Playing with food

Ever since I had Sean I have been cooking and baking a lot more. Before Sean I ate maybe one meal a day at home and maybe 14 meals a week out. Now we eat out about 3 meals a week and I make very few things from a box. I have been spending time on all recipes daily and have subscribed to two food magazines. My TiVo has more Food Network shows than episodes of Snapped and I have started my own cookbook in Word to save all of my attempts at cooking and baking.

Today's experiment: Chocolate Zucchini Bread.

This morning I took the three kids and met a few other mothers for a walk in a nearby subdivision. After our walk we had a muffin at a local coffee shop. The chocolate chips mixed with banana bread were surprisingly yummy so I decided during nap time that I would like to whip up something with cocoa in it.

I found this recipe at allrecipes.com.

I turned the ingredient list from this:

Ingredients
2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate

to this:

Ingredients
6 tablespoons Nestle Cocoa
2 tablespoons Crisco Oil
3 eggs
3/4 cups white sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

The recipe made two 9x5 loaves that cooked in about 60 minutes. The bread is pretty good. It is far more healthy than the original recipe but not exceptionally sweet. The chocolate chips added all the chocolate flavor I would have needed. I think perhaps next time I will skip the cocoa and just put in more chips. And maybe a tad bit more sugar. I am not an expert by any means at baking and I certainly don't watch enough Alton Brown, but I am having a great time experimenting with many recipes.

In my search through the pantry this afternoon I came across some "Special Dark" cocoa. I am already thinking about what I can bake using that.

I am also on the lookout for a good Cherry Coffee Cake recipe to make this weekend for my dad and grandmother so if you know of one, please send me a link or recipe and I promise not to alter it...too much anyways.