Blueberry Banana Zucchini Bread

Memorial Day weekend. Three-day weekend, which Ryan had off, which does not always happen with his schedule and which we treated as: full days together, all four of us, the kind of days that happen enough in a year that you know to be in them completely when they arrive. We grilled on Steve and Patty's back porch on Saturday, Ryan and Steve at the grill with the specific communication of men who have been grilling together for four years and have developed a wordless language about when to flip and when to move. I made coleslaw and a potato salad and Patty made her cucumber salad with dill and sour cream.

The twins are two and a half. Twenty-nine months. Owen is building elaborate structures now, multi-level constructions with a spatial logic I can follow but not always explain, and he narrates the construction in the mix of English and invented terminology that is his working language, "load-bearing" and "connector" have both appeared recently, which Ryan noted with a look that said: he is mine. Nora is writing. Letters, not words yet, but deliberate marks she calls "Nora letters" which she lines up in rows and then reads back to you in a voice that suggests the text is very important. I keep the Nora letters. I have a stack.

Ryan's lieutenant exam is in three weeks. He has been studying at the kitchen table every night for two months and he knows the material the way he knows everything he decides to know, which is: completely, systematically, without drama. I have stopped worrying about whether he will pass. He will pass. The question is what comes after, which is a posting to a different station possibly, and that is a thing we will navigate when it is real and not before.

Last week of school in three weeks. I am already writing the twenty letters. Darius's letter is three paragraphs. That is the most I have ever written for a student in one of these letters. He earned every word of it. I am going to print it on the good paper and put it in an envelope and seal it and send it home with him on the last day and I am going to hope that someday, when he is older, someone shows it to him and he recognizes himself in it.

With three weeks left of school and the summer just beginning to feel real — long weekends, Ryan home, the twins in the backyard — I wanted something I could bake in a batch and have ready: for breakfast, for the last week of school, for the mornings when everything is in motion and I still want to put something homemade on the table. This Blueberry Banana Zucchini Bread is exactly that kind of recipe. It’s the sort of thing you make twice because the first loaf disappears before you’ve planned for it to, and right now, with the season turning and the good days arriving, I want to be ready for that.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 10 slices

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup shredded zucchini, moisture pressed out
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg until well combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and oil until smooth. Stir in the mashed bananas and vanilla extract.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined — do not overmix. A few streaks of flour are fine at this stage.
Fold in zucchini and blueberries. Fold in the shredded zucchini first, then gently fold in the blueberries so they don’t break apart and streak the batter.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 50–60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
Cool. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Blueberry Banana Zucchini Bread — Baking Something Good While the Summer Opens Up