

3 eggs

2 cups sugar (I use Splenda)

1 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups grated or shredded zucchini

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt (don’t leave it out)

3/4 cup crushed pineapple, drained

1/4 cup Texas Pineapple Habanero Pepper Jelly

1/2 cup walnuts (if you like walnuts in your zucchini bread.  We do.)

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 325.

Put all of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.  Pour mixture into two lightly greased loaf pans.  (Sometimes I pour it all into a large bundt pan)

Bake for about 60 minutes or until lightly browned and center is solid.  Use a toothpick to check.  If you overbake it, the edges get hard.  My daughter likes that but the rest of us prefer a non-overbaked loaf.

Serve warm, with butter or whatever you like to put on it.  More pepper jelly is what my family generally uses.

When the zucchini crop is at its best, bake a batch every night and freeze them.  These loaves freeze really well.  Be sure you wrap each loaf, individually, in foil and then place the foil-wrapped loaf in a freezer bag.  This way, it won’t dry out.

I do my summer baking late at night so the oven doesn’t have to compete with the air conditioner quite so fiercely.