Sunday, March 7, 2010

Thanks, Y'all!

Thanks, y'all!  Time and again, I ask for your help and you jump right in to offer it.  I greatly appreciate all the advice and support you offered in response to my last post.  I feel encouraged...and armed.  With some great ideas.  I've got book recommendations, recipes, and new approaches to try.  Thank you!

First up from your suggestions was my Aunt Betty's idea for zucchini bread!

Just so you know, there truly is a good bit of zucchini in zucchini bread.  (This was three zucchinis, but I think I can easily sneak in a fourth the next time I make this.)

I used a recipe by Paula Deen, which pretty much guaranteed it would be tasty.

Paul Deen's Zucchini Bread

Ingredients
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.

I always mess with recipes.  This time, I left out the nuts, added a teaspoon of ground cloves, used two cups of white sugar and one cup of brown sugar, and--for lack of loaf pans--cooked the whole batch in a bundt pan for an hour.   Mmm...very moist, sweet, totally yummy bread.

And, most importantly for us, a BIG HIT with the little guy!
In go the veggies!  Yay!

I sliced a bunch of the bread up, laid the slices out flat between pieces of wax paper in a gallon Ziploc, and froze it.  We're nuking a piece each morning for Andrew and he's pleased as punch.
 
Next up are mini meatloafs, inspired by Holland.  Wish me luck!
 
Then, I think I'll have to give J's children's ideas a shot: "Shark meat, no, DEER meat! & pickles & cheese!" and "Puppy water & ice cream."  How could we go wrong?

3 comments:

Julie said...

The smile says it all - "deeelish"

Wanting What I Have said...

Hee hee...I'm so glad you liked their suggestions! (and thanks for he shout out!)

I thought of this today - and he may be too little, but I have noticed when I let the kids "help" me cook, they almost always love eating whatever it is they helped with. Sometimes "helping" has meant they tell me when to dump the ingredients, or I put my hand over theirs to stir, etc. Just a thought.

Aunt Betty said...

So happy he liked it. Carrot bread is another good one. I totally agree you could add another zucchininbut decrease your water when you do. Love you all
Aunt Betty