Suzy Homemaker? So NOT!

Tonight (which, since it's now after midnight, would technically be last night) I decided to make Zucchini Bread. Not just any zucchini bread, mind you; gluten-free zucchini bread. It’s not that I have to eat gluten-free, it’s just that my doctor wants me to cut back on my wheat intake AND I still have that pesky soy and dairy allergy so I thought why not try it?

It all started with a cookbook that I asked for, and received, for my birthday. (Thanks Adam and Heidi.) The book is called “Allergy-Free Desserts” by Elizabeth Gordon. It was the yummy looking cupcakes on the cover that suckered me in. Clearly Elizabeth loves to bake. Me? Not so much. But, I do love to eat baked goods and sometimes the only way to accomplish that goal is to actually bake. I decided to start with zucchini bread for a few reasons; 1. Zucchini is in season, 2.) I like zucchini bread but haven’t had it for years (ever since I grew out of my Suzy homemaker stage), 3. I figured it would be a good way to get some vegetables into my body since that is a challenge for me, and 4. The recipe looked fairly uncomplicated. Ha! So wrong little baker girl.

I should have known I was going to be in trouble when I went to the grocery store yesterday. I had to ask another patron if the zucchini was actually zucchini and not cucumbers. I have a hard time telling the difference. Adam once brought home a veggie pizza (pre-dairy-free days) from Papa Murphy’s and when I looked at it I said “who in the world would puts cucumbers on a pizza?” What can I say? I’m not a vegetable girl. So, let me give you a brief run-down of tonight’s festivities in the kitchen. In an attempt to keep it brief, don’t expect complete sentences. The fun started around 8:15 PM. This will become important later in the story.

• Decide to make zucchini bread
• Hunt down Allergy-Free Dessert cookbook (Where did I put it?)
• Thank John for locating cookbook hiding under my purse.
• Decide I’ll share some of my bread with my neighbor who has Celiac Disease and can’t eat gluten (again, this will be important later.)
• Find large mixing bowl for the base flour ingredients. (This base is used for many recipes in the book so pre-mixing a large portion will save me HUGE amounts of time later. Or so I’m told.)
• Mix base flours together.
• Realize I need an apron
• Find apron - note that it will need to be washed before I use it again.
• Look for loaf pan. Find it in freezer with a chicken dinner in it for later use.
• Call neighbor to see if I can borrow her loaf pan.
• Take off dirty apron
• Walk across the street to neighbor’s house, get pan and head back home after a little chit chat.
• Put dirty apron back on – again noting that it now seems even dirtier.
• Follow directions to pre-heat oven and grease pan with canola oil
• Get small bowl out to mix water with flaxseed meal (I know, it’s already sounding yummy, right?)
• Look for a large bowl in which to mix the dry ingredients while noting that I’m going to need my stand mixer for the next part which means I can’t use the bowl from said mixer.
• Wonder how many bowls Elizabeth things I own?
• Pull out stand mixer so I’m prepared for next step.
• Realize that the stand mixer has white flour rather encrusted on it from years of poor care (what can I say, I’m left Suzy homemaker behind, remember?)
• Decide if I’m going to share with my neighbor I’ll need to clean it up so as not to contaminate the bread.
• Find ice pick to get the dried on flour out of what I assume are vent holes.
• Wonder how much poking I can do without doing damage to myself or mixer?
• Unplug mixer before proceeding with ice pick.
• Bring the “head” of the mixer down to get out loosened flour. A whole bunch comes off.
• Note that there is still more encrusted flour to remove.
• Poke around again.
• Repeat above process and rather "firmly" move head up and down.
• Notice a little plastic piece that has fallen from somewhere and decide to just give up the sharing with the neighbor idea. I don’t want to make him ill and clearly this mixer isn’t safe.
• Try to put beaters into stand mixer.
• Realize the little plastic piece is actually an important part of the operation. It seems to be an integral part of holding the beaters in place.
• Take mixer to garbage can (it was never all that great anyway and it is, after all, 35 years old this month.)
• Pull out hand mixer and pray it’ll do the trick.
• Back to the bowl issue - Find a round baking dish that will suffice for dry ingredients – mix them together.
• Read next part of directions realizing - a wee bit too late - that the sugar (which is now mixed with the flour) was supposed to be creamed together with the oil BEFORE adding the flaxseed mixture and dry ingredients.
• Again, pray that this will still work.
• Add remaining ingredients taking special precautions not to lick my fingers. At least I read THAT warning before starting the whole procedure. Apparently gluten-free foods don’t taste good before they are baked.
• Pour mixture into pre-greased pan at 9:15.
• Check cookbook for baking time. 90 MINUTES! Yikes! And then 45 minutes to cool before taking it out of the pan.
• Realize it’ll be a late night
• Wait, and wait, and wait.
• 11:45 – remove bread from pan realizing there is no way I’ll be able to wait for breakfast to taste it.
• Slice a piece off. Apply dairy-free “buttery” spread and taste.
• YUM!

The baking adventure was a success! Not only did I produce some great tasting bread, I cleared up all that cupboard space that the mixer was hogging. Of course, if I’m to continue in this current Suzy homemaker direction, I might need to hunt down a new mixer. Or, I could just hire a cook. It might be cheaper.