Zucchini in Disguise

Ava and I began the day by foraging in our vegetable garden.  She was very good at staying outside the perimeter of the garden; however, she seemed to think that once I placed something down on the ground it was fair game for the taking.  After she stole the tomato I had set aside for my lunch, I had to resort to carrying my harvest around in a bucket.

My bucket of veggies was destined for rainbow stew except for the zucchini - those were for brownies.

Inspired by Kori and Colin's moderately healthy take on brownies for those of us with surplus zucchini, Alistair and I gave it a shot.

Recipe: Gael Glen Farm's Zucchini Brownies

Ingredients

1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp cardamon

1/4 tsp ginger
3 cups shredded zucchini DO NOT DRAIN
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F and prepare an 8x11 pan with butter.

In a large bowl combine oil, sugar, and vanilla until fully incorporated.

Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and spices. Mix until combined. Batter will be very dry.

Fold in zucchini by hand. Allow batter to rest for 5 minutes.

Add in chocolate chunks and stir again. Batter should appear more wet.

Spread brownie mixture into the pan and bake for 1 hour.  Brownies are done with an inserted toothpick is removed with crumbs. There should not be wet batter on the toothpick.

I am happy to report that the brownies were a hit.  Liam and Seamus were shocked that zucchini could taste so great.

What did not get rave reviews was the goat cheese corn bread that I made to accompany the stew.

I used store bought goat cheese that we had sitting in the fridge and surprise, surprise, the boys thought it tasted too "goaty".  While they refused to eat the corn bread, both managed to make it through a bowl of rainbow stew.

Thank goodness we had those brownies waiting on the counter as bait.

Citations

Inspired by: https://iambaker.net/zucchini-brownies/#wprm-recipe-container-66158