Zucchini Bread

In a large bowl, beat the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until the mixture is well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients—the flour, salt, baking soda, lemon zest, cinnamon and baking powder. Gradually beat the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture, stirring it until the mixture is just moistened. You don't want to overmix, so it's okay if there are some tiny clumps of flour remaining. Editor's Tip: Don't have a zester at home? Use the finest side of your box grater to zest lemon for this recipe. And if you're out of lemons, feel free to sub in orange zest. It'll be just as tasty.

You can use a food processor with a grating attachment to grate your zucchini, but an old-fashioned box grater works just as well here. Grate washed zucchini against the side with the largest holes. And nope—you don't even have to peel the zucchini. The exterior is tender enough to eat and will create nice flecks of color in the bread. Zucchini does contain a lot of water, especially the very large ones (we've all found a few of those hiding in our garden). To keep the batter from becoming too liquid, extract some of the moisture from the zucchini. You can do this by putting the zucchini in a mesh sieve and pressing on the squash shreds; the excess liquid will run through the mesh. You can also place the shredded zucchini in a clean tea towel, bundle it up and squeeze over the sink. This removes a bit of extra moisture.

Once the zucchini has been rid of extra liquid, fold it into the batter. Finish off by adding any additional mix-ins like pecans or walnuts. For maximum flavor, be sure to toast the nuts before adding to the batter.

Transfer the batter to two greased 8x4-inch loaf pans and bake for 55 to 65 minutes at 350ºF, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the zucchini bread cool for about 10 minutes in the pans. Gently run a butter knife along the side of the loaf pan to release the zucchini bread. Carefully remove the bread from the pan and let it cool completely on wire racks before slicing. Editor's Tip: Zucchini bread batter contains a ton of moisture, and it takes a long time to bake through to the middle. If the bread isn't finished after the allotted baking time, tent the loaf pan with a piece of aluminum foil to keep the top from over-browning and bake it for an additional 10 to 30 minutes.