I hope, for your sake, having a hurricane blow through the northeast meant little more than wind and rain. My mom, nervous as she was, harassed me until I got all the necessities- flashlights, batteries, matches, water bottles, etc, along with enough food to feed us for a good number of weeks. Of course, we slept through what we heard was a night of heavy rainfall and woke up and had our morning coffee while watching the news. It was a bit anti-climatic, I’ll admit. Plus, the only real impact the hurricane had on us was making us put on a few pounds, because my mom and I, shut up in the house for two days, had nothing better to do than cook and bake. And eat. We started with a pot of chili. It was the best my mom has ever made, although I must say that I helped. We basically threw in everything that was in our shelves, and it seemed that the more we put in the more appetizing it became. I know I’m probably not whetting your appetite with this one. Then, we made zucchini bread, which was beyond delicious, perfectly spiced and super moist. On the second day it seemed to have even more flavor, and by the third it was just irresistible. Now it’s just gone. Actually, the recipe made two loaves, both of which we already ate. So good. Then we made chocolate cake, which was incredibly chocolate-y, rich, and I think the moistest cake I’ve ever had. It tasted almost like a brownie, but was a lot lighter and more fluffy. We didn’t realize until after eating it that it was a vegan cake (no butter, eggs, milk), and neither will you. It’s one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever had- and we didn’t even put frosting on it. Actually we tried, but as it turned out the frosting had expired and thus we discovered the cake was extremely flavorful and didn’t need it whatsoever. By the time we made no-bake cookies, which I love, our taste buds, and as it turns out, our arms, were pretty tired, since we apparently didn’t thoroughly mix the peanut butter into the batter, and the result was a not exactly uniform cookie with huge globs of peanut butter inside. Albeit delicious, by the third dessert we were in dire need of a salad, or vegetables, or something. For the love of God. Thus, my mom would like to interject with her theory that the impact of hurricanes should be measured by a person’s weight gain during their in-house quarantine. According to her, this was a 3 pounder. Yum.

Zucchini Bread
just adapted from Paula Deen

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
2-3 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium zucchini)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup (preferably toasted) chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.

Easiest Chocolate Cake
just hardly adapted from Organic and Chic by Sara Magid

I know that technically this cake is “vegan”,  but please pretend you don’t know that. It is so so good. And it has no butter in it (we even swapped out the oil for olive oil- all healthy fats!- but not on purpose- we ran out of the other stuff. And it was still delish).

2 1/4 cups organic all-purpose flour
2 cups organic cane sugar
1 cup organic unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon organic vanilla extract
2/3 cup organic canola oil
2 teaspoons organic white vinegar
2 cups cold water
1 cup chocolate chips- OPTIONAL (semisweet, dark chocolate, milk chocolate- whatever’s on hand)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans, or place liners in 2 muffin pans for 24 cupcakes. Set aside.

In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix the vanilla extract, oil, vinegar, and cold water.

Slowly whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix. The mixture will be quite wet, but this is okay. Fold in chocolate chips, if using.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. For cupcakes, the baking time is 24 to 26 minutes.

Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool.