Smitten By My Stove Zucchini Banana Bread

Disclaimer: I can't personally vouch for the awesomeness of this creation since mine turned out, well... in the garbage can. But that's because the kitchen gods smote me, not because the recipe sucks. Here's what happened. I wanted to bake something for my friend Meg, who was good enough to find Ella some hand-me-down uniforms for this upcoming school year. Meg wears ironed aprons, has perfectly parted hair, and served us grilled angel food cake with strawberries on china for a play date snack. I even had a saucer for my coffee. This, after I offered up a frozen pizza and whatever the kids could find on the kitchen floor when she came to our house. Needless to say, I needed a pretty good baked good for this domestic diva, so I fancied up a traditional banana bread recipe, poured the batter into my best bread pan--the one without the rust on the bottom--popped it in my oven, and waited for its glorious completion. I wasn't sure how long it would take since this was a new creation and I like my bread moist (that sounds like it should be dirty, but I can't think of how), so after 30 minutes I pulled it out to check on it. After stabbing the bread with a kabob stick I decided it still had a while to go and opened the oven door to put it back in. Only instead of opening like a normal oven would do for a normal cook, my oven door fell apart in my hands. With an underdone bread in one hand and an oven mitt in the other, I first caught the door handle as it pulled off the door, then the door frame and, finally, the glass panel from the front of the oven. Yet somehow, through all of this, the door itself did not open. "Steve, I need you!" I shouted to my husband upstairs. "Come quick, it's an emergency!" "Oh, *%$!," he proclaimed as he ran into the kitchen and grabbed a screw driver. "No time for fixes!" I shrieked, "Get the crow bar and pry open the oven! I'll hold the glass and the front of the stove for the next 15 minutes! We need to get Meg's banana bread back in there, STAT!" Steve, who knows nothing about aprons, or play dates, or parted hair, did not share my sense of urgency to save the bread and instead saved the oven door. By the time he was done, it was too late. I tried to make him eat the underdone bread as a punishment, but the batter stuck in his throat. Anyway, mine ended up in the garbage can, but if you're not in possession of demon appliances I'm sure yours will be divine.

Smitten Zucchini Banana Bread

Here's What You're Gonna Need:
(as always, divided into groups for those like myself with kitchen ADD)

1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 cup oats (rolled or quick or stolen from a horse or whatever)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2-3 overripe bananas (The grosser the better. Unless they have fruit flies. That's too gross.), thoroughly mashed.

1 tsp vanilla

2 smallish or 1 big honkin green zucchini--shred, then give it a quick squeeze in a paper towel to get some of the moisture out.
1 cup walnuts and/or whatever makes you happy (raisins, chocolate chips, bacos, whatever)


And Here's What You're Gonna Do:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 9X5 loaf pans or at least 2 muffin tins.

Whisk together the first group of ingredients (flours, wheat germ, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt).

In a different big bowl, beat the eggs. Add the sugars, oil, applesauce and mashed bananas. Add vanilla and mix it all up.

Pour the dry ingredients into the big bowl of wet ones and stir until just combined. Fold in the zucchini, walnuts, and whatever else you got.

Pour into loaf pans.

Bake, I'm guessing, 45ish mins for bread, 35ish for muffins, or until your favorite baking stabber comes out dry.

Then please mail to my friend Meg and say it's from me.