Maria decided we had three tasks to do together today. One was take the garbage to the dump, two was to finish stacking the wood pile for the winter, and three was to bake something together, which we haven’t done in a while. We chose to make some zucchini bread.

We found five or six beautiful zucchinis outside in the Three  Sisters garden and we loved the idea of baking something that we grew.

Maria came up with a recipe online and we got to work after lunch.

The recipe: 3 cups of grated zucchini, 3 eggs; one cup maple syrup, 3 tablespoons of vanilla, 2 1/2 cups of flour, 1/ 2 cup of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 1/4 tablespoon of baking powder, 3 tablespoons of cinnamon, 1 cup of chopped walnuts.

Then beat the eggs, add sugar, oil and the 3 cups of zucchini and vanilla, mix them all lightly. Then combine that with all of the dry ingredients. Stir together, and add the walnuts. Cook in two 9 inch pans for one hour at 350 degrees.

The bread came out fine, we took it out about 10 minutes too soon, that was probably a mistake. The center was a bit soft, but the bread was delicious. We may try it again tomorrow.

I very much enjoyed doing this together with Maria. We  had a lot of fun, there is something intimate and connecting about baking something together. We plan to do it much more often.