Muffins, Lemons and Zucchini

Thanks to Cynthia I became the proud owner of a battleship-size zucchini! You hear of zucchini gardeners thinking up covert ways to divest themselves of their over-abundant zucchini crop -- wrapping each up as a gift and leaving them in the back seat of their unlocked car, leaving them in the middle of the night on a neighbor's porch, air-dropping them on parachutes from low-flying aircraft -- but for some reason, I am never the recipient of any of these benevolent gifts. If I want a zucchini, I have to go to the store and buy one! So I was overwhelmed with thankfulness when I was presented with a wonderfully huge zucchini! My eyes danced seeing visions of zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, zucchini stir fry, and just plain old steamed zucchini with butter and pepper!

I have had a zucchini bread recipe I have been wanting to try since 2007 -- so Cynthia hadn't been out the door 4 minutes before I was in the kitchen grating away on that zucchini. The recipe was titled "Lemon Zucchini Bread" and it used lemon pudding, fresh lemon juice, and grated lemon rind, and poppy seeds. You can see why I was intrigued. But I was disappointed. The bread looked beautiful, the texture was wonderful, but the flavor was very much tartly lemony -- too tart for my taste, and I love everything lemony -- but sweetly lemony. My husband enjoyed it because he likes things tart. So I will return to my old stand-by zucchini bread recipe that I have been using from my kids' cooking classes in high school.

But I do want to share with you my all-time favorite recipe for using zucchini, and for that matter, my favorite muffin recipe: "Anything Goes Muffins." This recipe calls for anything that has substance and is moist. I have used zucchini, bananas, applesauce, fresh grated apples, pumpkin, cooked oatmeal, cooked malt-o-meal, cooked cream of wheat, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots (I wonder how raw carrots would be, or pineapple? hmmm) and the muffins always turn out beautifully and tasty and great. Oh - I have never used raisins or wheat germ -- I'll leave that for you to try :/

ANYTHING GOES MUFFINS

2 c. flour (can use part whole wheat)
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ c. brown sugar
1 c shredded (zucchini, carrots, cereal, applesauce, bananas, pumpkin, cooked cereals, grated apples, etc. etc.)
1 egg, beaten slightly
3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. oil
½ c. raisins (optional)
½ c. wheat germ (optional)

Mix together. Spoon into greased muffin tin. Bake at 375 degrees about 18 min.