Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Hello lovelies! I am so excited to finally be posting a recipe!!! Can you tell? Ryan and I have been really tired of eating out and now that our kitchen is all set up I have been busy making quick and fresh meals.

Now that we lie in the East Coast we have different shopping options I am not really familiar with. Giant, ACME, Wegmans, and Weis. Where do I begin? I am SO happy that I at least have a Trader Joe’s 20 minutes away from us and I am personally shocked I have not been able to visit yet. Whole Foods is also availlable but the closest one is 30 minutes. We have an employee-owned 24-hour grocery store right by our home but it is limited in its produce. 

I love finding new places but my goal is to find FRESH produce and even try to find local farms for produce. I cannot sign up on a CSA because I am just too late on that so perhaps next year.

This past weekend we went to Amish country, specifically Lancaster and I found some great produce for super cheap. I forgot to take a picture of the monstrous cantaloupe we have been enjoying. Julianne loves it too! I also bought a huge quart of tomatoes for 1.99 and a giant zucchini for baking.

Last night I quickly shredded my zucchini, half for a baked good and the other half for some planned dinner cakes.

So what did I bake? Well, let me start by saying that my huge incentive was Torye Santucci. She contacted me a few weeks back, before we moved and asked if I would love to try some spelt products. I agreed but I was not sure when I would get to trying them but with the 2 weeks I hardly cooked I started thinking about recipes. 

Ms. Santucci works for Purity Foods, a company that has created Vita-Spelt and Nature’s Legacy. They make all kinds of flours, like whole wheat and white spelt flour, and all kinds of pastas, pretzels, granola and more. The company was kind enough to send me 1 large package of whole wheat white spelt flour and white spelt flour and two kinds of pastas.

What is spelt? I love the company’s explanation because it feels how it is described. 

A big plus for our family is that spelt pastas retain its texture so it is not grainy like whole wheat pasta. Ryan really dislikes grainy pasta so I will be convincing him with these products. Spelt does contain gluten but it is a different form of gluten that is in whole wheat and is easier to digest. I do not personally have a gluten intolerance so I cannot confirm this.

Spelt flours can be substituted for all flours and as I will show in my new recipe I feel like that it makes for delicious and moist breads.

 

I took a recipe I worked with 2 years ago and revamped it. We ate 2 big slices warm from the oven and Ryan gave it a BIG 2 thumbs up. I believe he went back for seconds. 🙂  Enjoy the recipe!