Zucchini Nut Bread, or, Courgette Walnut Tea Cake

I found Eleanor's wartime ration books recently while looking through some old family photos. I'm fascinated by the way her young adulthood was completely transformed by the onset of World War II-- she dealt with rationing, a fiance at war, a manufacturing job... all things I will never face, and she did it with aplomb. The ration books, especially, are completely foreign objects to me: I don't understand how they work or how they were used, and most of all I don't understand why she was able to save two mostly-full books. Didn't she need the coupons inside? These were the conditions under which Eleanor learned to cook when she was in her early 20s. Eleanor was 18 when World War II began, and nearly 25 when it ended. That means that her formative cooking years were characterised by rations, Victory Gardens, and the complete lack of many 'luxury' ingredients that I consider staples. I think her style adapted accordingly: if you learn to cook during times of hardship, then maybe that becomes a skill you'll always have.

This recipe for Zucchini Bread (or, as it would be known here in Scotland, Courgette Tea Cake) has made it through three generations in my family: Eleanor made it for her family, my mom made it for me, and now I make it for us. It's easy to see why this recipe persists across generational boundaries: it's simple, affordable, and the ingredients are nearly always in season. Even during World War II, this recipe would have been more straightforward than many others because it contains no butter and no milk, and the courgettes included can easily be grown in most climates, so they wouldn't need to be transported very far. Plus, even though there's a large amount of sugar contained in this recipe, it also makes a huge amount of bread, so the payoff is definitely worth it.

Judging by the stains on this recipe, Eleanor must have made this bread many times, and I'm glad she did, because it was one of my favourite treats when I was growing up. (Right up there with my mom's pound cake and her macaroni and cheese... both of which she also nicked from Eleanor's collection). This bread is the kind of thing you can make on a Sunday and enjoy all week as a quick breakfast before you go to work. Or the kind of thing you can take to a sick friend to help them recover. It's just as good no matter whether you enjoy it with your bowling league (like Eleanor), with a cup of coffee and a crossword puzzle (like my mom), or at your desk with a latte during an early work morning (like me). I love adaptable recipes like this one, and I love that I can trace this recipe through three generations of my family. I may never have been able to make this recipe with Eleanor, but it's still special to me to know that I'm cooking the same things she did, seventy years later on a different continent.

I think that's the beauty of family recipes: they unite us across time and place, making our family history into bite-sized pieces that we can share across generations. My passion for family cooking is why I'm so glad to be participating in Project STIR, a cool new cooking project developed by fellow blogger Sarah Shotts. Project STIR is a series of documentary films launching this fall on Kickstarter. The films will follow Abuelitas, Nans & Mamaws passing down heirloom recipes in kitchens around the globe including countries like: Panama, New Zealand, Turkey, Croatia & England. Click here to learn more about how to be involved.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. This recipe is easy, versatile, and nearly foolproof. It's delicious as breakfast, a snack, or even as dessert. Best of all, it exemplifies everything I love about this project: it's a recipe passed down through the generations of my family that I'm now cooking in my Scottish kitchen under a totally different name... but still tasting just as delicious!

Check out Project STIR and all the cool stuff they are doing to make sure family recipes like this one are preserved for the future, and while you're at it, try this courgette bread-- you'll love it!

The recipe:

Courgette Walnut Tea Cake

the directions:

Grease and flour two medium loaf pans, or, like me, one large and one small loaf pan.
Preheat oven to 176C/350F.
Chop or break nuts into medium pieces.
Beat eggs, then gradually beat in sugar and oil.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder.
Add dry ingredients to egg mixture, alternating with zucchini/courgette.
Stir in nuts, vanilla, and raisins (if using).
Pour into loaf pans and cook on the bottom rack of the oven for 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Remove from oven, let cool for 10 minutes, then turn onto a rack to cool.

the ingredients:

1 c walnuts
4 eggs
2 c sugar
1 c vegetable oil
3 ½ c flour
1 ½ t baking soda
1 ½ t salt
2 t cinnamon
¾ t baking powder
2 c zucchini/courgette, grated
1 t vanilla
1 c raisins (optional)

Treasure Cake

When I was a kid, we lived in Eleanor's house for awhile after my mom inherited it. I had my mom's old room, there were palm trees in the front yard, a grapefruit tree in the backyard, and a Spanish tile roof that sounded just amazing during thunderstorms. (There was also green shag carpet which devastated me when my parents removed it). The palm trees dropped tiny nuts that I loved to collect and pretend were pirate money, because clearly it took very little to amuse me. I'd collect giant buckets of them and bury them in our yard or in the playground across the street, and I thought they were awesome. I guess pirates and buried treasure are always awesome, but there's something especially awesome about them when you live in Florida where real pirates made their living and real pirate gold is still being found (at least according to every old man with a metal detector walking the beach after every tropical storm).

So obviously I was excited when I found this recipe for Treasure Cake. Surely it would have something to do with pirates, right? Even Judson got excited that it would be like a king cake and we'd get to bury toys in it. Alas, I thought, when I realised that the 'treasure' was actually just chocolate chips.

We've discussed, ad nauseum, how I, of the world's largest sweet tooth, somehow managed to marry a man who is completely indifferent to the wonders of desserts. Clearly I come by this sweet tooth legitimately, as there's nothing Eleanor loved as much as desserts...

...Which is why I was surprised to find this recipe in the box. I mean, it's a dessert, but it's kind of on the low-end of awesome desserts, since there's no frosting and barely any chocolate (or so I thought). Let not this description deceive you: this cake is a treasure

Hear me out on the list of attributes:

• It's frosting-free, which means you don't have to plan ahead in order to take it to an event (or even just to have it with dinner), because there's no cooling time to accommodate frosting it.

• This also means there are fewer dishes to wash.

• And it's significantly lower in sugar and fat than a frosted cake would be.

• Plus, maybe it's the beaten eggs or the relatively high amount of baking powder, but this cake rises in the oven to more than twice its original size... which means it somehow strikes the perfect balance between fluffy and cakey.

• And... if it's your birthday or a day for treating yourself, this cake makes a killer breakfast paired with a dark black cup of coffee.

• And last, it's stupid that it's taken me this long to realise it, so I'll just come out and say it: I'll take chocolate chips over chocolate cake any day of the week. Something about melting chocolate and then stirring it into the batter makes it lose that perfect chocolatey flavour, whereas sprinkling chocolate chips throughout a thick, buttery batter like this one leaves you with pockets of decadent melted chocolate, just bitter enough to counteract the sweetness of the cake.

Basically, if you don't like sweets, this is totally the dessert for you. And if you DO like sweets, then this is the kind of thing to make for a party where you don't know the audience very well and you don't want to alarm them by bringing something too heavy, decadent, or sweet (like the time I showed up to a party of grown-ups who didn't like sweet things with a giant platter of baked s'mores, which no one touched and I had to take home and eat all by myself, more's the pity).

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. If you're going through a cooking funk like I have been the last few days, this is the perfect, easiest recipe to get you out of it. It's simple, delicious, and versatile, plus, the recipe divides easily into two layers, or you can leave it all in one pan for an insanely high-rise cake. It's definitely best on the first day, but it last 3 days before getting dry.

The recipe:

Treasure Cake

the directions:

Preheat oven to 176C/350F.
Grease 2 round layer cake pans (or one, if you want your cake high like mine).
Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla thoroughly.
Add eggs and beat until light and fluffy.
Mix and sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add to egg mixture, alternating with milk.
Beat until smooth and well-blended.
Mix in the chocolate chips with the last of the flour.
Pour into cake pan(s) and bake 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

the ingredients:

1/3 c butter
¾ c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs, well beaten
2 ¼ c flour, sifted
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 c milk
¾ c chocolate chips (or 1 c if that's how you roll)

Venison Stew

The first time I ever had venison was when a German friend of my mom's made roast venison and gave a huge portion to my mom... who then lied to me and told me it was roast beef to convince me to eat it. I always thought it was hilarious that she felt the need to lie about it, because it didn't even faze me: that deer was delicious. But then I went another decade without having venison again until I moved to Scotland, where it's as ubiquitous on most restaurant menus as pork. Here in Scotland, venison is everywhere: in pies, soups, casseroles, and served by itself. But despite the fact that I have eaten it a few times a year ever since moving here, I had still never cooked it until I stumbled upon this recipe (which can easily be made with beef, if you're wondering). Although I can't imagine Eleanor making this recipe with venison (where would you get venison in Central Florida?), I could totally see her making it with beef. It's got a great old-fashioned sounding list of ingredients, with mostly traditional herbs and spices and a few odd ones thrown in (looking at you, paprika and cranberries), and it totally seems like the kind of thing you'd expect your grandparents to serve you when you come over for a visit.

You didn't believe me about the ron swanson thing, did you?

I've been excited about making this recipe ever since I first spotted it in the box. It's a recipe from a 1977 issue of Better Homes & Gardens, and, as an avid soup lover, I was stoked. I saved it for the first day of fall, so I could post it in honour of the changing of the seasons and the fact that soup weather is finally on the way!

I mean, Better Homes & Gardens vets their recipes, right?

And this one is from a NASA chef who planned the meals that went into space, so you'd really think he knew what he was doing, right?*

And said chef looks just like Ron Swanson, which has to be a good thing when it comes to meat, right?

And the recipe is based on a 'colonial kitchen' classic in honour of the American Bicentennial, so... really, you'd think it would be good, right?

RIGHT??

I had high hopes for this: I love the way soup makes the whole house smell great, I love having easily-frozen leftovers that can be re-heated on cold autumn nights. But here is the thing about writing a cooking blog: it throws a lot of curveballs your way, and this recipe was one of them.

First of all, the quantity of water listed in the recipe was drastically incorrect. The liquid, which you're supposed to be able to use to make a venison broth, boiled off completely in less than half of the time it was supposed to simmer, so the meat burned to a char and nearly caught our kitchen on fire. As it was, the kitchen reeked for a full three days after we made this.

But, having no choice but to continue, I removed the charred pieces from the meat and continued with the recipe.

Enter disaster number 2: the cranberries.** In the image that accompanied this recipe in BH&G, there are clearly cranberries floating in the bowl of soup. But as soon as my cranberries heated up, they burst and then completely dissolved. Which would have been fine, except have you ever tasted a cranberry? They're hella bitter, and the 2 tbsp of sugar that the recipe calls for was nowhere near enough to overcome this. I ended up doubling the sugar and easily could have doubled it again to try to cover up the bitterness that ran through every drop of the soup because of how the cranberries dissolved.

Oh yeah, the original also called for 'julienned matchstick celery.' So there's that.

But hear me out: these two things are fixable. And in the recipe below, I've fixed them. So the soup, made according to the below, is delicious, and totally worth it. So the next time an autumn rainstorm blows into town and you just want to snuggle up with a blanket and a bowl of soup, consider this one. It's hearty and filling without leaving you feeling like a bag of wet cement (like potato soup always does), and, if you make it as per the below, your house will smell awesome. Plus, if you have a loved one who is anything like mine, this soup is a sure way to their heart.

*This recipe is also from a regular BH&G feature from the 1970s called 'He Cooks,' which featured only 'masculine' recipes that 'men like to cook.'

**The most heartbreaking part of the cranberries going awry is that I used cranberries from my stash to make this! Cranberries are pretty hard to find here in Scotland, so every winter I buy as many bags as I can convince Judson to allow me and freeze them for year-round baking. And I wasted a whole cup of my stash on what turned out to be a veritable disaster.

The verdict:

2 spoons as written in BH&G. But as noted below, 4 spoons. Make this soup and enjoy autumn!

The recipe:

Venison Stew

the directions:

Combine 4 ½ c water and venison, salt, and pepper in a large pot.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.
Cover and cook for 30 minutes or slightly longer if venison is not yet cooked through.
Stir in wine, carrots, potato, cranberries (and sugar, if using fresh ones), onion, celery, garlic, worcestershire, paprika, juniper berries, cloves, and bay leaf.
Cover and let simmer for 30 minutes, then check to see if vegetables are tender.
If not, continue to cook for another 15 minutes, checking frequently.
Once vegetables are done, stir remaining ½ c water into the flour briskly until no lumps remain.
Pour this mixture into the soup to help thicken it.
Place a heaping spoonful of rice in the bottom of each soup bowl and top with the soup.

Yields approximately 4 servings, best enjoyed with a very cold beer.

the ingredients:

1 lb boneless venison or beef, cut into bite-sized cubes
5 c water, divided
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper, ground coarsely
½ c red wine (a sweetish one, like Shiraz)
4 medium carrots, chunked
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
EITHER ½ c fresh cranberries and 4 tbsp brown sugar OR ½ c sweetened dried cranberries (like Craisins)
½ c onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 ½ tsp paprika
3 juniper berries
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
½ c rye flour (I couldn't find this so I used whole wheat and it was fine)
Cooked wild rice