An Abundance of Zucchini

Seems like everywhere I look I see zucchinis for sale. It must be a bumper crop this year. I have several favorite recipes for zucchini, that I resort to each summer. The one I made today was from" The Taste of Home Cupcake and Muffin Recipe Magazine". It is simply "Zucchini Muffins". I really like this particular recipe because it includes some of my favorite ingredients. If you happen to like these ingredients, you may want to try this easy recipe also. This recipe only makes six muffins, so I tripled it.

Recipe; 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tea. baking powder

1/4 tea. baking soda

1/4 tea. salt

1/4 tea. ground cinnamon

Put these six ingredients in a large bowl and stir.

1 egg

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 tea. vanilla

Stir together and add to bowl of dry ingredients. Stir only until moistened.

1 cup finely shredded unpeeled zucchini

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup raisins(I prefer the yellow ones because they are softer)

Fold into the bowl of batter

Spray muffin tin or small bundt pan with Pam, and fill each 3/4 full. Bake 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until firm to touch. Let cool and then invert onto plate. Yield: 6 muffins recipe submitted by Peg Gausz, New Jersey

Sometimes, if I am in the mood, I cut small hearts, stars or flowers out of refrigerated sticks of butter that I slice. It just adds an extra touch of beauty, to the plate.

I took this pretty rose plate that my daughter found at the Goodwill store for 1.oo, added a lace doily and the small zucchini bundt cake, sprinkled it with 10x sugar and added the two tiny butter hearts. It is a small token birthday gift for a very dear lady at our church. It is her birthday and she lives with constant back pain, despite her many surgeries she has received. I thought this may remind her that I think of her and pray for her often. I will lighly add plastic wrap to cover this, and a simple, homemade card. As for all of the rest of the zucchini muffins and bundts...well, who knows where they will end up, but for now they will go into my freezer. If you were here, we would sit down right now on the porch and have coffee, tea and muffins(maybe they would even have tiny heart butters on them).

Just in case you need another quick bread idea to use as a gift, I created this last August. It is on my August 18th post. There are many variations of this gift, but I thought I would share this one again, because I like how it turned out. Fun, inexpensive and unusual...like I want my gifts to be. Wishing you a fulfilling and relaxing Saturday.