Amy's Chocolate Pudding Zucchini Muffins

I've been eyeing the recipe Amy posted a while back for chocolate pudding zucchini muffins. As noted, I received a large zucchini this week, and turned it into muffins today.

A couple of quick question, which you veteran zucchini people are going to laugh at, but that's OK: 1) do you peel zucchini before shredding? 2) do you squeeze out the water after shredding? 3) if you use a food processor, what do you do about the end pieces that just won't go through? Today, I peeled, I squeezed, and I minced the leftovers as small as possible and threw them in.

After reading the rave reviews from Amy's house, I decided to do some tweaks from the get-go. I figure if I make them just a bit healthier to begin with, we won't know what we're missing. So here's my version of the recipe:

Lenetta's Tweaks of Amy's
Chocolate Pudding Zucchini Muffins

3 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. cooking oil
1/2 c. applesauce
1 c. sugar (I ran out of white so I used 1/3 c white and 2/3 c brown sugar)
1 package chocolate instant pudding (not sure what the different sizes are - mine was 4 servings)
2 c. grated zucchini
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Beat eggs, oil, sugar, pudding mix, vanilla and zucchini together. Blend dry ingredients and add to zucchini mixture; mix well. Scoop into paper-lined muffin tins. Bake 17-20 minutes at 350°.

I only have two muffin tins so I made 2 dozen muffins. As I put them in the oven, I worried I was going to pull out a running-over-the-sides mess, but they came out fine. I've had one and it's pretty darn good! I'll see what Goose and Hubs say - they have the most say in what recipes get made again around here.