Why am I baking when it is 83 degrees?

Because I forgot you can freeze zucchini.  Oops.

We got a small zuke and a mini yellow summer squash in the box this week.  They were the last lonely veggies in the bin.  I make a tomato sauce with summer squash that is to die for.  But it is too darn hot and humid for a pasta recipe.  We also talked about a zuke and tomato saute, but we only have canned tomatoes.  Nah.  So I decided to bake with them.  Having the oven on for an hour when it is 80+ degrees sounds like a really good idea, doesn't it?  Yeah, not so much.  I realized that I could have grated and froze it once it was already in the oven. 

I found a promising zucchini bread  recipe on allrecipes.com.  It has 5 stars with 2,000+ reviews.  Cannot go wrong there, and yet I still tweaked it a bit.  The link above takes you to the original recipe.  Below is my version.

It's So Hot, Why Am I Baking? Zucchini Bread

Ingredients 

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 Splenda quick pack
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugars together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool. 

Other stuff: We also did another "hot" activity today.  We "blew up" the kid's volcano.  It's supposed to be baking soda and vinegar.  Did you know that the second ingredient in Frank's RedHot Sauce is vinegar?  It makes amazingly realistic lava.