What Do You Do With Your Zucchini?

I remember back in June our zucchini looked like this. I was thinking at the time, "will I get any zucchini?" HUH! Will I get any zucchini?! I was flooded with it! Soon the monster plants produced monster zucchini and I was freezing and eating it as much as I could. I steamed, I froze, I ate it raw and gave it away. But it kept coming. I realized I needed to cook it into something. As you all know, and if you don't, I am not fond of cooking. If it wasn't a necessity I wouldn't be doing it. But I can say I am a pretty good cook, when I put my heart into it. Actually I prefer to bake. And that is what I started with...zucchini bread.

So in late June I made my mother-in-laws Zucchini Bread. It was so yummy, she liked to put a lot of cinnamon in her recipes and it works very well. I later snuck in some whole wheat flour, about half the flour needed, and my family still liked the bread but I couldn't slip it past my husband too many times. He grew up with this bread and wanted me to stop messing with the recipe. I proceeded to find a whole wheat recipe and make variations on this classic bread. I made it with brown sugar and honey, just honey, just brown sugar, butter or oil, loaf of bread or mini-muffins. Every variation was very tasty.

I froze some of the bread for later consumption and moved onto more serious recipes like kitchen sink cookies. This recipe came from The Classic Zucchini Cookbook, that I got from the library but I am thinking of buying, used of course. These were a hit. They have everything a good cookie has-sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate chips-but also goodness for your body-whole wheat flour, oatmeal, zucchini. The recipe called for dried fruit but I knew my kids had nothing to do with that.

Now that I had gained 3-5 pounds eating all these yummy baked goods, I thought I would get more serious with the zucchini. Now came zucchini pizza, zucchini goulash, zucchini cheddar cheese soup, and soup starter. All pictured below and all from The Classic Zucchini Cookbook. I have yet to grill, saute and deep fry it. Every recipe I made we loved and would make again. (The last 2 pictures are before and after for soup starter. The veggies are sliced and sauteed then chopped in the food processor to save for starting soups.)

I had a lot of fun with my zucchini this year. I know, the season is not over yet. But my plants are starting to slow down their production so there may not be much more going on here.

If you have a favorite book or recipe you like to use for your garden gifts let me know. Beth, I know you like Putting Food By, I already ordered it. My library didn't carry it so I ordered it used based only on your expert advise.

Yah, Thursday

I made it! No Diet Pepsi yet. Yesterday I ended up making myself some Blackberry tea, added a little sugar and chilled it. It was yummy. And my spirits are better today because tomorrow is 4th of July. We will be celebrating it with friends and I can't wait to eat, drink and enjoy a great time.

I tried some new things this week that are helping me be greener. I baked my own bread, finally. I hung my clothes outside. I froze a lot of zucchini. Kept the A/C off. And I made zucchini muffins.

I baked the bread with King Arthur's Organic Whole Wheat flour (from Trader Joe's, of course) and used the recipe on the back of the flour bag (minus the nuts, my family would complain.) It was a dense bread but had a very good flavor. Isn't it pretty? This was my first yeast bread. I started it in the bread maker on the dough cycle, took it out, let it rise, then put it in the loaf pan and baked it. The house smelled really nice. I think I cut the slices too thick for sandwiches but we still ate it. Remember, if you bake fresh bread at home refrigerate it so it doesn't mold, there are no preservatives in it. (Beth, I went to the website for the bread recipe you directed me previously and it is gone.)

I started hanging my clothes outside. I hang everything except underwear, socks and jeans. I don't have a clothesline but I have 2 clothes racks like the one pictured to the left. It is warm, dry and breezy during the day here so they were dry lickety-split. They smell better than putting the clothes in the dryer. I saved my house from heating up. And I didn't use about 3 hours worth of dryer time. Not bad.

This is what happens when you leave unattended zucchini for just 2 days. They are worse than the kids! Notice the pen next to the largest zucchini. This is why you will be hearing me talk about which zucchini dish I made-AGAIN. I froze much of it. I shredded, chopped and sliced for a couple of hours. The shredded zucchini is flash frozen for a couple of hours then packed away using my new handy dandy Foodsaver. Any other types of cuts you need to blanch first, cool, flash freeze and let the Foodsaver do its work. Zucchini is juicy and that disrupts the sealing process of the Foodsaver so flash freezing it keeps the juices at bay. I am all ready to make soup, breads, cakes and casseroles this winter.

Thanks to Crunchy Chicken I am trying to cut back my A/C. I never officially joined her challenge but I am trying to follow her guidelines. I can say, so far it hasn't been hard. We are only in the mid to high eighties this week. It was hard to keep it off today because I made zucchini muffins. I used the same recipe from my mother-in-law but subsituted 1 cup of regular flour for 1 cup whole wheat. You can't tell the difference.

If you live in the states have a wonderful 4th of July and if you don't you can still have a wonderful 4th of July.

Be Green

Meet Chef John

I don't like to cook. But I must if I want to be green. All my cookbooks have pictures. It is a must. I have to know what the end product should look like. When I found Chef John I was speechless. I watch the food network all the time to watch how the real chefs do it. But to have Chef John available whenever I want and how often I want is a blessing.

Chef John hosts Food Wishes Video Recipes. OMG! He is making cheese, right there. And I can watch it over and over! I read about making cheese in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and on other blogs and sites but I have never seen it done. It really doesn't look hard. Everyone that has made it says it was easy and I didn't believe them, now I do. This doesn't mean I will run out and make cheese. I still haven't conquered making homemade bread and I have a breadmaker, for gosh sakes! But some day I will and Chef John will help.


How to Make Your Own Cheese - Fromage Blanc from Foodwishes on Vimeo.

I love the way Chef John teaches you how to cook. He has a nice voice and a great sense of humor. He seems to enjoy what he does and that makes a great teacher.

Zucchini....Again

I have a feeling I will be writing about zucchini a lot this summer. Growing it, eating it, cooking it, baking it, grilling it, freezing it, daydreaming about it. But today I will talk about baking it.

Last night I baked Zucchini Bread and it was good. The recipe made 2 loafs but as you can see from this mornings photo 75% is gone. I used my mother-in-law's recipe. It was funny when my husband asked if she ever gave it to me (she passed a few years ago) and I told him I don't know but if she didn't I could just use the one from Betty Crocker and triple the cinnamon. (The joke here is that her "swedish family recipes" were really Betty Crocker's recipes. She would just add A LOT more cinnamon.) But this time she fooled me and had her own recipe.

3 eggs beaten until fluffy

2 cups of sugar

1 cup veggie oil

2 cups shredded zucchini

3 teaspoons vanilla

Those go in a large bowl and combined.

In a seperate bowl combine:

3 cups flour

3 tablespoons cinnamon (yes tablespoons, trust me it's good)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Add to egg mixture. Pour into loaf pans. Bake in greased loaf pans for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Makes 2 loaves.

Slightly Greener

Well, pat my back and call me a slightly darker shade of green. I am excited to share my green finds, buys and actions with you.

-My A/C was fixed on Monday by a very nice and local HVAC company. I am so happy to give a local guy my business. He is not only local but his kids go to school with mine. And he came recommended by 3 of my friends. I love to keep it local. (Ok, that wasn't green but he was local.)

-We have managed to keep the A/C off until about 30 minutes ago. We hovered around 92 degrees today and at the end of the day the house absorbed all the heat. My husband got home from work and wanted cool air after refusing to turn the A/C on in his truck to try and save gas.

-My garden, specifically the zucchini, is growing. I now have 8 bean plants now and every time I take a zucchini off the plant another one is there to replace it the next day. Wow! Zucchini bread for everyone!

-Because of the plethora of zucchini I am prompted to purchase a Foodsaver. I cleaned out my large freezer today and found some of my meats are starting to look rather unsavory. This year I want to start freezing more of my local finds to eat them over the non-growing season and hopefully the Foodsaver will keep my pretties well until I devour them.

-My new toothbrush is green, well actually pink but green. I found it at Trader Joe's. It is called the Preserve toothbrush. The handle is made from yogurt cups. And get this, when you are finished with the toothbrush you can send it back to the company in their pre-paid envelope to be made into park benches. Check it our at Recycline.com

-Meet my laundery team: Trader Joe's Laundry Detergent, Borax and Baking Soda. TJ's Laundry Detergent says it has no harsh or petro chemicals and is pH balanced. I did a little research on Borax and Baking Soda and they are better for the environment than the harsh alternatives. The detergent and Borax keep my clothes clean and the baking soda makes them soft. I do plan on trying to make my own detergent to keep my plastic use down but for now TJ's will do. And I only use 2 tablespoons per load because I have a High Efficient machine. Here are some other things Borax does. And baking soda.

-I finally hung my towels outside to dry. I usually only hang my delicates but the heat was calling to the towels. They were a little crunchy so I cheated a little and put them in the dryer for 5 minutes to soften them, that is better than the hour they would have been in before.

-As you have guessed I love Trader Joe's. They have great organic cottage cheese, the best, I mean best hummus and they always have samples. Anyway, I found some great dish sponges there. They are made from vegetable cellulose. No chemicals or synthetic stuff there. The only drawback is they are made in France. Boy is that a LONG way to travel but until I find a good alternative I will use these. They are firm and hold soap well for washing dishes and there is no smell.

-I have been trying to be more organic and fair labor in my clothing choices but that is a very hard place to go. Organic is expensive. I did manage to buy flip-flops for $25 a pair. I got them from Simple Shoes. They boast recycled this, vegan that. Just check em out for yourself. If you like flip-flops like I do and wear them even in the rain (on warmer days, of course) then you will like these. They are cushy.

-I found an awesome book at the library called Stocking Up by Carol Hupping. She writes about everything from freezing to canning to making fruit leathers. It is a great book and has helped me, the complete novice, learn so much about what to do with your fresh zucchini. I was also shown another book on Beth's site called Putting Food By. The only reason I don't have that book in my possession is the library didn't carry it! Can you believe it? So I will buy it from Amazon used.

I can smell the zucchini bread, gotta go.....

I apologize if the page loaded slower because of the pictures. I love pictures. I am not an eloquent writer and the pictures help to tell my story.

I would love some feedback from you guys. Please be honest, just not brutal. Does anyone have a Foodsaver? Do you like it? Any simple zucchini recipes? Do you have a green store you like?

BE GREEN!

Granola Bar Follow-Up

There's my first attempt at homemade granola bars. They were pretty yummy. I topped them with a little milk chocolate so the kids would want to eat them. And we ate all of them within 3 days. We did share them with my daughter's Brownie troop and I am proud to say they liked them too! They didn't even know they were getting wheat germ, almonds, oatmeal and sesame seeds. They just saw the chocolate and ate them up.
So now that I know the basic recipe I will attempt to add some peanut butter next time. Or maybe dried fruit.
Anyone that knows me knows I don't like to cook. I will try to get out of it anytime I can. For instance, last night I had a bowling alley hamburger because I was just lazy. With my new found knowledge (from books, websites and bloggers) I have been eating so much less processed, fried, genetically-inhanced, and toxic food that for one, the hamburger had almost no taste. Two, it had no nutritional value (well some). Three, I knew better. And, four, I am suffering for it today. So for me to be cooking my own food this often and putting this much effort into planning and making it, you can say this is a HUGE step for me. I am excited to say tonight's dinner is free range chicken kabobs with roasted organic potatoes and zuchini.
Thank you Robin for suggesting to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. My eyes are opening to the beautiful bounty the seasons have to offer. (I know potatoes and zuchini are not in season but I bought them before I started the book so I have to eat them.)

Granola Bars

I am very slowly trying to eliminate plastic from my life. It is very hard. Here are my dilemmas:

• Deli meats and cheeses for our sandwiches come in plastic bags
• The kids' snacks come in plastic-no matter if I buy larger boxes with plastic liners or individually wrapped when I get lazy
• Bread comes in plastic bags
• Fresh fruit and veggies can come in plastic. When I pick out fruit or veggies I avoid the plastic bag but there are times it comes prepackaged like a 5 lb bag of potatoes or 3 lb bag of apples

There are other dillemmas but these are my most pressing. So in order to do my share for the environment I am trying to make my own food from scratch.

Hence, the title above "Granola Bars". I got the easiest recipe at Mother Earth News. I went to the local supermarket and bought the ingredients for granola bars. And they are smelling really good in the oven right now. The kids are hovering but I told them they have to cool.

But buying the ingredients, even in bulk, posed an issue. I still had to put the oats, sesame seeds and wheat germ in plastic bags. I will wash out those plastic bags and use them again for the next bulk purchase. Some of the other ingredients came in plastic bags that I really don't know how to reuse. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. Will making more from home help the environment?

Putting the environment aside I do know exactly what went into my granola bars. I also know that they surpass the store bought ones in nutritional value. My kids are going to get a healthy dose of fiber and other great vitamins and minerals. I would say that it was worth making them. And my house smells so good!

Later or tomorrow I will let you know how they taste. (I cheated a bit and bought some chocolate chips to melt and drizzle over the top.)

As for my other dillemmas. I am working on making my own bread. I am looking for a higher fiber recipe. And I would like to start the bread in the breadmaker and finish it in the oven. (So I'm lazy, this eco-friendly living can get tough.) I have also made my own tortilla chips, they were good. I want to try to make crackers like Cheez-its or Gold Fish. But I just don't know how to cut down on the deli meat and cheese issue. I can't grow my own chickens and turkeys.

If you have any solutions or suggestions feel free to leave them.