This is for Blue Witch, who enjoyed the carrot cake recipe. This time of year we have an overabundance of zucchini. Even one plant can provide enough zucchini for an entire neighborhood, so we’re constantly trying to find ways to use them up, or share them.
This recipe for a zucchini tea bread is older than most of our children, and I make it at least once a year. I hope you enjoy it.
Zucchini Bread
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup salad oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and grease and flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, combine the first nine ingredients. Mix thoroughly. With a spoon, add the zucchini and walnuts, and spread the batter in the pan.
Bake 70 miunutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack, and then remove the loaf from the pan. Let cool completely. Wrap to store.
This year, because we are making an effort to cut calories and fat from our diet, I may try replacing the oil with applesauce. I’ll let you know what happens
Monthly Archives: August 2004
Technology
Isn’t science amazing!? There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t read something new, from black holes and charming quarks, to astonishing information about how our body works, headlines on cloning, and new information on disease prevention.
We live in an amazing time. My grandfather had one foot in the horse and buggy era and the other planted firmly at a time when men rode rockets to orbit the earth. I can not remember a time when my family didn’t have both television and radio bringing information into the house.
So, you can imagine my amazement at the latest breakthrough in technology. I was grocery shopping. I picked up carton of eggs, and lifted the lid to make sure none of them was cracked. On each egg was a line of red print saying “Use By Sept. 24.”
That’s just incredible! Scientists have tinkered with hens and found a way to get them to print out freshness dates when they lay eggs. They must be using nanotechnology to line the pigment up in the shell, but I can’t figure out how they change the date. I guess I’ll have to do some surfing. Maybe they have engineered it so that chickens have a computer chip passed on to them when they are just a yolk.
I bet the chickens are strutting around thinking, “It’s Tuesday. We get extra grain on Tuesday.” Or, “Four more weeks, and they’ll let me out into the yard!”
I wonder if they try to warn the turkeys when Thanksgiving is coming, or if they keep it to themselves.
It’s a great invention. Now we’ll never have another stale egg again.
I’m WHAT???
I was visiting over at Bogie’s and found this quiz. I really think that I may be a long lost member of her extended family. She and I came up with the same results!
Take the quiz: “Which Random Irish Gaelic Phrase Are You? “
Ta mo bhriste tri thine
Ta mo bhriste tri thine – ‘My trousers are on fire.’You’re a few bricks short of a load, aren’t you? You’re probably not allowed to use sharp objects and you should be locked in a rubber room. With Rubber rats. Rubber rats? I hate rubber rats. They drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a rubber room. With rubber rats. Rubber rats? I hate rubber rats…
Of course, once you read what she had to say about it, you’ll be shaking your head, wondering why I would want to identify with a crazy woman. (Could it be….her sense of humor???)
The joys of a day of boat widowhood
Dear Husband is staying overnight on the boat tonight. There are some joys to being a boat widow. This list may not do anything for you, but it’s made my day!
1. I slept late this morning.
2. I spent most of my day working on a quilt top.
3. I got to touch the remote control.
4. I didn
Ex Relationships
I don’t care for the term EX-husband. I have one of them, and I prefer to refer to him as my “former” husband. I guess that makes DH the “latter’ husband. I supposed I could call Mr. Former “the JERK,” but I’ve tried to play nice in public.
Anyway, today I was thinking about the fact that I have EX-relatives. My brother and his FORMER wife divorced, and it put me in a difficult position. I like the woman he was married to, the mother of his children, and I like the woman he IS married to. It’s very difficult to know just what to do about it.
I tried to keep in touch with his former wife, and found that was uncomfortable. I wondered if she felt I was a reminder of all that had happened, and it occured to me that perhaps I was hurting her by keeping in touch.
And, my present sister-in-law may see my relationship to the former Mrs. as being a slap in the face.
What to do….what to do? Are we supposed to close ranks and support our siblings, no matter what they do? Does that mean we cease recognizing the parent of our nieces and nephews?
I wonder if Emily Post has written about this. Perhaps I need to surf on “Divorce Manners.”
I have to admit, when my former husband kept in touch with one of my sisters, it really ticked me off at first. Then I realized it was probably a good idea to have a conduit, and I worked at letting the matter drop. I wonder if I put my siblings in the same position I’m in now?
Duh….
Never let it be said that I think on my feet….
Squirrely Secrets
It’s a gray rainy day, today. I’ve had the pleasure of working at my sewing machine. I’ve answered e-mail and lazed through the day.
I was standing at the kitchen sink, and I could see the pile of cedar mulch waiting for me. I noticed it looked a little worse for wear.
As I watched two chipmunks and a grey squirrel made their way over the pile, and burrowed in, apparently leaving stashes for the winter.
Won’t THEY be surprised when they come back.
Hmmmmmm….maybe I will be too, once that mulch is spread! *G*
The Rains Came
We FINALLY got some rain! We’ve had gray days off and on for the past month, interspersed with gorgeous sunny ones, and NO RAIN! We got the gray skies, but all the storms have gone north or south of us.
So, last night about 2:00 there was a great crashing and flashing around us, and there be rain! We needed it. I’ve been putting down mulch, and I had to water first because the ground was drying up.
I’ll have to walk the grounds to see if we lost any trees last night. The storm came through fairly fast and furious.
And, in the dark, my first thought was..”I need to check on Defer.” Of course, he’s gone, but for the last fifteen years I had a dog who hid from lightening. His favorite place as a pup was under my computer desk, and in his later years, he chose our bedroom. I’m glad he’s spared the storms now.
So….this weekend….more mulching! I know that most of you consider that drudgery…but I’ll take it over sailing any day! *G*
Operation Support Our Troops
My mother is a member of the Empty Nesters group at her church. They are collecting items to send to our troops, and I wanted to share the list of items with you. It’s amazing what little things can help make their stay more comfortable.
I need your help. I’d like to find sources who might be willing to donate some of these items, but I’m a total rooky at this. Are there stores who do NOT donate, and are there stores who would be likely to donate? Should I contact manufacturers rather than going to retail stores? What do I need to have with me, other than the list of goods needed, to make my pitch successful? I assume that I need to provide the name and address of the church, and a contact. What else should I provide to make my request a success?
I’d appreciate any assistance you can give me. This is a worthy cause.
Carrot Cake
Carrot Cake
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 cups cooking oil
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Sift the flour once, add baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon and sift the mixture into a mixing bowl. Add sugar, oil, eggs, and beat until blended. Add carrots and pecans. Pour into a greased, floured 10″ tube or bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 70 minutes. Cake test. Remove from oven, let stand ten minutes. REmove from pan and cool on a rack. Dust with 10X sugar. Serve with ice cream.
Thirty years later……
A number of years ago, a friend told me that I could substitute applesauce for part or all of the oil, and now, I do. And, should I never find the definitive Bundt pan, I will consider making this cake in a 13 x 9 cake pan. It will take some adjustment of cooking time, but it would be worth it.
If I could remember how this recipe came to me, I would give the creator credit for it. It seems that it has been in my family forever, and my personal copy was typed more than a quarter of a century ago. I equate this cake with comfort. My head, which is trained to read labels and think “Low-carb,” simply has to give way now and then, so that my heart, and taste buds, can enjoy the comfort of food from my youth. Thank God that doesn’t happen often! *G*
Baking
I rarely bake any longer.
In my twenties, I made bread from scratch. This was before the invention of bread machines. I baked an occasional cake, and made pies and cobblers. We have a refrigerated dough crescent roll that is served at every Thanksgiving dinner, and a pastry called “Sugar Crisp” that’s made each Christmas. For a number of years, the women of my family have been invited to a day of baking cookies in December, to get ready for Christmas.
When my doctor suggested that I stop baking, I thought he was crazy. I kept on baking, but shared the fruits of my labors. Then….gradually, I started to cut back on my baking.
There are times, though, when I get a taste for a certain dessert, and carve out the time to make it from scratch. Last night, I cleaned the kitchen, put everything away, and then checked to see if I had the ingredients for carrot cake. I needed more oil. I decided to make a quick stop at the grocery store today, and pick up what I needed. I’d still have time to make the cake and cool it before dinner.
With the exception of needing two cups of grated carrots, the recipe is extreemely simple. Some time ago, I discovered that I could use my blender to chop the carrots, so that’s what I did today. I think I must have dirtied every bowl in the kitchen, and several spoons and measuring cups. Why is that? I think there must be an axiom somewhere establishing a relationship between the number of dirtied dishes and how good something tastes.
By noon, I had the cake in the oven, and worked on dinner preparations while it baked. The house smelled wonderful with the scent of cinnamon filling the air.
When my timer went off, I did the cake test (piercing the cake with a toothpick to determine if the batter has been cooked thoroughly), and set the pan on a rack to cool. When it was cool, I used a knife to release the cake from the edges of the pan, turned the pan over and tapped the bottom to release the cake.
Two thirds……maybe three quarters…..of the cake came out of the pan.
I have one lightweight, metal, easy release bundt pan that will be in the recycling bin this evening.
It was incredibly frustrating to have put all that time and effort into making a special dessert and have it look like something that came through an urban war.
It tasted fine. We had carrot cake after dinner. BUT….I knew it wasn’t what it should be, and it bothered me.
I think I have one more carrot cake in me, maybe more than one, but I won’t be using that crappy pan, that’s for darn sure. Sur la Table…..Crate and Barrel……Kitchen shops across Illinois….here I come, looking for the definitive Bundt pan.