Mary’s Super Moist Chocolate Zucchini Bread (With NO Vegetable Oil)

29 July, 2015 ~ Grace ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of year again, the zucchini is pouring out of the garden. I love the abundance of this versatile veggie, and have many recipes to use them up. Zucchini bread has always been a good way to use it up, but this one is a super duper amazing way to use it! I’m going to freeze lots and lots of zucchini just so I can make this bread all year long. ;D

It’s so moist and smooth and sweet and wonderful and it all came about by accident. Mary is the one that first made this, hence the name: “Mary’s Super Moist Chocolate Zucchini Bread”. She had a recipe to follow, but we hadn’t been shopping for a while and didn’t have some of the ingredients, so she “improvised”. We were all pleasantly surprised with the results. 🙂

This is not only very tasty but healthier than most quick breads too!

Mary's Moist Chocolate Zucchini Bread (With NO Vegetable Oil)

This will make 2 loaves.

Author: Queen Of The Red Doublewide

Ingredients

2 cups grated zucchini
3 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 cups of sugar (I use a bit less)
1 stick melted butter (half a cup)
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3 and ¼ cups all purpose flour
½ cup cocoa powder

Instructions

Grease two loaf pans and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the first 5 ingredients until well combined.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Divide the batter between the 2 loaf pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 min then lower the temp to 300 degrees and bake an additional 15 minutes.
Remove from the loaf pans and cool completely before cutting.

Another great thing about this bread is you have options! I love options. 🙂

You can add a 3/4 of a cup of chocolate chips and have “Mary’s Super Moist Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread” (this is my girls favorite).

Or you could leave out the cocoa powder and have “Mary’s Super Moist Zucchini Bread” and it’s still, oh so good!!

Wait, there’s more!….We made three batches of this last week (6 loaves). Six loaves for four people is a bit much, so I froze 2 loaves and took them out yesterday for breakfast and took some to our Bible study. They froze VERY well and I think they might have even tasted better from the freezer!?!? WHAT?

I have noticed that while this bread is delicious still warm from the oven, it’s very crumbly if you don’t let it cool completely first. Its even easier to cut after being in a zip lock bag over night. But, it tastes great ANY time. 🙂

Homeschool Art Project – Redneck Style

3 April, 20131 January, 2017 ~ Grace ~ 5 Comments

One of Diggers many projects over the winter was to rebuild the deck on his trailer. He just finished it the other day when we (ok, me) decided the nice new wood needed a little color.

The girls were more than happy to help out! In fact, they giggled the entire time. 😀

Yes, I was cringing and thinking of the mess!! Oh, and by the way; wet paint can be very slippery!

But the smiles and giggles were worth it!

Now every time Digger loads or unloads his excavator he will think of his giggly girls. 🙂

Snowflakes – Winter Art Project, Science, History and Bible Lesson

3 January, 201323 November, 2016 ~ Grace ~ Leave a comment

Winter has arrived!! So we decided to start working on our “winter wall”. To see pictures of our “fall wall” click here. Of course the first thing to go on a “winter wall” should be snowflakes…right? We got out the coffee filters and started cutting.

Coffee filters make great snowflakes they are round and easy to cut through, not to mention cheap. The girls came up with some great designs. But then we ran into a problem….we had beautiful white snowflakes and a very white wall to hang them on. Instead of launching a full on, home improvement project of repainting our classroom/playroom we decided to bust out the water colors and make some colorful snowflakes to hang on our white wall. I think they turned out beautiful!!

I then decided we should look at some “REAL” snowflakes. We found several websites that have up close pictures of snowflakes….WOW! They are absolutely gorgeous, every unique one of them. I then found this amazing article “Snowflake Bentley: Man of Science, Man of God” by Jerry Bergman Ph.D. on the “Institute for Christian Research” website. I shared this article with my girls and we attempted to make six sided snowflakes (like the real ones.) This was harder than it sounds…..eventually we managed to get a few decent looking six sided snowflakes. 🙂

I love that this simple art project turned into a science, history and bible lesson. It taught all three of us new things, and made us even more grateful and aware of another one of God’s magnificent creations.

Here are a few pictures of what we like to do with an over abundance of beautiful ice crystals.

Sledding!!