Though we have been harvesting sugar snap peas by the bowlful for the past few weeks, and though we probably still have enough preparing for maturity on the vine for me to freeze a bagful, it didn’t feel like we really had a harvest on our hands until a few days ago, when I picked these:

I know it seems crazy, and I know I’ll be sick of it before August is over, but despite the heat and despite the impending pounds of zucchini and despite my encouragement to myself to eat better at breakfast time, I couldn’t resist.  Despite all that, I made zucchini bread.

As you can see, whether it was the monster zucchini I grated up that exceeded the recipe’s requirement a little bit, or whether it was because my thrift store loaf pan was on the small side, I had extra batter.  Fortunately, my sweet little too-seldom-used ramekins called to me from the cupboard, and I heeded their siren song.  In addition to the loaf, we also had four big muffin-sized servings.  The advantage of this was that they were ready for consumption much sooner, and consume we did.  Here’s my serving suggestion:

The recipe I use for zucchini bread right now is from Bon Appetit’s latest cookbook.  This isn’t the magazine, it’s the full book, and this particular version is called Zucchini Spice Bread.  It has a hefty teaspoon of cinnamon added to the standard mix, and with 2 cups of zucchini as well as a cup of toasted nuts (I used pecans because I was out of walnuts, and may have liked it better with the substitution), it seems like one of the healthier quickbreads out there, as well as using up a decent amount of zucchini.  And the flavor.  The flavor is stupendous.  Since the nuts are toasted, they donate more of a crunch and a warm richness to the bread.  Because there is so much zucchini, they don’t dry out the bread too much, which is sometimes a complaint I have about nuts.  The zucchini itself is mild but still present, and the bread is not too sweet.  It has a nice moist crumb to it but the top gets crusty, so the whole thing is just a medley of textures that I really enjoy.  Here’s to the joy of baked goods, the joy of home grown vegetables, and the very special joy of being able to eat them both at the same time!