Zucchini Bread for One (or Two)

Happy Friday! Today marks the first official day of Fall. It’s my favorite season without question and I am pumped up for recipes full of winter squash and warm spices….however, I am still behind in sharing some of my “summer” recipes with you and seriously need to catch up. I won’t post them all (I promise, I know I need to move on) but I hope you don’t mind a few more I feel are worthy of mentioning : )

Zucchini is one of my go-to veggies, it’s incredibly versatile and can be used in both sweet and savory dishes. I love when a vegetable can be easily incorporated into a sweet dish or a dessert (ie. carrot cake, zucchini brownies, chocolate beet cake, sweet potato pie etc…)

Before we sold our house, I had a cute, above-ground garden where zucchini flourished in the summer; I remember the first summer we built the garden, I squealed with excitement when our first squash was ready to be picked! There were quite a few that grew to be ginormous in size…exhibit A below. Being a novice gardener, I didn’t know that zucchini were best much smaller…this one was full of seeds and basically inedible…it makes for a funny photo.

This summer I missed being able to go out back and pick my homegrown veggies but that definitely didn’t mean I didn’t consume my fair share of store-bought zucchini the past several months!

A while back, I only had 1/3 of a small zucchini left in the fridge…I was craving zucchini bread so I made myself a small loaf. It was incredibly moist, easy, quick and very filling! Instead of including nuts in the batter, I sprinkled the top with some raw sunflower seeds for a little crunch plus it looks pretty : ) This bread could be served as a healthy breakfast bake, a pick-me-up snack or as a lightly-sweetened dessert. I made this with teff flour but buckwheat, quinoa or oat flour would all be delicious. If you don’t have to eat gluten free, I am sure spelt or whole wheat would also work beautifully.

Zucchini Bread for One  (or Two)

Ingredients

1/4 cup teff flour (or buckwheat, oat, quinoa or your favorite flour could be subbed)
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed (or more flour)
1 Tbsp chia seed (or more flax seed)
1 Tbsp shredded coconut (or your favorite nut or dried fruit)
1-2 tsp chocolate chips, cacao nibs, carob OR raisins or currants, optional
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
dash of salt and ground cloves, optional
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup shredded zucchini (about 1/3 small zucchini)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 Tbsp applesauce
2 Tbsp dairy or non dairy milk (I used almond milk)
1 – 2 tsp honey, agave or other sweetener such as coconut/palm sugar

1 tsp sunflower seeds to sprinkle on top, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease with coconut oil or line a small bowl/baking dish with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a small bowl, mix dry ingredients (flour through salt and cloves) and combine well.
3. In another small bowl, combine wet ingredients and whisk to combine (egg through sweetener). Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until moistened.
4. Spread in prepared baking dish, sprinkle with sunflower seeds and bake for 26-30 minutes until cooked through and toothpick inserted in middle is no longer wet. Serve warm or at room temperature and enjoy!

Serves one or two. Bread can be frozen if desired

*You could probably make a quick version and cook it in the microwave like my banana bread quinoa bake but I haven’t tried this yet. I would start with less time (1 minutes) and increase in small increments (15-20 secs) so it doesn’t dry out and become a hard hockey puck!