Zucchini Bread and Dog Treats

Today I have two recipes. Neither actually came from my recipe box but only because the recipes have not been transfered to recipe cards. The first is from the AllRecipes website. I don't have all the ingredients necessary to make my other zucchini recipes; so I went to my old fall back, Zucchini Bread. I choose to make the bread in my new bread machine. The recipe is available here.

I also like to cook and bake for my dogs. They are like my babies and I also like to share my goodies with my friends' dogs. Today I went with two simple recipes from the Three Dog Bakery Cookbook. Three Dog Bakery is a gourmet dog bakery that was founded in Kansas City. The cookbook provides recipes for treats, meals, and dog parties. I have yet to find a recipe in this book that I didn't like. Some recipes take a very long time to make but I think the results are worth it in the end.



The first recipe was Simple Simon's Birthday Bones. These use just a little whole wheat flour, baking powder, peanut butter, and skim milk. I don't know any dog that doesn't like peanut butter and every dog seems to love these treats. They are simple and easy to make and only take 20 minutes to bake.



The second recipe was Party Hearty Mix-It-Up Mix. This includes vegetable oil, honey, vanilla, egg, skim milk, whole wheat flour, baking powder and ground ginger. The preparation of these treats is the same as Simple Simon's Birthday Bones. However, these treats only take 15 minutes to bake. Even without the peanut butter, dogs seem to really love these treats too.

Zucchini Bake

Today at the farmer's market zucchini were 5 for $1. I got some very large zucchini, larger than I had seen before. Usually I would jump right to zucchini bread but I found a recipe in my box that was a perfect use for the zucchini.

Zucchini Bake (From AmericanProfile)

4 small zucchini, diced (about 3 cups total)
2 cups (about 5 1/2 ounces) club cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
1 small onion, grated
1/2 cup 2% reduced fat milk
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese


1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan or 9-inch-square baking dish
2. Bring 4 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add zucchini; reduce heat and simmer, covered, until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain well in a colander.
3. Press cracker crumbs on bottom of prepared pan to form a crust. Dot with butter. Spoon zucchini on top.
4. Whisk eggs in a medium bowl until fluffy. Stir in onion, milk, 2/3 cups Cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. Pour over zucchini and sprinkle with remaining 1/3 cup Cheddar and Parmesan.
5. Bake, uncovered, 35 minutes, or until golden on edges.

Serves 6 to 8.

The zucchini bake turned out exactly like the picture that was with the recipe. The recipe was very easy to follow but a bit time consuming. Most of my time was spent cutting the zucchini, grating the onion, and crushing the crackers. However, none of those tasks were very hard. I did make some changes to the recipe. Instead of using four small zucchini I used 2/3 of one of the large ones. Also, I forgot to grease the pan but I didn't seem to have a problem with sticking. The recipe came together very well and took exactly 35 minutes to bake. The taste is fantastic. I feel like this will be a great casserole that will be filling as a main dish or a side dish.

If you try making this dish, let me know how it turned out for you and how you liked it.