KALEIDOSCOPE

My garden is producing zucchini at an unbelievable rate.  At one point, I thought I had green counters rather than yellow.  It’s time for zucchini bread, zucchini brownies, and zucchini whatever.

In my haste to get the first loaf of zucchini bread made, I inadvertently mismeasured some of the ingredients.  Thankfully, the loaf tasted fabulous.

In trying to figure out what I left out, I found that I had made a healthier loaf of bread, and one that was better for my husband who is a diabetic.

Here’s the new recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

*Use “Pam” to grease and then flour one large loaf pan (or depending on the large size 2) or four mini loaf pans.

*Grate and drain 2 cups of zucchini

*Mix the following dry ingredients together and set aside.

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

*In a mixing bowl, beat the following together.

3 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1 cup natural applesauce

2 teaspoons vanilla

*Stir the zucchini into the wet ingredients till well mixed.  Then, stir in the dry ingredients.

*Pour into the prepared loaf pan(s) and bake.

**Large loaves at least 1 hour.

**Mini loaves 40 minutes - 60 minutes

Ok.  Yesterday, I harvested at least nine “green bags” of romain lettuce.  It was getting to the point where I either had to harvest it or it would go to seed and be no good.  So we decided to create our own version of a “special Italian” salad he has where he works.

For each salad, place the following in  a bowl -

romain lettuce torn up

one cooked Italian sausage cut into disks

one hard boiled egg cut up

half a medium tomato cut in bite size pieces

some cucumber slices

2 or 3 slices of Genoa salami and pepperoni cut up

some shredded mozzeralla cheeze

a couple of pepperocini cut up

sliced black olives

croutons

cover this with a mixture of equal parts of Italian dressing and Ranch dressing

Then, either toss the mixture together or put a top on the bowl and shake the salad to mix.

I love banana bread (so does my whole family), but I have always hated having to mash and measure the bananas.  Years ago, when I got my Oster mixer, the cookbook that came with it had a recipe for banana bread without mashing the bananas.  My old mixer has passed on, and a new one has taken its place.  The recipe, thankfully, works with this mixer as well.

INGREDIENTS

1 / 2 Cup shortening

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon soda

2 cups flour (I use 1 cup unbleached white flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour.)

3 ripe bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a bread pan.  (I use the disposable aluminum ones.) Place all ingredients in the large mixing bowl for your mixer.  Mix with the electric mixer till ingredients are combined.  Pour into the greased loaf pan.  Bake at least 1 hour and 10 minutes or till a tooth pick comes out clean.

I like it best warm with butter and peanut butter.

When the temperature drops, the clouds roll in, the sun stays out for shorter periods, and the snow starts to fall, my taste for comfort foods sky-rockets.  When my husband and I first got together, he had a number of recipes in his head.  The following is one of his comfort food recipes that we have made into a recipe for two.

INGREDIENTS

2 russet potatoes

2 – 3 servings of frozen beans

4 chicken thighs

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

1 / 2 can of water

Cube the potatoes and place them in the bottom of a 2 – 3 quart casserole dish.  Top with the beans, still frozen.  Lay the chicken thighs on top of this.  Mix the can of soup with 1 / 2 can of water and pour over the chicken.  Bake 400 covered for 1 hour. Uncover and bake till potatoes are tender and chicken is done.