treated tenderly.
I want the pleasure of something sweet but would like to reduce the degree to which we are enslaved by processed sugar and flour, your basic white devils. Being vegan, I am also at odds with dairy and eggs. I ask a lot.
The vegan factor complicates everything. Many vegan baked goods are — and I don’t want to alienate my own here — heavy. Or wet. Or both. My definitive zucchini bread recipe came about the way all my culinary successes do — off book, intuitively, in a kitchen fever. It is flavorful, flaxen, light, lemony, tender, and vegan, with eye-catching green zucchini flecks.
Zucchini bread multitasks, combining the sweet innocence of nursery food, the virtue of vegetables, and enough of a woo-hoo fun factor to make it all worthwhile.
Zucchini Bread
Enjoy with a cup of tea. Enjoy with someone you love. This can be yourself. Focus on the tea’s gentle, floral notes, the bread’s light and lemony sweetness. One small zucchini will do the trick. You’ll have the benefit of its goodness but barely know it’s there at work. Breathe. Feel at peace with the season, at peace with yourself. I’m not saying you have to sing “Kumbaya” or anything, but hey, if the spirit moves you.
¼ cup canola or coconut oil, plus more for oiling the pan
1 small zucchini, grated
2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds (also known as flax meal)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1½ cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
cup brown sugar
½ cup unsweetened soy milk
3 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 9-x-5-inch loaf pan.
In a small bowl, stir together the zucchini, flaxseeds, and lemon zest.
In a large bowl, sift together the spelt flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and brown sugar.
Add the zucchini mixture to the flour mixture and toss, keeping things light — good advice for life in general.
In another small bowl, combine the soy milk and lemon juice. It will curdle; don’t fret. Stir in the ¼ cup oil and agave nectar.
Gently stir the wet ingredients into the zucchini-flour mixture, until just combined.
Pour into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45 minutes, or until bread is golden and puffed, and a tester inserted in the center comes away crumb-free and clean. You can also give it a gentle poke with a finger; it should spring back when baked through.
MOTHER’S DAT for DUMMIES
Spring is the season for regeneration, but it is also the season for she who generates. In April, we honor Mother Earth on Earth Day, then come May, we honor our own respective mothers on Mother’s Day. Gotta love ’em both because without the planet and without your mom, you wouldn’t be here.
Every year on Earth Day, we suddenly remember, oh, right, the earth is our home, where we’ve been getting room and board. For free. We feel guilty, so we throw parties, and they’re fabulous; but the presents are even better, with people launching new green initiatives every year. The thing is, whether your community starts a composting program or you make your own pledge to buy and eat local produce at least twice a week, the earth gets it. She doesn’t nag and say why haven’t you called. She’s the world’s greatest mom. You don’t need to take her out for brunch, just show some appreciation, make a little effort.
Jesus, it is said, made wine from water and fashioned loaves and fishes from thin air. The rest of us usually acquire foodstuffs by more conventional means. But for Earth Day, miracles are on the menu. You can help heal the planet, save money, and get a head start on dinner all in one go. I’ll even throw in a story.
One brisk spring morning, a stranger appears in a village (one of your classic plotlines, by the way). The stranger’s looking a little worse for wear and the village not much better. There’s been war, famine, poverty; in fact, all the horsemen of the apocalypse have ridden
I want the pleasure of something sweet but would like to reduce the degree to which we are enslaved by processed sugar and flour, your basic white devils. Being vegan, I am also at odds with dairy and eggs. I ask a lot.
The vegan factor complicates everything. Many vegan baked goods are — and I don’t want to alienate my own here — heavy. Or wet. Or both. My definitive zucchini bread recipe came about the way all my culinary successes do — off book, intuitively, in a kitchen fever. It is flavorful, flaxen, light, lemony, tender, and vegan, with eye-catching green zucchini flecks.
Zucchini bread multitasks, combining the sweet innocence of nursery food, the virtue of vegetables, and enough of a woo-hoo fun factor to make it all worthwhile.
Zucchini Bread
Enjoy with a cup of tea. Enjoy with someone you love. This can be yourself. Focus on the tea’s gentle, floral notes, the bread’s light and lemony sweetness. One small zucchini will do the trick. You’ll have the benefit of its goodness but barely know it’s there at work. Breathe. Feel at peace with the season, at peace with yourself. I’m not saying you have to sing “Kumbaya” or anything, but hey, if the spirit moves you.
¼ cup canola or coconut oil, plus more for oiling the pan
1 small zucchini, grated
2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds (also known as flax meal)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1½ cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
cup brown sugar
½ cup unsweetened soy milk
3 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 9-x-5-inch loaf pan.
In a small bowl, stir together the zucchini, flaxseeds, and lemon zest.
In a large bowl, sift together the spelt flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and brown sugar.
Add the zucchini mixture to the flour mixture and toss, keeping things light — good advice for life in general.
In another small bowl, combine the soy milk and lemon juice. It will curdle; don’t fret. Stir in the ¼ cup oil and agave nectar.
Gently stir the wet ingredients into the zucchini-flour mixture, until just combined.
Pour into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45 minutes, or until bread is golden and puffed, and a tester inserted in the center comes away crumb-free and clean. You can also give it a gentle poke with a finger; it should spring back when baked through.
MOTHER’S DAT for DUMMIES
Spring is the season for regeneration, but it is also the season for she who generates. In April, we honor Mother Earth on Earth Day, then come May, we honor our own respective mothers on Mother’s Day. Gotta love ’em both because without the planet and without your mom, you wouldn’t be here.
Every year on Earth Day, we suddenly remember, oh, right, the earth is our home, where we’ve been getting room and board. For free. We feel guilty, so we throw parties, and they’re fabulous; but the presents are even better, with people launching new green initiatives every year. The thing is, whether your community starts a composting program or you make your own pledge to buy and eat local produce at least twice a week, the earth gets it. She doesn’t nag and say why haven’t you called. She’s the world’s greatest mom. You don’t need to take her out for brunch, just show some appreciation, make a little effort.
Jesus, it is said, made wine from water and fashioned loaves and fishes from thin air. The rest of us usually acquire foodstuffs by more conventional means. But for Earth Day, miracles are on the menu. You can help heal the planet, save money, and get a head start on dinner all in one go. I’ll even throw in a story.
One brisk spring morning, a stranger appears in a village (one of your classic plotlines, by the way). The stranger’s looking a little worse for wear and the village not much better. There’s been war, famine, poverty; in fact, all the horsemen of the apocalypse have ridden
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