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With fall in the air and lunchboxes to keep full, it’s time to fire up the oven again. I like this bread recipe because it’s versatile, and it’s a great way to slip a few fruits and veggies into unsuspecting kids—and stubborn grown-ups, too—while they think they’re getting dessert. Two points for Mom!

Ingredients:
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 cup mashed banana
3 eggs
3/4 cup oil
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend zucchini, banana, eggs, sugars, and oil.

2. Combine dry ingredients and add to egg mixture.

3. Add vanilla extract and fold in nuts, if using.

4. Grease two loaf pans. Bake bread for about an hour, or till toothpick inserted in center of each loaf comes out clean. Cool slightly before removing loaves from pans, then wrap and cool completely before slicing.

Variations:
Replace oil with 3/4 cup peanut butter.

Replace 1/2 cup banana with 1/2 cup grated carrots. Fold in 1/2 cup raisins, soaked in warm water till they plump up.

Add 1/2 cup crushed pineapple, well drained, to batter with vanilla extract.

Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to dry ingredients for a fall twist.

Author Bio
Jo Elizabeth Pinto was among the first blind students to integrate the public schools in the 1970’s. In 1992, she received a degree in Human Services from the University of Northern Colorado. While teaching students how to use adaptive technology, she earned a second degree in 2004 from the Metropolitan State College of Denver in Nonprofit Management. She freelances as an editor and a braille proofreader.

As an author, Pinto entertains her readers while giving them food for thought. In her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, she draws on personal experience to illustrate that hope is always an action away.

Pinto lives in Colorado with her husband, her preteen daughter, and their pets. To find out more about her and her three books, please visit her Website at https://www.brightsideauthor.com.

*Reader’s note

Jo put this up yesterday and I didn’t get it approved until today.

My apologies.