grandma clark's zucchini bread party!

I’m so thankful that I grew up with two sets of doting grandparents. I’m blessed to have known all of my grandparents and have many years and memories with them. My grandmothers couldn’t have been more different but they were both wonderful examples to me of living a simple life, having high morals and spreading seeds of love.

Today marks 7 years that my Grandma Clark has been in heaven. My grandparents met when grandpa was 6 years old and grandma was 4. Grandpa was in first grade; he went home that day and announced to his mother that he had met his future wife. They were engaged on Christmas day when grandma was a senior in high school. She spent the summer after her graduation making quilts, sewing pillowcases and canning vegetables to prepare for their wedding. They were married for 53 years before Grandpa passed away in 1992.

Grandma and Grandpa Clark lived on a 140 acre farm, their favorite book was The Bible and they believed that every meal should include bread and butter. Grandma loved having family over for lunch and you could count on lunch being at noon, straight up, 12:00, don’t be late. If you were lucky it would include her cubed steak and brown gravy. If you were really lucky it would include mashed potatoes and her famous chicken and noodles.

As a very young child one thing I loved about mealtime at Grandma Clark’s house was that they had SOFT margarine that came in a little plastic tub. Oh, it was very special, no wonder I licked it off my bread  and asked for more. No one else I knew had little plastic tubs of soft margarine. I would slather it on the cornmeal mush Grandma would fry for breakfast. I would wash it down with a big glass of orange TANG. It was full of sugar but Grandma served it for breakfast and I loved it.

She must have had a hundred of those little plastic butter tubs in her cupboard and she put them to very good use. They had a huge chest freezer in the basement and grandma would buy many different flavors of ice cream, her favorite dessert. She’d divide it into the plastic butter tubs and label it for individual servings. The freezer was full of ice cream in butter tubs and you would think you were at an ice cream parlor when she opened the heavy freezer lid. After dinner we would go to the freezer and ponder the flavors as grandma would read them to me. I would consider each one and take my time deciding, knowing there was no where else in the world to have this opportunity except at Grandma Clark’s house. I was just about as tall as the freezer and I can still feel the excitement I felt when the ice cold air hit my face, waiting a millisecond for the mini cloud of vapor to clear so I could see all of the little bowls of ice cream neatly labeled and stacked.  It was usually a battle between chocolate and butter pecan. Inevitably someone else at the dinner table would claim to have the same dilemma so I’d grab one of each and we’d split them both.

To remember Grandma today I made her delicious zucchini bread.  It’s simple with the perfect sweetness and full of cinnamon and walnuts. It freezes well and makes a great little after school snack or giveaway treat.

I love you, Grandma! My kitchen smells like yours tonight. xo

Grandma Clark's Zucchini Bread

click HERE to print recipe only

ingredients

3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups flour
2 cups shredded zucchini (I put the shredded zuke in a strainer and press the excess water out of it.)
2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans 

directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease loaf pans. I also like to line the greased loaf pans with greased parchment paper. 

 2. Beat eggs, sugar and oil. You can use an electric mixer but I use a whisk. 

3. Stir in baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla.

4. Stir in flour. Batter will be VERY thick. If you started with a whisk, trade it for a wooden spoon. 

5. Stir in zucchini.  Stir in nuts.

6. Bake in 2 greased loaf pans for 50 minutes to one hour. I baked it in two smaller loaf pans for 40 minutes and made 24 mini muffins, baked for 15 minutes. 

To test doneness, insert a toothpick into the center of the bread. If it comes out clean, or with only a few moist crumbs attached to it, it's done.

Grandma always served this with whipped cream. Enjoy!  

Tribute to Granny!

Gladys Winona Allen Graham
October 30, 1921 - October 29, 2011

Yesterday my Granny died; today would have been her 90th birthday. I loved everything about my Granny, she was feisty, opinionated, beautiful, hard working, generous & loving. While I was growing up she hosted family dinner every Sunday. And she & Pap didn’t just consider their children & grandchildren “family”. If there was a visitor at church or a family in need, she invited them too. Her home and her heart were always open.

We compiled a cookbook of our family recipes about 10 years ago & there are several from Granny. My favorite is “Granny’s Sunday Possum” She loved to get a reaction & make people laugh. Her Sunday Possum was on the dinner table every week, and thankfully it was a BEEF roast. I’ll share the recipe with you sometime but this instruction she wrote makes me smile. “Cover & bake at 300 degrees until church is over.” Church was central in her life. To me, Granny was famous for her cherry pie & blackberry cobbler. She always made several homemade desserts for Sunday.

Going to Granny & Pap’s on Sundays was such an important part of my childhood. Their home was humble and life was “right” there, love was abundant & unconditional; cousins were plenty too. I don’t remember many toys at their house. They had the woods out back & the garden, the basement (unfinished so lots of room for grandchildren to run) & the porch & the kitchen. And I had the time of my life at their house.

We had frequent sleepovers there with three or five cousins sleeping on their pullout sofa bed in the front room. We ate buttered popcorn faster than Pap could pop it & we’d always wake up to a breakfast feast of his silver dollar pancakes, my very favorite! In the summer we would spend the day picking & breaking beans from the garden. In the winter Granny would open a skating rink for us to polish the hardwood floors in Pap's socks. They must have had the cleanest hardwood floors in the world.

Granny & Pap gave me my first Betty Crocker cookbook when I was 18. I wrote their names & the date in it when I got it, “From Granny & Pap Christmas 1986”. I still use it ALL the time. I remember being a little girl & looking through my mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook, which was very worn and torn. My mouth would water at the very thought of all the delicious recipes and I would imagine making so many wonderful things. When I’d find a recipe that we had all the ingredients for, I made it. Now my Better Crocker cookbook looks just like my mom’s did, it’s splattered and torn & I cherish it. I’m sure the love of cooking goes back even further than my Granny but I’m so thankful that she passed that onto my mom & my mom passed it onto me.

Thank you, Granny for your example. I miss you; you were the best! I’m thankful & proud to be your granddaughter. You left a legacy of service and love for all who knew you. Rest in peace.

Link to Granny's Obituary