zucchini bread
If any thing could tear me from my at times maniacal devotion to small spaces, walk-up apartments, crowded sidewalks and our crystal rattling at 11:30 p.m. on a Sunday while the stench of hot tar seeps in through our leaky windows because the City decided this would be a good time to repave the avenue below, it would be the suburban pastoral longing for a backyard garden where I could grow tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and herbs.
Growing up, this is what my parents set aside a space on the side of the house for, lined by a raspberry bush and just steps from the sour cherry tree. Sadly, the tree died just as I developed a taste for the tart cherries, the raspberry bush became overrun with poison ivy, and the last round of landscaping whittled the garden area to half its size, but I swear, somewhere in the back there is still a matted indentation from the Summer of the Zucchini Bats.
I don’t know if something was particularly haywire in the soil that summer (insert your best Jersey joke here) or maybe this is just what happens from time to time if you don’t pick your zucchini when they’re a more manageable size, but the summer when I was about seven, the zucchini never stopped growing. Now, I was short then (and sadly, still am) but I remember these things being at least half my size. And heavy. And we had no idea what to do with them.
Which brings me to my very first cookbook, aptly titled something along the lines of My Very First Cookbook. I’d do anything to find another copy of it today, but to be honest, I’m not even sure if it was mass-produced in any way. Bound with one of those white plastic comb spines, with hand-drawn illustrations inside, it could easily have been picked up at a craft fair form by the neighbor across the street who gave it to me as a birthday gift. It’s generic title and odd construction have not made it easy to hunt down.
But in truth, no matter what nostalgia I deck it out with, it was nothing spectacular, your run-of-the-mill peanut butter sandwich recipes with a hippy-dippy bent of “try this with raisins!” But within its pages was a timely gem, something we’d never made before but were surprisingly delicious. And although I can’t actually imagine my mother letting us bake batches upon batches of sweet cakey food, I remember making a lot of zucchini muffins that summer.
Zucchini muffins are sheer brilliance, if you ask me, crafted from the same ingenious logic as carrot cake: of course it’s healthy, it has vegetables in it. And, um, there’s nothing wrong with that line of thought, not that you couldn’t swap half the oil for yogurt or applesauce or half the flour with whole wheat for an especially earnest treat.
But I didn’t bother with any of that last night. I just wanted it the way I remembered–loads of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg and a heaping pile of shredded squash. Of course, I have this husband thing now and he has but one suggestion for all food items, always: couldn’t you add chocolate chips to that? Thus, in the loaf I didn’t bring to work today, I did, but I’ve got to say, although delicious, they didn’t work for me because my idea of what zucchini bread should taste like was set at an early age, and is apparently unwavering, like some ten-pound zucchini from back in the day.
Which brings me to a question I’ve been itching to ask: Do you remember your first cookbook? Do you remember what you made from it?
Zucchini Bread
Adapted from several sources
Yield: 2 loaves or approximately 24 muffins
3 eggs
1 cup olive or vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1 cup dried cranberries, raisins or chocolate chips or a combination thereof (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour two 8×4 inch loaf pans. (Grease liberally. See those pictures of the cakes inside their non-stick pans? Yup, they’re pretty much hanging out in there for the time being.) Alternately, line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Mix in oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla.
Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt, as well as nuts, chocolate chips and/or dried fruit, if using.
Stir this into the egg mixture. Divide the batter into prepared pans.
Bake loaves for 60 minutes, plus or minus ten, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Muffins will bake far more quickly, approximately 20 to 25 minutes.
My first cookbook was the Betty Crocker kids cookbook and like you my neighbor (one of 2 boys at my 7th birthday party) gave it to me. I can’t recall the first recipe I made from it, but I do still have the cookbook with my name written in the front cover in big 7 year old letters!
The first cookbook I remember receiving was one my mom gave to me when I went to college. She gave me the Betty Crocker Cookbook that she got as a wedding gift (25 years ago, at that point).
The first, and only, recipe I made from the book was macaroni and cheese.
My husband and Alex have the same philosophy. . . .everything can be improved with chocolate chips.
My Aunt used to make this for me when i was a kid. I managed to get her to give the recipe to my Mom but she never made it for me because she can’t cook. Oh Well. So Sad.
The Boxcar Children Cookbook, and I made beef stew with dumplings. My family ate it, if I remember correctly, but I don’t remember a whole lot of praise. Probably because I don’t recall it asking for any salt or pepper?
My first exposure was a cookbook for kids that I still have on the shelf at home. With the help of my mom I made a simple version of Shepherd’s Pie for my family. I remember how proud I was of myself, presenting dinner to the family as if I was now a bona fide chef.
PS…Zucchini bread does ship well!
My first was the Alpha-Bakery cookbook. I think my grandparents sent it when I was 12ish? I’m 28 now and I still make Cheeseburger Pie and Lemon Bars from it. I’ve tried a dozen or so other lemon bar recipes and I SWEAR that this one is the best. Or maybe it’s the nostalgia that tastes so good…
My boyfriend’s mother just mailed us his first cookbook– The Superheroes Super Healthy Cookbook. It is brilliant. The recipes are your usual peanut butter and banana sandwich, salad (Batman and Robin provide that), and grilled cheese, but the illustrations are my favorite thing. Wonder Woman lassoing a glass of milk. Batman zooming over in his batmobile to get a taste of the salad dressing. I seriously want to blow up these pictures and hang them in our kitchen.
Valentines Day Toast - Toast, construction paper in the shape of a heart and confectioners sugar…
Fun question! My first recipes came not from a book, but from the loose-leaf pages my sister brought home from her 7th grade home-ec class when I was 10. She said the “German pancake” (aka Dutch baby or oven pancake) was really good, so I decided that I was going to make Mother’s Day brunch for my family, even though I don’t think I had made anything other than a sandwich or boxed mac n cheese to that point. The pancake came out beautifully, all puffy and running with butter; the homemade apple syrup made it a real treat; and if I remember correctly, I served it with strawberries, grapes, and orange juice. I set up a card table in the back yard under the huge hawthorn tree, covered it with a white tablecloth of course, and basked in my family’s enjoyment. It became a tradition. The next year for Mother’s Day I did dinner instead. For that I took on a curried chicken and vegetable rice dish from my mother’s local Junior League cookbook, and had raves once again. I was hooked and have been cooking ever since.
I think it was the Betty Crocker cookbook as well.. And I would steal my mom’s Gourmet magazines and read them too.
P.S. I have a boyfriend of the same mind as your husband — anything could be improved with the addition of chocolate.
Isn’t it funny? They always say women are the chocoholics, and while I would never turn down a champagne truffle from La Maison du Chocolat, I positively swoon at the thought of a vanilla bean-flecked creme brulee.
Have you ever made chocolate zucchini / zucchini chocolate cake? (Sounds healthier the second way.) Perhaps your taste buds wouldn’t mind the addition of chocolate if it’s intended to be a different sort of cake altogether. I think Clotilde has a good recipe, although the one from Anne in Clotilde’s comments looks more like the one I usually make. Soooooo good. In fact, I’m going to make one right now! Thanks for the reminder!
There was a series of children’s activity books in the library, I can’t remember the name of the series or the publisher… the illustrations were all rather creepy, children with big eyes and circular curls… but the purple book in the series was recipes. I made tea from pine needles and the major culinary accomplishment was Daisy Buns: canned biscuits dipped in butter and sugar, arranged on pineapple tidbits and maraschino cherry halves arranged to look like flowers.
The first and only cookbook I consulted throughout my childhood, mainly for baking recipes, was The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. When I moved to college, my mother gave me one of my own. It, for me, was and still is the quintessential go-to source for American cooking and baking. I use it to this day, broken spine, covered in food stains, and all.
My first cookbook came with a set of plastic measuring spoons. I only remember making the breakfast recipes, hard-boiled eggs, french toast, and raisin bran muffins. I was very proud of my muffins. Oh! And popcorn with different toppings.
Oh, as for the actual question you asked, I think the first cookbook that was supposed to be mine (I read everything in the house, including my parents’ cookbooks) was something by Pillsbury. Ooh, found it in the closet… it’s by Gold Medal flour, called Alpha-Bakery. There’s a recipe for every letter of the alphabet. :) The recipe we made the most was Turtle Bread: a white bread dough arranged in the shape of a turtle, with raisins for eyes. All the recipes in the book are pretty decent though, with the exception of Quick Cheeseburger Pie.
Mine was the Betty Crocker New Boys and Girls Cookbook. I still have it although it’s now just loose pages between the yellow and white stripe covers! My first recipe was the “Cinnamon Puffs” dated Nov. 29th, 1971 (I’ve always dated my recipes..still do it today!) I even included my family’s reactions..my mom said to “make them smaller”, my sister thought they were “good” and my 10 yr old brother said “I don’t hate them”.
Deb - The cookbook you described was my cookbook as well! Once you mentioned the spiral binding I figured it was the same. I still have it at my parents house, I saw it about a month ago. It was so simple and so adorable. I will take a picture and e-mail it to you. So crazy.
Debbies, just get some pots and grow some veggies and herbs on your roof. Our zucchini, tomatoes and herbs are doing great in their containers on the patio. You can do it!
I had the Mickey Mouse cookbook, which is weird because I hate Mickey Mouse and all Disney-related things. I was really into the cookbook, though. Thumper’s Tuna Noodle Casserole = mmmmmmm.
*Thank* you! People who didn’t grow up with gardens never ever believe me that zucchini get so big - ours were the size of small children for so many years running that I still think of the ones in the store as miniatures.
My first cookbook was the Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook, but I don’t remember making much out of it except biscuits, like once a week for a year. Much more formative were my mom’s instructions for making scrambled eggs on our push-button stove: 25 years later, on any stove in the world, I still think “turn it down to 3″ when I lower the flame and put in the eggs.
The first one I ever owned myself was Betty Crocker. I think as soon as I signed the lease on my first apartment, it magically materialized in my hands. I use it for basic structure of recipes now. I used it yesterday to make pancakes, albeit with half-and-half white and whole wheat flour, plus some flax meal for extra “I’m not fun anymore” adult-itude.
The first ones I ever used, though, were a spiral bound, short and fat little book we called “The Amish Cookbook.” I have no idea what its real title was. Having a mother who would subsist solely on desserts and breads if she could manage it, I learned to bake before I learned to cook, and almost exclusively from this book whose recipes never extended past 3/4 of a page, for all their straightforwardness.
My first cookbook was the Better Homes and Gardens for Kids (or For Youth or something like that) and, after I tried to fathom meatloaf with marshmallows on it - ugh - I always made snickerdoodles with my mom. That recipe is still good!
My (former) sister-in-law gave my first two cookbooks one Christmas when I was 8 or 9. The “Fun to Cook” book must’ve been a Carnation freebie because every recipe used Carnation milk (evaporated, condensed or powdered). The pictures were cute, the girl reminded me of Pippi Longstocking. But who cooked with carnation?
The “Lip Smackin’ Joke Crackin’ Cook Book for Kids” had jokes, recipes, puzzles and fun. And the words to On Top of Spaghetti next to a meatball recipe. I worked the puzzles, sang the song, told the jokes.
I cooked out of my sister’s copy of McCall’s that my Mom appropriated. First recipe was chicken pot pie. Still a favorite.
I don’t remember the first cookbook I owned, but my first memory of cooking something from a cookbook was Christmas Cutouts from the red plaid Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that was my mothers. My poor mother, she is not a fan of the cooking and even less of the baking. She and I spent an entire flour covered weekend making sugar cookie stars for me to take to school. Most of the batches were burnt to a crisp, but I can still taste them today in their shortbready goodness. 25 years later they are still my favorite flavor of Christmas.
Your zucchini bread, like your writing, is impeccable!
My first cookbook was inherited from a garage sale–the ubiquitous orange Betty Crocker hardback. I must’ve been about seven or eight; I made chicken fricasee (even though I didn’t know what it was–still kinda don’t) and peanut butter cookies.
So ’70s, indeed.
My first cookbook was the Better Homes and Gardens Step-By-Step Kids’ Cookbook. The two recipes that really stand out in my memory were spaghetti-crust pie, an egg-parmesan-spaghetti crust concoction topped with red sauce and mozzarella cheese, and polka-dot pancakes, a dense baked pancake dotted with slices of breakfast sausage. I remember thinking they were sooo good.
Here here to the orange Betty Crocker hardback–that was me, too. Except mine had permanent concentric circles burned onto it from someone’s well-meaning stove. Nice touch.
That’s a great question! My first cookbook was Linda Mccartney’s Home Cooking and I made Aubergine Parmigiana. I was 12 and I didn’t know what an aubergine was, but I knew it looked delicious. I don’t think I realized it until just now, but that cookbook was probably the reason I stopped eating meat as a kid… I have since come back to the darkside though. Maybe I should dig up that book… Thanks for the walk down memory lane question!
Your zucchini bread looks wonderful.
My first cookbook was Betty Crocker hard back my Mother-in-Law
brought it for me. As I really didn’t need it my mother was a great
cook & tought me at a very young age. I think that is why I
like to cook, I have been doing it all my life. As for the zuchine
I know I have grown in my own yard very BIG ONE’S made a lot of
great reipes with them. will share one day.
My first cookbook? A relatively recent acquisition called “How to Boil Water.” It’s rather simple, meant for a cooking newbie like myself, but I made my first proper meal using it, and it was quite a moment of pride.
My first cookbook that was all my own was a cheap, thin paperback that I got from one of those Scholastic book things we all got in grade school. I don’t really remember any of the recipes, probably because I only made one dish out of it. It was a “5 Alarm Chili con Carne”. I still make a variation of it today. So yummy!!
Ok, so as I was writing that, I just remembered another cookbook that may have come before that one. It was a Chez Panisse cookbook for kids. I used to read that book over and over. All the food sounded so amazing(lavender ice cream!! for an 8 year old, this was an astonishing idea) I think the only thing I ever ended up making out of it was chocolate kisses. Which didn’t turn out as perfectly as I wanted, so I gave up on cooking for awhile. Yeah, that’s the kind of perfectionism I’ve been blessed with. If I don’t get it perfect on the first try, stop and never return. : )
My first cookbook is still the only cookbook I own. My mom typed up all of the recipes she makes and printed them all out, 3-hole punched them, and stuck them in a binder for me. She gave it to me for a going-away-to-college gift. I just graduated and finally have a kitchen (no more dorm, yay!), and finally have a chance to make stuff. The first thing I made was chicken parm. Yummy.
Good question. The very first cookbook I actually remember reading through and making something from was a little church fundraiser book. It was one of those plastic-bound local copy shop specials, complete with pb&j recipes for the kids and amusing 1970’s dinner party food, but my grandmother had contributed some artwork and a few of the Southern desserts she had grown up eating (chess pie, chocolate chess pie, and — of course — pecan pie). I swear, I must have read the whole thing through every time my mom and I made one of those pies… The book was lost in a move years later, but I dreamed about the chocolate chess pie for years. I only recently managed to find a copy of the recipe, and I think it took me a whole two seconds to decide to go get the ingredients and start cooking!
I don’t remember the name of the cookbook, but I remember the first thing I made out of it was deviled eggs. Gotta love those complex recipes in kid’s cookbooks. ;)
My first cookbook was actually my mother’s copy of Joy of Cooking. That and Betty Crocker were the only two cookbooks I remember her owning. I would read it for fun out on the couch - I remember their descriptions of seaside clambakes and cooking potatoes in hot resin were especially fascinating. The first recipe I remember actually making was what they called, if I remember, Creamy Italian Dressing. It was so good I could have eaten it with a spoon.
Seems like Betty wins the day. My mother thought that teaching us to cook was teaching us to bake. When I got married I could bake anything, but cook nothing. A few months later she moved to Maine, and I had Betty Crocker. Today it is missing its spine and some pages have been so stuck together you can’t read the recipe. I don’t rely much on Betty anymore - not with the internet so handy, but I still turn to her for that muffin recipe, and recently went searching for that “just like mom’s” recipe for Snickerdoodles for my boyfriend - and yes, Betty had the exact one.
My first cookbook was “Whole Foods for the Whole Family” - can we tell that my mom was a member of LLL and a health food junky? this probably explains my addiction to ice cream and chocolate as an adult - and the first recipe out of it I remember making was “Dandy Candy”. It was a brilliant mixture of peanut butter, honey, powdered milk and carob powder and I can remember eating it long before it set and was ready to be eaten.
Wow, Gwen. I just saw on a blog this week something about rolled up peanut butter candy that sounds like that. I had never heard of it before, yet it was someone’s favorite thing on earth. What a coincidence!
Nancy (37), I think we had the same mother. My mom still can’t cook worth shit, bless her heart, but the confections she bakes, my goodness. I myself learned to cook on the job, when I got promoted from the deli to the kitchen of the only (wannabe) frou-frou restaurant in a very small western KY town. Now I go home and make the most standard of dishes–spag and meatballs, say, and knock the fam’s socks off. But I still can’t touch Mom’s chocolate pound cake.
Hey, just wanted to let you know that I love your blog. I was recently asked to list my top 5 female bloggers and I had to put you down. I love your great pictures, writing style and recipes. I am determined to try most of them!
My first cookbook (or the first one I remember) was the Beatrix Potter cookbook for children, and there was a recipe in it for stewed fruits (or was it baked?) that I loved as a kid - raisins, apples, other assorted fruits that were - I think - sort of mulled in cider? I also remember a local church cookbook (with comb spine thingy) that had recipes in it for play-dough as well as really yummy lemon bread - that one I think my mother still has!
i don’t remember the name of the book exactly - but i bought it through the book ordering service in my school - around the 5th grade. and i remember that peter max did all the art. and the recipe i made over and over was a pineapple upside down cheescake for my father because he loved it. that was over 30 years ago…. total blast from the past memory. thanks for stirring it up.
My first cookbook was the Boxcar Children Cookbook and the first recipe I ever tried was along the lines of “Broken Bottle Apple Pie” or something equally dangerous-sounding. I think this is the main reason I wanted to try it but my mom made me use a boring wooden rolling pin instead of a bottle like the Boxcar Children used and it just wasn’t the same.
And I don’t think the pie was even all that good!
I had a cookbook in Russian that allowed me to make boats out of wedges of tomato with Swiss cheese slices as sails, and parsley on the side as oars. It wasn’t so much cooking as ‘crafts with food’ but Russia didn’t exactly have a market for young, budding cooks age 6. I started my own cookbook when I was 4 though where I attempted to document my culinary journey through my childhood. I think I lost it shortly before we left for America though.
Mine was a hardback book with a red and white checkered front. I believe it featured a couple of 70’s kids stirring something in a bowl. I have a vivid memory of some strange gingerbread cookies–shaped like worms? Or maybe letters of the alphabet? I do believe they had raisins for eyes. I also remember making a meatloaf covered in mashed potatoes from that book.
For the record I am definitely the vanilla person and J is 100% the chocolate.
Oh, the amazing flashbacks I’m having from these comments. I believe my first cookbook was somewhere in the Betty-for-kids family; I remember that it featured a cake frosted to look like a giant hamburger, complete with real sesame seeds on the top “bun”, that I shamelessly begged, BEGGED! my mother to make for my 13th birthday. She can’t cook either, poor dear, but she persevered through that cake. I also have distant memories of a four-color pamphlet of fancy Christmas cookies that my grandmother had, probably a grocery store or brand giveaway.
And way up there, to Kara: I think there’s some sort of federal law that mandates teaching the Dutch Baby recipe to all junior-high home ec classes. Everyone I’ve ever known learned it under the same circumstances!
Betty Crocker kids cookbook. Still have it. Haven’t cooked from it in years, but I did make stuff from it up through my teens.
My first cookbooks were from the checkout line at the grocery. I was in 7th grade and my sister was in first. Mom went back to work that summer and I was in charge of babysitting. Her payment to me was a new little cookbook nearly weekly! Oh, the joys of Betty Crocker’s 101 Things To Do With Chicken, or Bisquick’s pages upon pages of impossible pies. (I made up those names, but you get the point.) I still have some of them and treasure them. I tried something new nearly daily and I’m sure the grocery bill that summer was more than childcare would have been. But now I’m an adventurous cook in love with my kitchen!
First off, I swear I was trying to picture a particular type of bat (marsupial) that thrived in zucchini patches until about halfway through your post. But I am a sleep-deprived new mom whose refrigerator just crapped out today, so I’m not thinking super-straight.
Second random thought in a jumbled beaded thread . . . this zucchini bread looks fantastic Deb. I too grew up on zucchini EVERYTHING and have been craving my mom’s zucchini bread as of late . . . she puts peanut butter in hers which is quite heavenly.
Third . . . I have my first cookbook sitting right here in front of me–Betty Crocker’s NEW Boys and Girls Cookbook (interesting boys came first). My mom just rescued it from their attic so that I can pass it on to my daughter. I’d take a pic and insert it here if I knew how to do that in the comments area.
The most spilled-on pages are: Silhouette Sandwiches (where you make cutouts from a piece of American cheese and lay it over a slice of salami); Frank Roundup (I LOVED this one! You make shallow slices on one side of a hot dog and wind it around a dollop of pickle relish on a hamburger bun); Sloppy Joe (self evident); Bunny Salad (canned pear halves with cottage cheese tails, almond ears, cinnamon candy noses and raisin eyes); Polka Dotted Macaroni and Cheese (a mac and cheese casserole with sliced hot dogs); Chocolate Chip Cookies; and, sadly, the Tuna and Chips Casserole.
Lia Huber
http://www.swirlingnotions.com
So hungry now!
I don’t believe I ever had a first cookbook… but I do remember lots of random pieces of paper that my grandmother had scribbled recipes on. I still love those recipes to this day. =D
My first cookbook was my mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook - it came as a ring binder, and I think it dated from the mid 50’s. I still fondly remember my favorite chocolate frosting (Brown Beauty), among other gems. My mother in law is on high alert to bring me back one from a tag sale find, because I don’t want to pay the premium price it commands on the net!
My mom was a straight up housewife raised in the midwest by depression era parents, and she always had a huge garden with tons of zucchini. Sadly, I didn’t learn about the joys of zucchini bread until I was 17 and out of the house, when my roommate and I made zucchini recipes for all of one very long hot summer. Great memories :-)
Actually yes, there are two of them and I still have them, let me go look…
Ok,
1. “La Cuisine Est Un Jeu D’Enfants” because my mother wanted to raise me speaking French, though she fell off the bandwagon rather quickly. It’s an oversize book with hand-done drawing and it involves make-believe mushrooms, a crouton omelet, lemons stuffed with olives and sardines, cheese souffle and chicken in a salt crust.
2. Step-by-Step Cookbook which is British so I never managed to get the measurements right , but has everything shown by color photo step-by-step. It has a killer recipe for beef stew that my mother still makes (the key is a bit of orange peel).
This was really fun, great idea!
Strange to me that only one other person so far has mentioned the Joy of Cooking. My mother had my great grandmother’s copy (with extra recipes, like her pie crust, written on the end papers). The first things I made from it all on my own were peanut butter cookies and raspberry jam. I was seven years old and wanted pb & j cookies. It’s funny, because I was just remembering this the other day (might have something to do with those nutter butters). Oh, and I’m with you on the chocolate thing, I’d much rather have crème brûlée or other vanilla bean inflected desserts over chocolate (and definitely not in my zucchini bread thank you very much), but my husband is in Alex’s camp.
Oh, Craig Claiborne’s New York Times Cookbook, circa sometime in the ’70s, for sure. That was my parents’ go-to cookbook for everything and it was the first one I used on my own, to make my mother’s heavenly pancakes for the first time when I was about 14 or so.
Claiborne’s collection was unfussy but exacting - everything I’ve made since from that book is classic and well-balanced.
The first thing I ever remember making wasn’t from a cookbook. My mom would make her crust for pies, and then give me the leftovers. I would use small cookie cutters to make shapes out of the dough, and them bake them with sugar and cinnamon. When I was a little older, I would roll them out, add butter, cinnamon and sugar, roll them up and slice like cinnamon buns. They came out crispy and good!
My favorite item with zucchini is chocolate zucchini cake. So moist. We puree the zucchini first.
My first cookbook? The original,non-updated, loaded with dairy fat Moosewood Cookbook. It was a 16th birthday gift from my stepmom who wasn’t thrilled about my refusal to eat meat, but found a way to be supportive. Honestly though I don’t remember what I first cooked from that. I do remember that at 16 my specialty was curried rice made with plain old white rice, raisins, almonds, peas, and tons of Sun Brand Madras curry powder. And now I find myself with a bit of a craving for that gummy and very yellow dish……
i remember reading cookbooks for kids as a child, but my most oft-executed recipe was chocolate frosting with graham crackers. wow, my first mastered recipe was extemporaneous. to this day, i read cookbooks like no one’s business, but rarely follow them.
This looks so good, and the zucchini adds moisture and nutrition-somehing to do with all that garde-grown zucchini! To answer your question, my first cookbook was the Better Homes and Garden classic red and white checked binder cookbook (I’m feeling likeJune Cleaver about now!)
I remember the Betty Crocker kids’ cookbook, but what really sticks out in my mind is the storybook “Old Black Witch!” It’s about a witch who haunts a tearoom, and had a recipe for blueberry pancakes that I made many times, first with Mom’s help, and then on my own.
Here’s a picture of the cover. You can still find used copies at ABE.com, Amazon and eBay.
My first cookbook, given to me by my Mum shortly after I got married, was The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. It’s been an excellent resource ever since, even though I now live in Europe (and long ago divorced the husband) and have to do various math contortions to get the measurements right. Now I cook WAY more than I ever did growing up. My Mum was such a fabulous cook that there was simply no need… and no room for an inquisitive kid in the kitchen with eight of us to feed three times a day. (Great question!)
I love this blog, I grew up with my mom and grandma in firm charge of the kitchen. They rarely used a coockbook but owned every one that was ever printed ,lol. Oh the memories, me standing on a chair , apron on…I just knew I was a the best cook on earth . Thanks to my mom and Grandma, I am a good cook, never afraid to wing it and yes, I go home and read my moms cookbooks still…My specaility is homemade spaghetti, strangely taught to me by an aunt , to this day Im still asked to make it for all our family functions
The first cook book I was given was “Look! I Can Cook” and I was 5 or 6, and the first things I made were chocolate kisses (sandwich cookie). The book fell apart over the years and then disappeared. I mentioned it in passing to My Lovely Young Man who, unbeknownst to me, found it on eBay, bid for it, and a nice lady in NYC sent it to me in London a few years ago. I was sooo happy :-) And it brought back lots of lovely warm memories.
Love the blog, and I hope you are going to love Napa.
I didn’t have buy my first cookbook until I was in college, but I remember my mother transforming the overwhelming bounty of our garden grown zucchini into zucchini bread. Let me tell you it’s hard to convince folks outside of the States that it’ll be good, and I often have to refer to carrot cake as an example of vegetable used in sweet breads or cakes. Once sampled though, there is no denying that it’s delicious!
I think I had a couple of cooking-for-kids type cookbooks, but didn’t really use them. In college, when I went to Budapest for a semester, my mom gave me the paperback Joy of Cooking (volume 1)…so virtually everything I made for 6 months came from there. Particular favorite was chicken and dumplings - Thank goodness for that book or we would never have eaten chicken! I had no idea how to cut up a whole chicken and that was the only way you could buy it in Hungary at the time. But Joy of Cooking had explicit directions, of course!
It’s been a while since i first wrote, but i look forward to your Smitten Kitchen every day. I miss it when you take a break. I don’t cook now, living with my daughter and family, but the book i did use when i lived by myself was always the Joy Of Cooking. My daughter now has my copy and faithfully uses it for her family cooking. Love you pictures, the comments and all. By the way I’m 75 and you make my day brighter.
My first cookbook was a kids science cookbook. It had nifty pictures and I loved cooking out of it. I believe my first thing to bake though was chocolate chip cookies or pretzels. I can’t remember which one. Maybe my parents know.
I don’t remember my first cookbook, but I vividly remember the first recipes I ever made. I was about 12, and I made Caesar salad (julia’s recipe) and beer-and-cheddar soup (a la the Frugal Gourmet — I wrote the recipe down desperately quickly while the episode rushed by on PBS. So glad we don’t have to do that anymore! Or send SASEs to get recipes from the TV show. Instant gratification: The Only Way! Anyway, where was I? . . . oh, right.). I remember loving the Caesar salad, but not being able to get down more than a spoonful of the soup. Luckily, my dad loved it (or did he?) and ate way more than his share. Thanks, dad!
Hrm- my first cookbook… I don’t remember what it was called, but it was something to do with mircowavable dishes. It had this bright yellow cover, with the black spiral bound sides. Inside it had little traffic lights, little red, yellow and green lights indicating the hardness of the recipie and if parents should be keeping a close eye!
I was so proud to get that book!
I read smitten kitchen every day and I too am sad when there are no new posts. Also, I can’t tell you how many random people I have told about it.
My first cookbook was a Gold Medal Flour cookbook for kids. It was just a little pamphlet type deal and I am certain the first thing I made from it was pancakes. As a grown-up, I couldn’t wait to get my very own copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook. My favorite recipies are brownies and the yellow cake best known by my family as “Birthday Cake.”
However, most of my early cooking memories don’t involve a cookbook. Just time spent in the kitchen perched on the stepstool with dishtowel for an apron and tutoring by my Grandma, aunts, uncles and mom. That’s the best way!!
The farmers market by me sells those insanely large zucchini that grow unchecked for the same price as the teeny ones, but I usually get small ones anyways.
My first cookbook was a hand-me down from my mom that sounds much like the one you described. I’m not sure though if I ever made anything out of it though.
My siblings and I were all avid devotees of the Klutz Kid’s Cookbook. Frequent favorites included Happel Bagel Sandwiches (bagel+apple+cheese+cinnamon, all toasted), Chili con Carne, Put-Back Potatoes, and Frozen Bananoids (bananas+chocolate+coconut, frozen)…all of which I still make from time to time for a good dose of comfort food.
I love zucchini bread, but only my step grandmothers. However I am no longer in touch with my step family and cannot get the recipe. I have tried a couple but they weren’t right, and I have seen too many that ask for pineapple.
Looks like this one is next on my list. I’m not sure if hers had nutmeg, but other than that, is seems about right. I may just have to try it both ways.
Hope my husband likes zucchini bread.
…And I think we must have been on the same wavelength yesterday, because I made zucchini bread with chocolate chips yesterday, too! (only the chocolate chips were my idea… heh, heh)
I was cooking out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 8th grade. But I also used Joy, and Diet for a Small Planet.
When my mother tried to grow zucchini, my brother & I used to knock the flowers off because we hated the product so much. She never understood why she didn’t get more zucchini. We fessed up recently.
My first cookbook was Betty Crocker’s Boys and Girls Cookbook, not the new one, but I’m guessing the original. I still have it, but it’s really in bad shape after all these years. My first recipe was a cake made in the shape of an igloo that I made for my 11th or 12th birthday in January. I thought it would be really “cool” to keep with the winter b’day theme and do the igloo cake. I remember being extremely proud of it. I also remember baking breakfast muffins from the book along with a candle salad made with a banana and a cherry flame!
the bread looks great! i just make 101cookbook’s bread with curry powder and was VERY pleased. oh - a garden is not always all it is cracked up to be. after leaving mahattan for boston, i was SO excited to plant my vggie/herb garden. among other things, i had zucchini last year - not only did the plants overrun my pepper plants, but i had all leaves and no fruit!
Damn, how cute is Gladys up there? What does it mean that I think old people are cuter than babies these days?
I’m a little disappointed in my zucchini plant because it’s not as prolific as I’d hoped. No bats yet (cucumbers are a different story). My first belongs-to-me cookbook was a Better Homes & Garden cookbook, a paperback that fell apart quickly, but from poor binding rather than lots of use. I think I made popovers first–my brother and I were briefly obsessed with them. My first use-it-frequently cookbook was my mother’s Betty Crocker Cooky book. Whenever she dies I’m taking it. Actually, whenever she unearths it from the boxes of her recent move I’m probably taking it, because the day I started making cookies, she stopped. Dad has to make chocolate chip cookies himself if he wants them.
First cookbook was a Sunset Magazine basic cookbook (Sunset is a west coast thing). I think my grandma found it at a library book sale or something. It’s actually still good for basic stuff and has a great chart that lists the cooking time for every vegetable you could ever think of. It came in handy the first time I made a baked potato on my own.
The Settlement Cookbook! A present from my American grandmother to my Roman mother, who promptly shut it into her kitchen cupboards until I discovered it as a pre-teen.
I can’t remember actually owning a cookbook until i moved to college (after which I collected them by the dozens, it seemed). I loved cooking though, and most of the stuff I remember was learned either by just figuring it out on my own or by hanging out in the kitchen with my Mom/Dad/Grandma and “helping with dinner”. One of my favorites that I can think of right now was my Mom’s apple crisp. I loved helping her peel all those apples, anticipating how great it was going to taste after it was all done.
BTW, I made your chili recipe last night for my husband and I, and it was just perfect! Thank you. =)
How wierd, I had a book with plastic spiral binding, also called something like “A Child’s First Cookbook”! I remember making some sort of candy that ended up tasting like burnt sugar - yuck!
I have the same feeling about banana bread - although I think that almost everything can be improved with the addition of chocolate (or if not chocolate then bacon, but that’s another story) I don’t want chips in my banana bread. Melted chocolate added to the batter however, is wonderous!
My first coookbook was “The Sesame Street Cookbook. It was filled with truly trashy American delights like: Cookie Monster’s Un-Cookies (refrigerator cookies made with ccookie crumbs, peanut butter and chocolate chips), Oscar the Grouch’s Trash Salad (a chopped salad featuring tinned sardines) and my favorite Snuffaluphaloaf on Big Bird’s nest of noodles. The Snuffyloaf was just meatloaf shaped like Snuffaluphagus sitting on a tangle of buttered egg noodles. - I remember making his eyes from hard boiled eggs and olives. Wow - The memories that cookbok brings back are just so intense. I can practically smell the beef, onions and buttered noodles. Good times.
The Mennonite Community Cookbook… I grew up using that cookbook and had to have my own copy when I left home. Not that my Mom and I didn’t use plenty of other cookbooks.. and I have shelves and shelves of them now…along with a bunch of bookmarks to recipe and food blog sites (I’ve made that whole lemon tart you posted a few weeks back twice now) and I subscribe to two cooking magazines (only two at the moment, that’s some serious self control :-D ) but the Mennonite Community cookbook lives in the cookbook holder on my kitchen counter because it’s just not worth putting it on a shelf since it won’t stay there long enough to make it worth the effort.
My first cookbook was called “Yum! I Eat!” and it was written specifically for kids in that 70s style of handwritten fonts. My mom gave it to me, and I loved it. We would make things from the book together, and to this day, if we are eating together and something tastes good we exclaim “YUM! I EAT!”
My first cookbook was The Joy of Cooking
My first recipe was Banana Bread.
Still make it, but from memory now and with a few small changes.
GREAT question!
My first cookbook was the ever-popular Betty Crocker Boys & Girls Cookbook. What’s funny about the timing of this post was that I just gave my daughter 2 cookbooks (her request) for her 11th birthday this past week. Also, I made 2 loaves of zucchini bread from a “bat” that a co-worker shared with me. My husband mentioned the addition of chocolate chips, but instead I used mini cinnnamon chips in the batter. My original recipe is very similar to yours, but the cinnamon chips melt into little pockets of extra cinnamon flavor. Yummy. I also use them in pancakes & homemade waffles that the kids love.
BTW, I hope you can find (a copy of) your first cookbook again.
I, too, had a spiral-bound cookbook from the seventies, but I don’t remember a recipe for zucchini bread. It was illustrated and arranged by holiday, suggesting meals you could make for say, Father’s Day (I think it was something like hot dogs and lemonade). But, the recipe I remember was for Christmas candy cane cookies. One batch of sugar cookie dough flavored with peppermint extract. Half of the dough was flavored with red food coloring (lots, so the dough was red, not pink). Grab a piece of white dough and roll it into a snake, same with the red, then twist together and shape into a candy cane. Good times.
I made my first batch of brownies when I was about 10 with my mother’s cookbook which I think was a Betty Crocker. I didn’t have my own cookbook until I married and bought The Good Housekeeping Cookbook. I still have it today, well worn and it has the best brownie recipe ever. I’ve got some extra zucchini from my garden but I think I will make some fritters. I did that last year and they were really good.
My favorite cookbook as a kid was based on the Charlie Brown characters. I loved making Lucy Lemon Squares. Love your blog!
My zucchini bread (though I prefer them in mini muffin form) recipes is virtually the same. I always swap out half the oil for applesauce, and half the flour for whole wheat as you mentioned. I also add 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 3 Tbs. flax seed, and 1 1/2 Tbs. wheat germ. Then I feel all virtuous eating them, as they are moist and delicious. They freeze beautifully, too. A few years ago I grew a zucchini in the garden that was the size of MY LOWER LEG. I am not kidding.
My first cookbook was the little black binder that my mother has had forever, and which holds all of our family favorites, including ones from my great and (regular) grandmother. My brothers (three) and I never fight, but there just might be a turf battle over who gets that binder when Mom is no longer with us. I, as the only daughter, of course call dibs, because Mom didn’t make THEM cook dinner every Wednesday, from third grade until I left for college, with recipes from that book.
Mine was that old 50’s Betty Crocker kids cookbook that belonged to my mother and aunt first and they left it with my grandmom, who took care of me for years. I seem to remember being very into the recipe where you cooked the egg inside the toast with a hole in it and the concept of “Pig in a Blanket” intrigued me, but my grandmom thought those “biscuits” were an abomination (We are from Memphis, TN)!
My mom had a whole set of Ladies Home Journal cook books, slim, alphabetized like encyclopedias, hardbound, with he most gorgeous color illustrations. I cannot for the life of me imagine where she got them,or, if she bought them, how she afforded them, but we cooked out of them since I can remember.
She passed when I was 16, but I kept them until they molded and roaches got to them (I live in Florida) before I finally gave them up. They were the only really personal items she left me when she died, and I owe my love of cooking to her and those books.Thanks for that memory Deb, I had forgotten.
The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook was the first cookbook I remember ever making something out of. It was almost three inches thick, and my parents cooked it from cover to cover on a fairly frequent basis. My dad would make Saturday breakfast for us out of it, and my earliest memories of cooking were helping him make thick velvety Russian pancakes out of it.
My very. very first cookbook was, embarassingly, the Barbie Cookbook, courtesy of my grandmother (defying my mother, who had banned Barbie). Published the year I was born, it contains charming vignettes of the Blonde enjoying home, school, and holidays in the kitchen. Shortly thereafter I graduated to a Unicef cookbook entitled “Many Hands Cooking,” and then the Mennonite Central Committee’s “Loaves and Fishes.” At about the same time, my mother gave up her long-standing flirtation with Adele Davis, and turned into a Franky (Moore Lappe) devotee. I still wake up screaming some nights, thinking of those hideous blobs of oily “natural” peanut butter mixed with gritty undissolved powdered milk, honey, and carob powder, then rolled in shredded unsweetened coconut. Curse you, Diet for a Small Planet!
Betty Crocker? Junior League? Who are you people? Obviously, I grew up in a far different… remote location that the rest of the world. I grew up in Minnesota so of course my first cookbook was a “Lutheran Church Basement” cookbook. Really, a collection of recipes handed down to the younger members of the church for important occasions like… dating …or the ice going out on the lake. This cookbook had about 50 recipes for jello salads (my husband - the Philly boy - just about died when I called Jello a “salad.”) and about 100 recipes for bars (cakes and cookies made in a rectangular pan and cut into 1″ squares. Bars come in a large variety, but chocolate and lemon are the best.) and the rest was dedicated to hotdish recipes. (Hotdish in MN is anything that is held together with cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup. Hotdish is usually topped with tater tots or a can of crispy, fried onions.) Does anyone else notice that the vegetable category is missing? My husband attributes my avoidance of all things green to this fact. To this day, a hotdish is my go-to comfort food.
My first cookbook , which I still own, was The Peanuts Cookbook and the first recipe I made was Lucy’s French Toast or maybe it was Peppermint Patty’s..Now I have to go dig that out for Izzy. Reading these comments has been quite fascinating..
Love these comments! (Ahna, great post!) Glad you asked the question! (tho this new preview feature is a bit freaky, watching a mirror image of what I’m typing magically appear at the same time!
Growing up my mom had a Fanny Farmer cookbook. She never encouraged me to cook, so it wasn’t until after I moved out after college that I even got my own.. and I haven’t stopped. Dozens, and dozens… but do I use them? I keep printing out recipes fromthe Food Network, and yours…
My first own cookbook was the Joy of Cooking, and one put together by a social group. All high fat and yummy. Ignorance was bliss back inthe late 70’s.
Annie
The Peanuts Cook Book! I remember that! I think that was my first cookbook as well - I can remember making Security Cinnamon Toast as a wee kidlet. Fond memories.
My first real cookbook was the 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking; first I learned how to bake cookies, then cakes, then bread. It’s still the cookbook I refer to most often. Can’t beat the classics.
by the time i grew up adn started taking an interest in the kitchen my mother had quite a collection of cookbooks and all them, specially the ones with loads of pics, amazed me no end… Tho my first and favourite one for its sheer simplicity is the one mom got for free for collecting a number of McDougalls product wrappers, Better Baking cookbook!
I don’t remember which came first, the chicken or the egg, Cooking with Susan or the Joy of Cooking. What I do remember is how everything changed when Julia Child appeared on PBS in the 60’s. I went right out, bought her books, read them from cover to cove, and that was it for me. I was hooked. What a gal.
I have a similar feeling about you. This blog (this is a blog,right?) is terrific. You are very funny, down to earth, an incredible photographer, and I know you would be a hoot to bake cookies or break bread with. Cookies, hell, let’s cover everything in plastic and make a croquembouche!
My first was “Strawberry Shortcake’s Cooking Fun”. We made sandwiches shaped like cat faces (cheese triangle ears, celery whiskers). I don’t remember making anything else from the book, except perhaps the occasion PBJ pinwheel roll-up. What a fun thread to read, and see where we all started from!
I love a walk down memory lane! My first cookbook was a winnie-the-pooh small hardcover that I got for Christmas around age 8 or 9 (I’m jewish but we believe in celebrating). I made the blueberry muffins and they were AWFUL. One of my favorite cooking rituals was making shirred eggs with my father–lots of pomp and circumstance and so good.
On the chocolate chip front–I ran a very basic cooking (really baking) class for little kids at my temple for a few years and the 2 rules were everything was made from scratch and everything had chocoloate chips. Really messy but a lot of fun!
Thanks for asking and I love the site.
I had (and still have) the Betty Crocker New Boys and Girls Cookbook…..as well as the beloved BC Cooky Book that I still pull out for the Toffee Bar and Spritz recipes each Christmas.
But how funny that Kitt mentioned The Old Black Witch. I loved that book!
chocolate mousse, from the little book of chocolate. still making it from that recipe, you can´t beat it.
I don’t remember the very first cookbook I cooked out of-it was probably more like something off of the back of a canister of Quaker Oats- but the first cookbook I bought for myself was the Real Vegetarian Thai Cookbook in college. I still make the Green Curry with Zucchini and Bamboo shoots on a frequent basis. Delish! That first purchase made a monster out of me and now I have 42 cookbooks on my bookcase along with a box of antique cookbooks stored away somewhere.
i don’t even remember the name of it, but the cover was bright yellow with cartooney-like people characters on it, and it had a red comb binding. i wish i still had it, but alas, i believe it still resides somewhere in the confines of my parents’ home, about 1700 miles away. it chock- (choc?) full of extremely basic recipes like “peanut butter on celery,” but with twists, like how to turn them into wagons by placing them atop toothpicks with carrot rounds on each end. let me tell you…was i amazed. i think my favorite recipe, however, was that for witch’s brew. it was an ever so easy concoction of orange and cranberry juices, and probably something like gingerale. let me tell you, that sh** was delicious, and it’s still something i seek to make every halloween.
I DO remember my first cookbook - Joy of Cooking. I was a new bride, at that moment living in some pretty ugly temporary digs in Pensacola, FL (with a kitchen that hardly qualified as one). I made cherry pie. But I didn’t have a pie plate, only a round aluminum cake pan. Made crust. And filling. And a lattice top that I hitched to the edges. Baked it. It oozed all over the sides of the pan and the bottom of the oven. Awful. Pie was wonderful, but it stuck to the pan, so it came out in spoonfuls. Looked dreadful, but tasted just fine.
My first cookbook was also the Fannie Farmer cookbook. My brother and I used to make sugar cookies all the time. He would mix the wet ingredients, I would sift in the dry, and then we would race to see who could fill up a baking sheet first. After gorging ourselves on cookies, he would wash the dishes and I would dry. Good times (sniff, sniff).
hmmmm…first cookbook was actually a collection of three different sources: my mother’s Joy of Cooking (still one of my favorites), the Southern Living series (bestest, southernest desserts EVER), and a small wooden drawer in the spice rack that held a myriad of my mother’s index cards, faded and stained, collected from friends and relatives. Still has the best southern cornbread recipe I’ve tasted.
daw. Now you’ve made me sentimental for cornbread. have to go make some now.
Believe it or not, my first cookbook was the Nancy Drew Cookbook. I still have it…recipes for “Togo dogs” (corn dogs…I remember searching around the grocery store for self-rising flour at age 8), homemade fortune cookies, and my second grade piece de resistance — a “stained glass window cake” featuring little cubes of colorful gelatin and made in a springform pan. In retrospect, I can see that my mother was very patient!
From there I moved on to my mom’s Bon Appetit subscription…at age 10 I made homemade croissants, Chicken Kiev, and apple fritters. I will also third the recommendation for the Fannie Farmer cookbook - the best all-around resource I know. I often give it as a graduation present.
I too first thought this post was about dodging flying bats in the garden!! LOL. Some of my first cooking came out of the Campbell Soup Cookbook and the Joys of Jello cookbook(is making Jello considered cooking?) The first cookbooks I bought were in college and I chose the Better Homes and Gardens 3 ring cookbook and Sunset Cooking for Two and the Casserole Cookbook.
My first cookbook was the Mandie cookbook. It took years and years, but I made the bread pudding recipe in it a few years ago. My first “real” cookbook was the all-purpose Betty Crocker cookbook with the red cover. I made cheese sauce with it. I mean, what can’t you make better with cheese sauce?
What a wonderful topic!
My first cookbook (seems I stole it from my sister since it says Happy Birthday [sister’s name] inside) was Meals of Many Lands: A Cookbook for Children. I’ve always made the simple Ground Beef Stroganoff and have modified the can of cream of chicken soup and can of mushrooms to now be a can of Golden Mushroom soup. It’s a quick and easy alternative (although rightfully not as good) to a traditional stroganoff.
I remember us making many of the international recipes in this book - probably why both my sister and I have wonderfully broad palates today!
I don’t remember the name of my first cookbook, but I do remember it was from the grade school book fair. The first thing I made was english muffin pizzas. MMmmm…NOT! Nasty sounding, eh? *shrug*
btw- I work with Jocelyn your substitute blogger! “Hi!”
My mom’s “red plaid” Better Homes and Garden book. Since my mom was a great cook with no sweettooth, I was all over cookies (frequently sugar) and brownies….
At least one person has mentioned this already (I can tell thanks to that nifty new “five most recent comments” feature over on the left!), but the red and white plaid Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. My mom’s original — that she got for her wedding — is now in a hope chest of sorts, waiting for me, but I have another edition of it and use it more than any other cookbook I’ve owned. What did I make first? Probably snickerdoodles or chocolate chip cookies…I’ve always been a cookie girl. This cookbook has the recipes of my childhood, and it’s the only way to recreate the things that aren’t simply “family recipes.”
My first cookbook was one my grandmother owned, but I baked from it. It’s called ‘Aunt Chick’s Pies’. It’s a simple paper cookbook all about pies, with a red paper cover and 36 pages, covering 345 different types of pies. It was published in 1941. I baked my first pie (apple) with it when I was 10, by this time the book was well over 20 years old. But, from this little book, came the best pies with the flakiest, lightest piecrusts that just melted in my mouth. My grandma’s copy was mere shreds by the time she died in ‘81, so my mom threw it away. A few years ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I went to eBay looking for this heavenly cookbook. I found it immediately, bid on it and won it. When the cookbook came in the mail, the pages were dark from age and had some stains from baking. That was fine, as it evoked strong memories of my grandma and her cookbook. I again made a apple pie from this book from scratch and it was just as good as the first one I made at age 10.
I wore off the covers of my first cookbook, The Auburn Cookbook, published by the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service. It had a meal planner’s guide, menu patterns, tips on “harmonizing” flavors and even how to follow a recipe! I was given the cookbook for a wedding present, and it was one thing I used a lot since it had step-by-step instructions. The page to biscuit recipes is still turned down at the corner.
Hello,
I just wanted to say that I tried out this Zucchini Bread recipe and it was simply amazing! I am a frequent visitor to your site, and had been wanting to try out a one of your recipes. So when I purchased an abundance of zucchini at the farmstand down the street the other day, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.
I substituted applesauce for the 1 c. oil and made muffins instead of the loaves. Some I made plain, others I added raisins, and others still chocolate chips. My favorite by far were the chocolate chips ones — especially dunked in milk the next day!
The only problem I encountered was that the muffins stuck to the cupcakers liners quite a bit. I found that the spraying the tin with the Pam spray with flour worked better.
Can’t wait to try out more. Thanks!
-amanda
I’m not sure how I found your web site, but I’m so glad I did! Finally a collection
of recipes that makes sense and are simplified! THANK YOU!!!
Kindercrunchies from Discovery Toys. It was “healthy” snacks for kids. I made the big, soft pretzels like 1000 times LOL! My mom held on to the book and after my daughter was born she passed it along. Now we both enjoy it together :)
Heya - I hope you’re still getting notified about this. There’s some funky rendering of the text so I just wanted to make sure
1¾ cups sugar = 1 3/4
and
½ teaspoon baking powder = just 1/1 teaspoon and not 1 and 1/2
Thank you :) I adore your website.
I just made the zucchini bread and it’s in the oven now. My apartment smells incredible! I can’t wait to try them. I tried the recipe with 2 cups of white flour and 1 cup of whole wheat.
My first cookbook was one that was handed down for many generations, originating in the 1700’s. My Mom was a wonderful cook (still is!), and taught me everything she knew. I’ve been making your zucchini bread for years, my grown kids now ask me to send them some! Love to bake and cook, now I do it for others as my 4 kids are grown and gone.