Zucchini Bread - made with zucchini from MY GARDEN OMG

First of all, I picked a big banana pepper today and chopped it up for Dennis to put on his sandwich for lunch tomorrow. Go me.

Before that though, I grabbed that purple pepper and sliced it in half. I wasn't sure when it would be ready so I just picked one to test it out. I stuck my tongue out and barely touched the pepper and YOWZA it was hot. I have heard that the smaller peppers are hotter, but it must've slipped my mind momentarily. I'm not sure what to do with it!! I guess I can make salsa but it would be like... one of those things where people would have to sign a waiver before they eat it.

Anyways, I decided on a whim that I was going to make zucchini bread. Dennis' mom gave us some last year and I had never tried it before. I was apprehensive, but it turned out to be delicious. I found a recipe and whipped up a batch. It is in the oven right now.

Pictured: zucchini & the dissected purple pepper

The recipe I found called for 2 cups of grated zucchini but I didn't think I had enough. Mine was 7.5 inches but it only made 1 cup grated, so I halved the entire recipe.

Then I mixed all the other shiz up.

Ingredients

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 c white sugar
1/2 c vegetable oil

1 c grated zucchini 

So whisk together the first 5 ingredients - all the dry ingredients but the sugar. Preheat the oven to 350.

In a separate large bowl, beat the eggs, then slowly add in the sugar, then the oil. Slowly add the flour and zucchini, alternating between them. PS. This tastes INCREDIBLE. The original recipe calls for walnuts and raisins, but I am allergic to walnuts and I don't like adding raisins to my bakery items, except for oatmeal cookies and that's only for my dad!!

Grease a 4x8 pan and pour the mixture in. Bake for 65 minutes.

Batter at 0 minutes in the oven...

Batter at 65 minutes in the oven!

I just realized that I was supposed to add vanilla extract, but I missed that part of the directions because it was combined with the walnuts & raisins. The batter was so delicious and the amount of vanilla extract was so small (1/4 tsp) that I don't think it is going to matter. If you want to add the vanilla extract, just add it to the batter last, right before you put it in the oven.

Update: I wanted the recipe to look greener this time, so I used a lot more zucchini, probably 1 and 3/4 cups, while leaving the rest of the recipe the same... except the mixture looked a little too runny when it was ready to go in so I added some extra flour and sugar. I probably added about a cup of flour and 1/2 cup of sugar. Next time I make it, which should be soon (my garden is blowin up, I tell you!), I'll try to get some more exact measurements. Also, I baked it for 80 minutes at 350.

Here's the recipe I used from Allrecipes.com.

Awesome Poppy Seed Salad Dressing

Over Christmas weekend, we went up to PA to visit Dennis' family. On Christmas eve, we had an awesome dinner thanks to Dennis' dad, Doug. Ham, corn, biscuits, mashed potatoes, & gravy. Num num num!

However, the salad is what I couldn't get enough of! After I had one salad and a main course, when I went back for seconds I had to get another salad. It was spinach with cranberries and slivered almonds, but what really made the salad was the dressing. Turns out Vicki had made the dressing herself and she passed the recipe along to me. So here I am passing it along to you.

Ingredients
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tsp minced onion
1/2 cup vegetable oil

I'm sure there is some rhyme or reason to adding the ingredients together, but I just added them to my container in the order they were listed. I used a gravy shaker for this and it worked wonderfully.

The amounts are written on the side which made for easy measuring. Just give it a good shake right before you pour it over your salad.

Vicki's salad consisted of spinach leaves, dried cranberries, and slivered almonds. Dennis is not a fan of almonds, so our salad is a little different. We used a 50/50 Mix of bagged greens that contained spinach leaves and other greens, kept the dried cranberries, and added some goat cheese.

All I can say is... OMG. It was so good! I had a little extra dressing in the bowl when I was done, so I just kept adding greens until I was mopping it up with pieces of spinach. Yummy. Thanks Vicki!!

Pumpkin Bread

I discovered pumpkin bread when an old friend brought some over years ago. From the moment I tasted it, I was hooked. I never thought I would find a recipe to match the glorious pumpkin bread that I had tasted oh so many years ago, but after some experimenting with recipes I found one that has been a success. I make this bread during the holidays for friends and family. I have also used the batter to make pumpkin muffins and pumpkin cake (both of which are great with cream cheese icing, btw, but that's for another post).

Ingredients

1 15 oz can pumpkin puree

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup water

3 cups white sugar

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp pumpkin spice

Mix the puree, eggs, oil, water, and sugar together in a large bowl until blended.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, & pumpkin spice.

Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until blended completely. Pour into whichever container you are using. I have a new Pyrex pan that I usually use for this recipe, but if I am using an older pan I will use Pam, vegetable oil, or butter to line the inside then rub it down with a paper towel before I pour the mixture.

This recipe makes a very large amount of batter and I usually have to divy it up among 2 different pans. I baked a batch of pumpkin bread while writing this post and it took 70 and 77 minutes (one pan was slightly larger than the other). If you are making this as a gift during the holidays, this recipe would be good, but if it is just to snack on around the house, you may be better off halving the recipe.

Here's my bread fresh out of the oven! As you can see it rises quite a bit while baking - I filled each of these pans up to about an inch below the edge. I cut the piece out of the middle of the smaller loaf because the toothpick came out clean but I didn't entirely trust it. Don't worry the bread was fine and it tasted great. :)

Here's the original link from AllRecipes.com. My version has a few minor changes.

Red Beans and Rice

For my brother's 27th birthday this year, Dennis and I decided to try something really different (for us). We knew he had made Red Beans and Rice for himself before so we thought we would give it a shot.

Warning: This takes a LONG time to make so if you're going to tackle it make sure you allot yourself the proper amount of time. We were forced to rush a little bit and serve it up before it was technically ready. It still tasted amazing, so don't fret if you don't fulfill every minute of the recipe - it just tastes better and better as it cooks. You should give yourself around 4 hours to cook, and that doesn't include prepping the ingredients.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped bell peppers

Salt and cayenne, to taste

4 bay leaves

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 pound smoked ham hocks

1/2 pound boiled picked pork meat

1 pound dried red beans, rinsed & sorted over, soaked & drained

3 tablespoons chopped garlic

10 cups chicken stock, or water

4 cups cooked white rice

1/4 cup chopped green onions

If you are like Dennis, you will want to emulate Emeril (who is to thank for this recipe) and prep your ingredients in little bowls for lovely presentation.

Another warning about time - as you can see in the ingredients, the red beans need to be "rinsed and sorted over, soaked and drained." Sometimes there are stones or damaged beans in the lot that need to be removed, so make sure you sift through and find any of those. Rinse them in a colander and then soak them in a large bowl or pot (if you look closely you can see that the beans in the picture are soaked in water). We let them soak overnight because it helps to shorten the cooking time. It is not absolutely necessary to soak them for that long so if you don't have 8+ hours, there are other methods of pre-soaking that you can find on the packaging of the red beans.

Some of the ingredients are a little odd sounding - not stuff you would normally have around the house. Ham hocks for example... what are those?! Well in the above picture, the ham hocks are picture at the bottom left on the red plate. They are known as "pork knuckles," to give you a better idea of what in the world it is. It doesn't have much edible meat on it, so it is just used to cook in the mixture for added flavor. They should be in the meat section at the grocery store - not too hard to find.

When looking for the ingredients in the grocery store, we misread the "boiled picked pork meat" as "pickled pork meat" so we left the store without any! Looking back, it seems like pulled pork would work well in this situation. However, we weren't sure what to do at the time, and my mom told us to substitute bacon. Bacon is good on everything so we were happy to oblige.

The list also calls for bell peppers, but doesn't specify which color. We are partial to red peppers to snack on at home, so that is what we chose. It was a good taste, but I wouldn't rule out the less sweet green pepper.

Instructions

In a large saucepan, heat the oil. When the oil is hot, add the onions, celery, and bell peppers to the saucepan. Season the vegetables with salt and cayenne. Saute the vegetables for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables start to wilt. Add the bay leaves, thyme, ham hocks, and pork meat (in our case, bacon) and saute for 5 to 6 minutes. Add the beans, garlic, and stock or water. Bring the liquid up to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 2 hours, uncovered. Add more stock or water if the mixture becomes dry and thick. Use a wooden spoon to mash 1/4 of the mixture. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the beans are tender and creamy. Add more liquid if it is too thick. The mixture should be soupy, but not watery. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. To serve ladle into bowls with rice. Garnish with green onions.

Those are the directions from Emeril Lagasse's website. When it describes the beans as being "creamy," it is a little hard to understand until you try the mixture. The beans will literally melt in your mouth once they are cooked well. This is what your finished product may look like:

Now the website says the recipe yields 8 servings.. they must be serving ogres or something. This makes a TON of servings. You would be better off freezing half of it for later or giving portions of it out to friends. It reheats really well and tastes just as great as it did fresh off of the stove.

Here is the original link from Emerils.com.