Celebrate Summer!

I know; I haven't posted in a few days! I was visiting my family in Georgia, where I had a great time reconnecting with friends and family. While there, I had my fill of sweet tea, fantastic Southern style food and home baked sweets. I returned to Illinois with a renewed interest in the art of Southern cooking. I wanted to bake something especially tasty and decadent to maintain the memory of home. I looked at a few recipes, then to my surprise, a friend dropped off some zucchini fresh from her homegrown garden! So, I quickly began my search for the perfect zucchini bread recipe. Can you imagine where I looked first? You guessed it - good ole' Paula Dean, straight from Savannah, GA! She has a simple, yet absolutely delicious recipe for perfectly moist and pecan-filled zucchini bread. This recipe yields enough for 2 loaves. I even dropped one off to my mother-in-law :-) There's no denying that our beautiful summer days are slowly coming to an end. Savor them by using summer garden vegetables and fruits to celebrate! Here's the zucchini bread recipe I encourage you to try! I doubled the pecan serving and was not disappointed!

Ingredients

• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.