Zucchini Bread

After traveling all last week, the hubby and I returned to Minnesota to see that our community garden (a.k.a. The Farmette) was overflowing with produce! Finally weeks of lugging water out there and weeding have turned into thick rows of sweet lettuce, peapods, and monster zucchini. We're going to have to zucchini having coming out of our ears! I'm really not much of a gardener, but my husband is really into it, and it's not quite as bad as I thought it would be. He does most of the work, and I go out and do what I can when he's out of town. It is a nice excuse to be outside during the lovely summer weather.

Last night, I took some of the bigger zucchinis and decided to make zucchini bread for breakfast and for the hubs to bring into work. I'm going to try to tackle another one of our large zucchini today and make it into bread and then place that in the freezer for later in the season when our zucchini aren't as proliferative.

This recipe I found awhile ago on Cooking Friend, which I really like and have used many times. It's super moist, not overly sweet, and on the healthier end of the spectrum (as far as sweet breads go). You can add nuts or seeds to the batter if you wish, although I'm not a fan of hard chunks in my baked goods, but that's me. Adapt this recipe to your own liking!

Zucchini Bread

From Cooking Friend

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups brown sugar

3/4 cup oil

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla

2 cups coarsely grated zucchini

1.) Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease two loaf pans, size of your choosing. (Smaller pans will yield a higher loaf, larger pans will give you a shorter loaf - or try to make mini loafs and adjust the baking time accordingly).

2.) In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

3.) In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, oil, water, and yogurt. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.

4.) Slowly, add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Then, mix in the grated zucchini.

5.) Pour your batter into the prepared pans. Place both loaf pans in the oven and cook for 55-60 minutes, or until a tooth pick placed in the center of the bread comes out clean.

6.) Remove from oven and allow to cool on a cooling rack for 20 minutes before attempting to remove the bread from the loaf pans.

Pita Puffs

Yesterday was a lazy Sunday morning, but busy baking/cooking Sunday afternoon. The morning was spent lounging, playing with our cat, Chuck, chatting with friends online who live far away. The afternoon picked up, though, and while the hubby was at work, I whipped up some homemade falafel, tried a recipe for chocolate pots de creme, baked blueberry muffins, and made these pita puffs. Plus, I managed to get in a 3-mile run (pretty good for me). Whew!

These pita puffs are really fun in that they truly do puff up, almost magically, revealing a beautiful (and durable) pocket in which you can stuff just about anything. I've been making them more and more since they're quite easy, and pita from the store can be expensive. The only disadvantage is that you have to heat your oven to 500, which in the summer may be insufferable. They're great for us, too, because again, we know what's going into our food, which is important with the hubby being vegan. Try them out and let me know how it goes!

Pita Puffs

Recipe given to me by Annie, originally from King Arthur Baking Companion

Yield: 8 pita puffs

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons instant yeast

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup water (room-temperature)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1.) Knead all the ingredients by hand for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth. Let the dough rest for an hour.

2.) Turn dough onto a lightly oiled (or floured) work surface (dough will be somewhat sticky). Divide it into 8 pieces. Roll out the pieces into 6 inch circles. Allow the circles to rest for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

3.) Place dough in oven on the lowest rack and bake for 5 minutes; they should puff up. (If they haven't wait a minute or so longer and raise the heat for the next batch). Transfer baking sheet to the oven's middle-to-top rack and bake for an additional 1 to 2 minutes, or until pitas have bronwed.

4.) Remove pitas from oven. (Can optionally wrap them in a dishtowl to keep them warm).

5.) Store in airtight container or plastic bag.

Homemade Sandwich Rolls, BBQ Beef, and Cabbage Salad

It's hot in Minnesota, and I love it! It's light out until 9 PM at night. I can walk outside without adorning a parka (literally). Summer is here - and early! yay! In honor of the lovely weather, I made one of my favorite dishes: Barbeque Beef Sandwiches. I love this recipe because it takes about five minutes to start in the morning as you put everything into the slow cooker/crock pot, then a few more minutes at the end to shred the beef, and then done and delicious! When I lived in New York, I always used Dinosaur Barbeque Sauce in my BBQ Beef, but now I don't have immediate access to it. : ( I plan on trying to come up with my own personal BBQ sauce, but in the meantime, I'm experimenting with the types sold in the local grocery.

I decided to make my own rolls since I didn't have any laying around the house. Bread products are generally tricky for our household with the hubby being vegan. Often there can be milk or an egg wash that might sneak its way into the recipe, so I've been making more bread at home so I know what goes into it. I found this recipe for No Knead Sandwich Rolls. The advantage to these rolls are that you can start them at the same time as the beef, and then let them sit all day, and them work on them an hour or so before you want to eat, and you're done! The hubby liked the rolls so much he requested them when he went away for a conference this last weekend. The rolls have a nice crunchy crust and are nice and soft in the middle. Mmmm.

The cabbage salad recipe is my mother's. You can add more or less mayo depending on how creamy you like yours. I prefer mine a little lighter. I'm also a purist when it comes to mayonnaise and always use the real stuff. I'd rather eat less food with more taste than more food with less taste, but that's me.

I hope that you'll enjoy these delicious and refreshingly easy recipes soon!

Barbeque Beef

2.5 - 3 pounds beef chuck roast

1 cup (roughly) of BBQ sauce of your choice

1 chopped onion

1.) Trim fat off the beef and place it into the crock-pot.

2.) Add onions and BBQ sauce.

3.) Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours until beef is tender.

4.) Shred meat using two forks.

5.) Serve either alone or with buns for a sandwich.

No Knead Sandwich Rolls

From About.com

1 1/2 cups warm (but not hot) water

1/4 teaspoon dry active yeast

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar (I used raw sugar)

3 cups flour

cornmeal for the baking pans

1.) Add all ingredients (except the cornmeal) to a bowl and mix with a spoon until the ingredients are decently mixed. The dough is going to be very sticky. Once mixed, cover the bowl with a towel or saran wrap and let the dough sit for 12 hours. (I've done as little as 8 hours with success.) After the dough has sat for at least 8 hours (ideally 12), it will be bubbly and at least doubled in size.

2.) Place a 'generous' amount of cornmeal on a baking sheet - this prevents the rolls from sticking while baking. (Note: The first time I did this, I practically covered the bottom of the baking sheet with cornmeal, and then while the rolls were cooking, my whole place smelled like toasted cornmeal. The second time I made the recipe, I just put cornmeal in the areas where the rolls would be, and it worked just fine and smelled less toasty).

3.) To prepare the rolls, place a 1/4-1/2 cup of flour on a plate or counter top. Separate the dough into 8 pieces; since the dough is very sticky, I found it easiest to take a piece of the dough and roll/dust the outside with the flour on my plate so that the outside wasn't so sticky. Then, I could mold the piece of dough into a round shape and place it on my cornmeal-covered baking sheet.

4.) Once all the rolls are made and placed on the baking sheet, let them sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour so they may rise some more.

5.) Place a pie pan half filled with water on the bottom rack of the oven and heat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake the rolls on the middle / top rack for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden on the outside and sound hollow when tapped on top. Remove from the oven, and let them cool some before using.

Mom's Cabbage Salad

1 small cabbage finely chopped or shredded

1 apple sliced thinly

1/2 red onion sliced thinly

1-2 carrots cut into fine matchsticks or coarsely grated

Sauce:

1 cup mayonnaise

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons celery seeds

1.) Place all sauce ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together.

2.) In a large bowl, place veggies. Pour in dressing and toss thoroughly.

3.) If you like a crunchier salad/slaw, serve immediately. If you'd like it to soften, cover the salad and refrigerate it for 1-2 hours before serving.

Chocolate Bread

The best grocery store in the world, Wegman's, started to make chocolate bread around Valentine's Day a few years ago, and I got hooked. It just smelled, looked, and tasted delicious. They paired with a coffee infused marscapone cheese, and the combination was just *wow.* Anyway, I sadly moved away from the land of Wegman's, but this past week, came across the coffee marscapone cheese in Minnesota! Unfortunately, there is no amazing bakery that offers chocolate bread here, so I had to resort to my own skills to make it. The recipe that I used for this bread was adapted from one online by NPR. The final result is just wonderful!

This bread is not a sweet bread, like banana or zucchini, but rather more of a classic doughier bread, flavored with chocolate.

So, here's how I made it.

I truly hate sifting things, so to get around that little 'problem' I simply whisk together all the dry ingredients when I am baking before adding any liquids. Here, I am whisking together the flour, sugars, cocoa, and salt.

Meanwhile, the yeasts were happy sitting atop some sugar water and doing their thing, aka creating some foam.

Yeast and coffee were then combined with the dry ingredients, and the dough was kneaded. Butter was added tablespoon by tablespoon into the dough until it was glistening.

Then, I added in the chocolate chunks!

The dough had to sit overnight in the fridge, but today after work, I rolled out the dough into balls and arranged them in the bread pan.

After rising and then being baked, here's the final result. Mmm.

Coffee flavored marscapone cheese is the perfect spread to pair with this bread!

Full ingredients and recipe here!