Zucchini Muffins with Chocolate Chips

On our second day of Spring Fling, we needed to make something delicious for a friend's brunch. We wanted to bake so that we could bring goodies that were still warm from the oven, but didn't have a lot of time in the morning. And since a lot of our friends have tasted many of our brunch recipes, we were reluctant to fall back on old staples. After piddling around recipe sites for a while, I decided to search the Smitten Kitchen archives, where I found a recipe for zucchini bread -- something that I've always loved, but never made myself. Because her recipes have never failed us (or likely, anyone) we decided to go for it. We opted for muffins instead of loaves to make serving easier.

Surprisingly, we were able to throw these muffins together in about 5o minutes total. Our food processor allowed us to grate the zucchini in no time, and the batter was extremely simple to mix after that. As soon as we sampled the raw mixture, we knew that these would be as delicious as we had hoped. It had such a perfect sweet and spicy combination that honestly think I could have eaten the entire batter bowl plain. Once baked, the texture was great and I think that everyone loved the way that they tasted. We added the optional chocolate chips and used apple pie spice because we were out of nutmeg, but I really wouldn't change anything from the original recipe, which I'm posting below.

P.S. We've been making muffins and cupcakes like crazy lately, but they'll be more variety soon!
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil (or olive, but we used vegetable)
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional, we didn't do this)
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350, and line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. In a large bowl, whisk eggs together, then add oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add chocolate chips or nuts to dry mixture. Pour dry mixture into wet mixture, and stir until just combined. Spoon batter into muffin cups, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, until inserted knife comes out clean. Cool and serve.