Abundance

Harvest season is upon us! Over the past year, we have partnered with many local producers including: Cornerstone Organics, Butte & Bine, golokal, Pitt St. Gardens, Step N Stone, Lightning St. Organics, Dream Small Farms, Oakenheart, and our most recent growers, Windfall Organics in Lunenburg and FungiFusion in Cornwall. We are so thrilled to support our local growers and we know how much effort it takes to do what you do, so thank you!

By now you must realize the importance of community to us. Rather than eating produce that has been picked early, spent days in a trailer, and then sometimes gassed to ripen before it gets to the consumer, our We Love Local slogan indicates that your produce is getting to you straight from a local field! Thankfully, more information is circulating about sustainable agriculture and the sacred ground we call Mother Earth.
Every week throughout the growing season, our friend, Dan Marion, from Pitt Street Garden, brings in a beautiful array of produce including a few varieties of zucchini. One zucchini was particularly large, and it reminded me of one of our favourite summertime desserts – Chocolate Zucchini Cake. I posted the recipe on the Sharyn’s Pantry Facebook & Instagram pages too. This cake is really moist and luscious. You will need a couple of cups of grated zucchini, and if they are local the cake will taste better!!!

One little trick that I learned from my best friend’s mom when I was growing up was how to make a chocolate icing on the fly – literally! For busy households this is a surefire way to satisfy those chocolate fetishes. Once the cake is done, and you have turned off the oven, just sprinkle chocolate chips over the cake. Then put the cake back in the oven for 1-2 minutes. Remove it and spread the melted chocolate as you would icing.
If you need chocolate, we have approximately twenty bins of different types of chocolate chips and wafers, including Callebaut and Merkens in various size bags to suit your needs. In fact, we have everything you need to make this cake with safe, non-GMO ingredients, in our local community grocery store – Sharyn’s Pantry. Still going strong at 45 years young!

As always, thanks again for your support and for caring about our local community! I hope you love the cake as much as we do.
Sincerely,

Roxanne

Ingredients:

• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 cups sugar (I use organic cane sugar – Turbinado)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini
• 2 cups flour
• ¼ cup Dutch processed cocoa
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• ¾ cup sour cream
• ½ cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1) In a large mixing bowl, beat oil and sugar together. Add eggs and mix well. Stir in vanilla and zucchini.

2) In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream. Mix well.

3) Stir in chocolate chips.

4) Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13” baking pan.

5) Bake in a 325º F oven for 45 minutes or until centre springs back when pressed lightly.

6) Cool, then frost with icing (trick above).

You can use a Bundt pan or make muffins with this batter too!