yum! chocolate chip zucchini cake!

so i mentioned the fact that my mom & i got 4 zucchinis for $1.00 at a flea market yesterday. i love buying fresh, local produce that i know i have to use asap. it's fun to find new recipes, or just make ones i remember loving as a kid. of course i could have made something healthy with my fresh veggies, but i decided to make one of my favorite cakes that my mom makes pretty often when zucchinis are in abundance - chocolate chip zucchini cake!

it's delicious, and you can pretend it's not bad for you since there is a good amount of zucchini in there. i have come to find you can use a lot of different veggies in baked goods, and they always seem to turn out great. i have substituted apple sauce, pumpkin, and beans for oil and/or butter with awesome results. i used a home made apple butter that sam & i canned last year in place of the oil in this recipe. so, if you have any zucchini laying around & love sweets, give my mom's recipe a try!

CHOCOLATE CHIP ZUCCHINI CAKE

1 1/2 cups sugar.

1/2 cup butter, softened.

1/4 cup oil (or apple sauce!)

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs.

2 1/2 cups flour.

1/3 cup cocoa.

1 tsp. cinnamon.

1 tsp. baking soda.

1/2 cup butter milk (i used skim & it turned out fine, 

but i'm sure buttermilk would be better).

2 cups shredded zucchini

1 cup chocolate chips...or 2 cups.

preheat oven to 350 degrees. grease a 9 x 13 cake pan. combine sugar, butter, oil, vanilla & eggs.  beat well. add flour, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon & butter milk. blend well. fold in zucchini & chocolate chips. bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out from the center clean.

 

 in other news, the flowers i got yesterday for 30 cents each are in the ground & happy. most of them are perennials, which won't bloom again until next year, but i got 2 plants that had buds all over them, and are blooming today. both my mom & i are stumped as to what kind of flowers these are. anyone have any idea? they are small, about the size of a nickel, or maybe a little bigger.