Chocolate and Veggies - The New Dream Team!

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie." ~Jim Davis

This year our garden produced an abundance of zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes (though some evil critter is systematically eating each tomato as soon as it ripens and therefore must be sought out and destroyed...but I digress.)

Since there is only so much sauteed zucchini one can stomach and basic zucchini bread one can bake, I was very happy to stumble upon a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake in a magazine last month (Thank you, Rachael Ray!). The recipe uses fat free vanilla yogurt, extra virgin olive oil and egg whites to keep it healthy and you can substitute Splenda or cut back on some of the sugar if you wish to make it lower in fat.

This cake has the density of a brownie and is rich in flavor. Perfect for an after school snack! (Can you believe school starts in a little over a week?)

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp espresso powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs plus 2 egg whites
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 12 oz container fat free or low fat vanilla yogurt

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Peel and grate enough zucchini to make 2 cups. (That was one very large zucchini from my garden.) You'll want to squeeze some of the water out of it when you're done.
• Grease 9" square metal baking pan
• In a large bowl comgine flour, cocoa, baking powder, espresso powder and salt.
• Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, eggs and egg whites at medium high speed for about 3 minutes.
• Whisk in olive oil.
• Stir in zucchini.
• Stir in flour mixture.
• Stir in 6oz yogurt.
• Transfer to bread pan.
• Bake until springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted comes out with a bit of crumbs on it - about 35 minutes.
• Serve warm with either more yogurt or Cool Whip.