Zucchini Bread and Rhubarb Jam with Pineapple and Strawberry for special events

The weekends in western Maryland are packed with traditional summer get-togethers and reunions. Every town and settlement has one.  Tables are loaded with good things to buy especially those homemade pies, breads, cookies, brownies and jams. I’ve included the ever famous zucchini bread and a specialty jam.

Mix the food fair with traditional music. Wouldn’t be the same without the music. Included is a short music video of the Blue Grass Chapel Band of Iron Springs, PA performing at a picnic in Sabillasville.

Zucchini Bread:  1980s Visalia, California Recipe Box

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup oil
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder (most recipes call for 1 teaspoon)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 cups zucchini, grated
• ½ teaspoon lemon peel, optional
• 1 ¼ cups walnuts or pecans
• 1 cup raisins, optional

Beat eggs lightly, add sugar gradually, beat until mixture is thick & lemon colored. Add vanilla and oil gradually. Continue beating until all is well mixed. Sift flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder & cinnamon together. Gradually add to sugar, egg and oil mixture. Fold in chopped nuts, grated zucchini, lemon peel, and pour into two well-greased and floured loaf pans (I used two 8 in. x 3 ¾ inch x 2 ½ inch foil pans). Bake at 325 degrees for approximately 1 hour.

Variations are limitless. Here are a few that I liked. Add 1 cup crushed, drained pineapple, 1 cup grated coconut, omit cinnamon and add ½ teaspoon nutmeg. For apple bread, substitute 1 cup finely peeled, shredded apple for the zucchini. Nuts can be substituted with toasted rolled oats.

I’ve heard there’s a chocolate version out there;  maybe in someone’s recipe box.

Zucchini Beginnings: Zucchini, a west coast fad in the 1930s, first showed up in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine in1937, but it generally wasn’t served outside the states of California or Washington until the late 1940s. By the 1970s and 1980s, zucchini was so common that cooks were looking for ways to use up the prolific vegetable. Original recipe from 1981, Better Homes and Gardens all-time favorites 2002, page 40.

So which came first? Applesauce or pumpkin bread or the zucchini bread?

This freshly made jam is great with hot biscuits or warm bread straight from the oven. Well, you can always buy the bread or biscuits from a local bakery and heat. Maybe just tear off a chunk of bread and lather with butter and jam?

Rhubarb Jam with Pineapple and Strawberry

Here is the recipe for the jam that I yearly contribute to the Blue Ridge Summit Free Library’s Bake at our annual Ice Cream Social and Book Sale: Nancy L. Bert

• 5 cups rhubarb, cut up
• 4 cups of sugar
• 1 (20 oz.) can crushed pineapple
• 2 (3 oz.) pkg. strawberry Jell-O

Boil rhubarb, sugar, and pineapple for 20 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add Jell-O and stir until dissolved. Place into hot jars and seal.

I sterilize my jam jars by filling them half full with water and heating the water to a boil in the microwave. The lids go into a quart pan, covered with water, and just allowed only to simmer. When I fill the first hot, sterile jar to within a quarter inch of the top and then put on the lid, I turn the closed jar upside down while I do a 2nd and then 3rd jar. Then I turn the 1st jar right side up. I continue doing this until all the jars are filled. With luck, there will be some left for just a part of a jar. Better toast some bread and does a taste test. Yummy! Nancy L. Bert – Branch Manager – Blue Ridge Summit Free Library

A sack of lumpy sugar won’t be if you place it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Grating a stick of butter softens it quickly. Treasured Recipes from San Antonio, 1987