Eat Your Veggies

Sweet breads are a great way to use up fruits and veggies that are about to spoil. They are usually a favorite in my household, too, which makes them a sneaky way to incorporate some additional vegetation into my family’s diet.

Some of our favorites include pumpkin bread, banana bread, and zucchini bread.

Here is a general recipe that can be modified:

Grease a loaf pan with a light coating of oil. Then flour it and dump out the extra flour. Or, alternatively, you can just put a layer of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan (this is my preference).

1.5 cups of flour

1 cup of sugar (you can use less than this actually & certainly so, if it is for zucchini bread for which it should only be .5 cups of sugar)

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of baking soda

.5 cups of apple sauce (or you can use veggie oil, if you want, but the applesauce is healthier)

1 cup of pureed veggies — this is where you pick pumpkin, zucchini, banana, etc.

2 eggs - beat them in a separate bowl

.25 cups water

Spices, .5 teaspoon of each — pick what you like - cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves. I like cinnamon & cloves for pumpkin, just cinnamon for banana and none for zucchini. But, you should add spices to your family’s taste.

Additions — you can add chocolate chips or chopped nuts, as you like.  About .5 cups of any of these should do, but you can adjust if you like more or less

Putting it together:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, spices) in a bowl. Combine the wet ingredients (veggie puree, apple sauce, eggs, water) in a separate bowl.

Then combine the wet and dry ingredients together a little at a time. Mix all ingredients thoroughly, but there is no need to continue to stir after everything is combined well. Now gently stir in any of the additions like chocolate chips or nuts.

Pour the mixture into the loaf pan. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes, give or take, depending on your oven. The most important thing is to keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn. Stick a toothpick or thin knife in the center of the loaf. If it comes out clean, then the loaf is done.

You can remove it from the pan and cool on a rack, if you like. In my family, we tend to just keep it in the pan and cut out slices of the bread as we want some. It usually doesn’t last long, either.

Have fun and experiment with this recipe. But, most importantly, try it so that your bananas or zucchini don’t end up just going into the trash or compost (although the compost is at least better).

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