*caramelized onions destined for the freezer—because what else is there to do when the entire onion patch is going mushy rotten?
*for breakfast: the first ear of corn, uncooked and scraped off the cob for a toothless child with rumbled hair
*roasted corn (from the filled-to-bursting sack my brother gave us) on its way to becoming a salad (yes, I am the insane woman who cranks her oven up to 450 degrees over the blazing hot noon hour, yikes)
*granola breakfast bread
*scalloped eggs
*dark chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting (and, not yet added, chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache) for the the new parents at church
*shocking beet hummus
*baby chicks!
*baby chick on barn floor—thanks to that photo, I’m seriously wishing my concrete counter tops were slate gray instead of red
*panting (or making a face so your mom will cease and desist with all the obnoxious picture taking)

P.S. The barn is not my domain. At all. But my husband forgot to set up for the chicks that were coming so this morning, in the midst of kneading bread and boiling eggs and digging potatoes, I set up a little nest for them. It’s a slapdash affair, one that involves torn strips of cardboard and a glass pie plate for their feed. I’ll let my husband fix them up a proper nest when he gets home tonight.

This same time, years previous: homemade shampoo and conditioner, braised cabbage, salvation’s chocolate chip cookies

I do not have a zucchini bread recipe in my recipe index. Perhaps you have noticed? Perhaps it has bothered you that I have neglected to include such a seasonal no-brainer staple? Perhaps the lack of zucchini bread has led you to the conclusion that I’m a mediocre cook, or even worse, a cook wannabe? Because really, how could a home gardener with a food blog not have a zucchini bread recipe in her arsenal? It’s practically blasphemous!

Or, perhaps you don’t care. Perhaps you hate zucchini. Perhaps you never even look at the recipe index or, horror of horrors, know it’s there.

However, after I get done with this post, there will be a zucchini bread recipe in the index because I have found my dream zucchini bread, glory be!

Zucchini bread has been the bane of my July zucchini-eating existence. Every summer I dig through my files and try to find one that I like. But because I never take notes (because they’re not that note-worthy), I never remember which one it is that I’d like to make, so I hem and haw around, make several kinds of bread and stick them in the freezer and then leave them there. Not because we don’t like zucchini bread, because we do, but because the breads are always rather unmemorable. Just, you know, plain old zucchini bread. Bah humbug, let’s make scones.

This year I made two new kinds of bread. The blueberry zucchini bread was good but it didn’t inspire any kitchen jigging. The lemon rosemary zucchini bread was more savory and quite fine, but again, no jigging. (Mr. Handsome and I both agreed it’d be improved by a hot lemon syrup baptism.) And that was the end my zucchini bread making experimentation ’cause my plants keeled over and I switched from get-‘em-used-up-now mode to the-precious-few-zucchinis-in-my-crisper-must-not-be-squandered mode.

And then, kind of out of the blue and thanks to the Fresh Air Fund (how random is that?), I got served the zucchini bread I’ve been looking for all these years.

Here’s how it came about.

Saturday morning I got a call from a prospective host family. “Is it too late to sign up?” the mom asked.

“No, no, no!” I assured her. “The program desperately needs more families—they have something like 900 kids on their waiting list—and you still have a couple weeks before the next trip. But we need to do the interview as soon as possible so we can get the paperwork in.”

And so it was that I found myself sitting at her dinning room table that very afternoon, enjoying the view of the valley through the large, open windows, listening to her mother tell stories of the Fresh Air children they had when she was little (“We had a boy named Enry-kay.” “Enry-kay?” “Yes, E-N-R-I-Q-U-E.” “Mom! That’s EnRIque! Oh my goodness, Enry-kay! The poor kid!”), a plate of freshly baked zucchini bread sitting temptingly directly in front of me.

I only had one piece because I can not pretend to be semi-professional and eat at the same time, but I was fully aware of what I was eating. There was definitely some whole grain in it, and the bit of chocolate, just on the top and all melty and soft, was quite lovely. There was toasted coconut, too, and I was pretty sure that it also was just a topping. I contemplated asking for the recipe but restrained myself. Perhaps random recipe requesting wasn’t what normal people did? I certainly didn’t want to appear more discombobulated and weird than I was already (quite naturally) acting. So I kept my mouth shut, collected the paperwork, and took my leave.

Less than 24 hours later, I caved. I had to call the family back with a couple questions about their references, and at the end of the phone conversation I piped up with, “And one more thing—it’s kind of an odd request—but may I have your zucchini bread recipe?”

“Of course!” she said cheerfully. “There’s really nothing fancy about it—”

“But there’s some whole grain in it, right?”

“Oh yes, I use all whole wheat—I grind my own. It still calls for a lot of oil, but I cut back on that and it turns out fine.”

“All whole wheat? Wow.”

She promptly emailed me the recipe and today I made it.

And now there is a zucchini bread recipe in my recipe index.

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread
Adapted from Andrea’s recipe

Andrea says she uses freshly-milled hard white wheat. I used (home-milled and frozen) Prairie Gold wheat.

I’m not a fan of chocolate chips in my zucchini bread, but they are delicious as a topping. I sprinkled just a few on my loaves before baking, but next time I’ll do more (just down the center top for the trough-of-molten-chocolate effect) and kind of press them into the batter a little—my chips stayed on top and pop off when I slice the loaves.

In the oven the coconut gets toasty brown which makes for one heck of a fabulously crunchy topping. Do not neglect this step. (You can add nuts to the topping, too, but I did not. I think a some walnuts or pecans would make an German frosting-type topping.)

Note from July 2, 2014: Today I under-baked a double batch. The edges were pulling away from the pan, the top of the loaves were nicely browned, and the toothpick came out clean. However, the inside of the bread is still dense and soggy. The take-away? Bake these another 5-10 minutes after you first think they are done. The bread is in no danger of drying out. In fact, it needs to.

Note from June 27, 2015: One recipe fits perfectly in a 9-inch springform pan. Sprinkle the top liberally with chocolate chips and then a lot of coconut. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes.

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup neutral-tasting oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups grated zucchini
½ to 1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup coconut, give or take

Stir together the first six ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add the oil and vanilla. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry and add the zucchini.

Divide the batter between 4 small, greased loaf pans (or 2 regular-sized). Sprinkle a row of chocolate chips down the center of each loaf, pressing the chips into the dough just a little. Sprinkle the loaves with the coconut (all over, not just the center). Bake the loaves at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes (or, for the large loaves, close to an hour). Cool for ten minutes before running a knife around the edge of the pans and inverting the loaves onto a cooling rack.

To freeze, wrap each loaf in plastic before placing in another plastic bag and transferring to the freezer.

The birthday celebrations are over. My girl is now completely ten.

Her first-ever birthday party was on Friday. I think she had a good time.

I was a little worried that we didn’t plan more activities for them to do, but every time I brought it up to Mr. Handsome, he’d just wave at me like I was a gnat and say, “They’ll just go play. It’ll be fine.”

He was right. As soon as the girls arrived, they all holed up in the clubhouse and it was perfectly quiet.

Which was a startling contrast to my son’s party where all the boys ran around waving sticks and yelling. They played hard, threw popcorn, gorged on candy, and were sound asleep by 11:30.

The girls, on the other hand, were generally quieter though a little screamy, perhaps. They made up organized games, play-acted intensely (when delivering some popcorn, I unwittingly interrupted a childbirth), had deep discussions (“Isn’t it ridiculous how women used to be treated?”), pooled all the pinata candy and then divided it out evenly, and stayed up till two and got up at 5:30 (and a couple of them reportedly stayed up all night).

The birthday supper was a little controversial. My daughter wanted fried chicken and corn-on-the-cob, but I had a better idea, I told her: raclettes! Having never eaten them before, she was noncommittal. And after showing her the one I was borrowing from a friend, she remained apprehensive. “I thought the birthday kids get to choose what they want to eat,” she said sadly.

Despite my certainty that my idea was a good one, I started to doubt myself. Mr. Handsome was no help. “You’re going to make them cook their own supper? Are they even going to want to do that? Wouldn’t it be easier to just feed them hamburgers or something?”

“Oh, come on!” I huffed. “Of course they’re going to love it. They get to sit around and cook. It’s the perfect meal for a bunch of little girls!”

And you know what? I was right! The girls were totally enthused. One of them kept saying, “This is the greatest meal! We get to cook whatever we want!” I think she said that fourteen times. At least.

And when my daughter told them what they would’ve eaten had I not gotten the raclette maker, they said, “That would’ve been good … but this is better.” My daughter was visibly (to me) relieved. I think she was a little nervous about what her friends would think of her mother’s weird idea.

What I gave them to cook with:
Fat: butter, olive oil
Veggies: onions, garlic, steamed broccoli, boiled new potatoes, tomatoes
Dairy: two kinds of cheese
Meat: eggs, chicken, beef, sausage, ham, bacon
Condiments: barbecue sauce, soy sauce, fresh basil, ketchup, S & P
Also: a double batch of breadsticks, which was really smart (if I do say so myself) because it takes a little while to cook and eat, cook and eat, and the girls needed something to munch on while they were waiting for their food. And munch them down they did, every last one of them.

Later, when I was cooking my own dinner, I pulled out the heavy whipping cream. My garlicky chicken simmered in cream with basil and bacon was super-duper lush.

(The next evening, after the house had been cleaned up and everyone had baths, we had a relaxed family meal with the leftovers, of which there were many. The kids are head-over-heels in love with the new discovery. I’m thinking we may need to make an investment…)

After supper was cleaned up, there was the cake and presents.

She had requested a mint-chocolate cake. The dumped ice cream cone was my own personal touch.

Then there was the long night where I slept a little and the kids slept even less, and the next morning there were mountains of blueberry (and plain) buttermilk pancakes, sausages, and milk before the parents arrived to pick-up their bleary-eyed little girls.

I always feel semi-guilty, sending home such exhausted children. Like I should slip an apology letter into their backpacks—something that says, “Your kids are going to be bears for the rest of the day and I am so very sorry. A long afternoon nap and lots of vegetables may help.”

This same time, years previous: bacon-wrapped breadsticks, zucchini parmesan frittata, shrimp with coconut milk, the sex talk, alfredo sauce