Working Poor, Living Rich

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This is my very first recipe on Working Poor, Eating Rich (WPER)!

The idea for Pear Zucchini Bread came to me when I went to the food pantry last month. I received a can of pears in extra light syrup. I prefer canned fruit in juice rather than syrup, but beggar’s can’t be choosers. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

I also made some zucchini boats recently–maybe I’ll post that recipe another time. I saved the guts that I scooped out of the zucchini. I thought to myself, “Maybe I’ll make some zucchini bread!”

Then I thought, “Why don’t I combine the canned pears with the zucchini and make a riff on banana bread?” Wait, do zucchini and pear go together? I dunno. Let’s try it!”

My confidence in the kitchen has increased exponentially in the last year, despite having to feed a picky family. I’m so happy I’m no longer afraid to try different food combos because this bread was good!

I’ve also been experimenting with using less white sugar and refined oils in my baking. But I’m not into all these new-fangled sweeteners on the market. So I swapped sugar for some Grade A maple syrup and vanilla Greek Yogurt for oil. I can’t remember the milk fat percentage of the yogurt though! Sorry.

Anyways without further ado, here is my first recipe on WPER!

Pear Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups All-purpose flour
• 1 cup Mashed zucchini guts
• 1 cup Canned pears, drained and mashed
• 1/2 cup Vanilla Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup Maple syrup
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1 tsp Lemon paste
• 1/2 tsp Salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400℉. Grease 2 medium load pans.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk mashed zucchini, mashed pear, eggs, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, lemon paste, maple syrup, cinnamon and salt.
3. In another medium bowl, add flour and baking soda.
4. Slowly whisk dry ingredients into wet ingredients until no dry clumps of flour remain. Wet lumps are ok.
5. Pour batter into the 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for 15 minutes, rotate pans in oven, bake for another 15 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of each loaf — yes check both loaves! If the house doesn’t smell like maple and cinnamon and the tops aren’t browned, they’re probably not done yet. If the toothpick comes out with wet batter on it, bake it for another 5 minutes and check again. Repeat until toothpick comes out either clean or with a few, small dry crumbs. One of my loaves took 30 minutes, the other took 35 minutes.
6. Let pans fully cool before slicing. Serve room temp, warm or toasted with butter.

Tips

• The one mistake I made was letting the pans sit on the stove top while cooling. Since the batter was very wet from the pears and zucchini, the extra heat caused it to become soggy on the bottom and deflate. No one likes a soggy bottom. Rest the loaf pans on a cooling rack on the counter instead.

Conclusion

Sorry, I don’t have nutrition facts for you all. I’m going to look more into how to calculate those. But if you prefer using sugar and oil or want to swap the fruits/veggies, please do. Let me know in the comments below how you modified the recipe for your needs! Now that I think about it, I’m going to do a separate post about my philosophy on substitutions.

If you liked this recipe, share it with your loved ones, bookmark it, print it, cherish it! I hope you all enjoyed my first post.

Stay hungry, my friends,
Jenny Z