I recently read that Zucchini Bread was the most frequently made and the most ‘gifted’ away bread of any other variety….it is also the one most likely to be thrown out by the recipient of said ‘gift’. This is likely due to the fact that zucchini all by itself is seriously lacking in the flavor department. Zucchini can also contain a whole lot of moisture, and if we don’t address that issue our bread ends up looking, and tasting like a flavorless hunk of sea sponge. I know this from first hand experience while creating this recipe, which was not a good one. The only person who would eat that first attempt was my mother, who said “Hey, you can’t be Martha Stewart every day – get over yourself”. That comment was enough to get me back to the drawing board, and the result is this Zucchini Lemon Bread is bursting with fresh, citrusy flavor. We squeeze the living daylights out of the grated zucchini, which goes a long way to eliminate that spongy element of my prior attempts, and then top the whole thing off with a generous crackling crust of lemon sugar. It’s fun to make, it’s easy, and I guarantee nobody will be secretly tossing this out if you can make yourself give it away.
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I have fond childhood memories of hot summer days, awaiting the neighborhood ice cream truck. I don’t remember the driver’s name, but I thought he was ancient (but since I was 8, he could have been 25), wore a white jacket and hat, and drove a little red convertible around the neighborhood, blaring out some musical tune that could be heard for blocks, drove our parents crazy, and hypnotized all of us into running toward it at full speed. He arrived with a cooler that was fully loaded with as many ice cream treats a kid could imagine, which made it hard to decide what to choose. I’m sure many an ice cream bar was melted with all us hanging over the side of his car, staring into the cooler, and mired in indecision. One year, I was fully entrenched in my Drumstick phase, but when I discovered the Creamsicle the following summer, everything else fell away. I still can’t resist that combination of creamy vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet, so dreamt up this super easy cremesicle pie. It can stay happy as a clam in your freezer for a couple of weeks or more, waiting for you to get the urge for a treat, and is nice to have for drop-in company. The crust is crumbled waffle cones, held together with melted butter and a little sugar. Then all that’s left to do is grab a couple of containers of ice cream and start layering. The crust is not baked in advance, so the whole thing comes together in a few minutes. I swear I can hear that little ice cream truck tune every time I grab a slice.
