New and Improved Zucchini Bread Recipe

It's zucchini  season!  What do you do with your extra zucchini? I love sauteed zucchini as well as zucchini chips and even raw zucchini salad, but my favorite way to eat zucchini is probably zucchini bread. I've made several different versions of zucchini bread over the years, but this version is definitely my favorite.  Give it a try and see for yourself.

Zucchini Bread
2 1/2 C shredded and drained zucchini
2 1/2 C almond flour
4 eggs
1/2 C maple syrup
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1C chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together except chips. Gently fold in the chips then scoop batter into muffin tins. Bake at 350 *F for 20-30 minutes.

Two Fruit and Veggie Smoothies

The other day the kids and I were at Costco and the Vitamix demo lady had made a green smoothie with banana, apple juice and spinach. Surprisingly the kids tried it and LOVED it. They both asked me if I could make one like that when we got home. "Sure!", I say. Do I want to get more veggies into my kids? Heck, yeah!

So when I got home I concocted my own version of the green smoothie using the fruit and veggies I had on hand. I didn't have any juice but I had apple sauce thawed from last year's batch in the fridge and I had some zucchini puree from one of my HUGE zukes I got at the farmer's market a couple weeks ago. So I threw it all in...and guess, what...the kids drank it even though it was green! Shocking, no?

This morning, I thought I'd try the smoothie again but I hadn't picked any lettuce from the garden yet so I added some almonds and one of those little pink grapefruit cups in grape juice from Costco. This one wasn't green, but the kids liked it just the same. What do you like to put in your smoothies? I'm always looking for new flavor combinations!

Green Fruit and Veggie Smoothie
2 Bananas
2 Nectarines
1 Apple
1 C Apple Sauce
1 C Veggie puree (I used zucchini)
2 C torn spinach or lettuce (I used lettuce)
ice to fill the blender the rest of the way to the top.

Blend everything until smooth then serve immediately.

Not-Green Fruit and Veggie Smoothie
1 Banana
1 Nectarine
1 Apple
1 C Veggie puree (I used zucchini)
1/2 C almonds
1/4 C pink grapefruit + 1/4 C grape juice (or one of those little cups from Costco)
ice to fill blender the rest of the way to the top

Blend everything until smooth then serve immediately.

Apple Cinnamon Cake in the Dutch Oven

 

I've been testing out Gluten, dairy and nut free Dutch oven recipes for my local Girl Scout Day Camp. One of the most popular recipes is Dump cake, which consists of canned pie filling and boxed cake mix. In recreating this recipe, I stuck with the pie filling, finding ones that are gluten free, but nixed the boxed cake mix in favor of one I created myself. The result was good enough to serve tonight at a dinner party! Even though, it's a recipe easy enough to make at camp, it's tasty enough to serve to company. Give it a try on your next camping trip...or at your next dinner party.

 



 

Apple Cinnamon Cake in the Dutch oven
2 Can apple pie filling or 2 C stewed apples
¾ C Coconut Flour
¾ C Tapioca Flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbs. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
6 eggs
1 Can coconut milk
1 Tbs. vanilla

In a Dutch oven or a deep pie dish dump one can of pie filling or 1/2 of fruit. In a separate bowl, mix all other ingredients until well blended. Pour batter over fruit then pour second can of pie filling or second half of fruit over top of the batter. (Cover Dutch oven if using.) Bake in a 350F oven (or use 6 briquettes below and 18 briquettes on lid of Dutch oven) for 45 – 55 minutes or until knife comes out clean from center of cake.

Pictures from the Garden

The garden is in full swing now. Lettuce is mostly gone, but I have a few late plantings that are still in good shape. The kale is looking good, zucchini and yellow squash are starting to be ready to pick, broccoli has side shoots ready to pick about every other day and there is almost enough purple beans to make for dinner. I'm still getting alpine strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb and the blueberries are almost ripe. I have baby cukes on my plants, baby cauliflower on those plants and even see a few tiny tomatoes on my volunteer tomato plants in the garden. The ones I planted don't have any yet, though. There are also baby butternut and spaghetti squash on the vines. But the big time winner this year in the garden are the turnips. Those babies are HUGE! We are eating them, but I wished we liked them a bit more. :) Cabbage and onions are moving along and hopefully will get bigger soon. And, lastly, the volunteer potatoes are growing like weeds...oh wait...I didn't plant them, so technically they are weeds!

A good year in the garden so far!

Blueberry Sponge Cake -

I'm volunteering at my local Girl Scout camp this summer and asked a few questions about the food they'll be serving at camp. Since I'll be there all day, I wanted to make sure that the food offered would be something I could eat, but I also wanted to find out how campers with allergies or food sensitivities were handled. As part of the camper experience each camper gets to learn a cooking method based on age. The youngest ones make fruit salad and other no-cook recipes, second graders get to do propane stove cooking. Third graders do aluminum foil cooking and stick cooking; fourth graders learn to cook with a box oven; fifth graders cook with a dutch oven and sixth graders get to pick their favorite method.

The dish the group cooks is decided by the girls themselves based on their method. I asked what happened to girl with allergies if her group chose to cook something she couldn't eat. In the past, the girl had to help to make the dish she couldn't eat, then had to come back to the kitchen to get an alternative meal. That just didn't seem right to me. So I asked a few more questions and found that the camp leaders were more than happy to have gluten, dairy and nut free dishes as options, but just didn't have the recipes or time to research them. This is where I come in to the picture! I've got a ton of appropriate recipes to offer and the background to know how to recreate others that more closely match traditional Girl Scout dishes. So, I embarked on my mission!

I already had a paleo brownie recipe (I'll post that one soon!), but recreating traditional Girl Scout Dump cake was a bit harder. This dish usually uses a can of pie filling (apple, cherry, peach), a boxed cake mix and a stick of butter. Since a lot of those items wouldn't work for a camper who can't eat gluten or dairy, I set to making my own version. I researched pie filling and found that the Wilderness and Comstock brands are both gluten free. They use a small amount of corn starch as a thickener and use sugar or cane juice to sweeten, but they were about as good as a can of pie filling could get in this situation. I think if I was making it for my own family I'd choose fresh fruit or a can of fruit in fruit juice as an alternative to the pie filling. On top of the fruit, I created a sponge cake that used coconut and tapioca flour as a base. I didn't include any sweetener in the cake as the pie filling was sweet enough for the whole cake. I was also trying to make this one nut free in case other campers had nut allergies.

This recipe will be cooked in either a Dutch oven or a box oven at camp, so when I did my test run I cooked it in a Dutch oven. The result was very tasty! I took the cake to a get together today and everyone thought it was good. One 10 year old came back for seconds! So if you are looking for more recipes to make in your Dutch oven while camping or at home, this one might be one to try.

Blueberry Sponge Cake (Dutch oven, box oven or home oven)
1 Can pie filling or canned fruit in juice - we used blueberry pie filling
¾ C Coconut Flour
¾ C Tapioca Flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
6 eggs
1 Can coconut milk
1 Tbs vanilla

In a Dutch oven or a deep pie dish dump the can of pie filling or fruit. in a separate bowl, mix all other ingredients until well blended. Pour batter over fruit. Cover Dutch oven if using. Bake in a 350F oven (or use 6 briquettes below and 18 briquettes on lid of Dutch oven) for 45 - 55 minutes or until knife comes out clean from center of cake.

Blueberry Muffins

Who doesn't love a good blueberry muffin? For breakfast or for dessert after dinner, I can't think of too many things I'd rather have than a blueberry muffin. Recently we've been selling these muffins along with several other treats at the Woodinville Farmer's Market and they've been a big hit with the market visitors. Give them a try!

2 C almond flour	2 Tbs. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. sea salt	1 C applesauce
1 tsp. baking soda	1/4 C honey
2 tsp. cinnamon 3/4 C frozen or fresh blueberries	4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine almond flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Add applesauce, honey, vanilla and eggs and mix well. Gently fold blueberries into batter or drop berries in between spoons-full of batter in muffin tins. Scoop batter into a lined muffin tin. Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes for cupcakes or until tops are firm when you press on them. Makes 6 jumbo or 12 regular sized muffins.

Rosemary Lemon Carrots

On those nights when I'm super busy and haven't had a chance to take a walk in the garden to "shop" for veggies, I'll sometimes break into the baby carrots that are usually in my fridge. I've discovered I really like my carrots with some lemon on them and an herb or 2. Baby carrots are also great to bring along camping for snacking or for a side dish to go with that fish you caught or sausage you just cooked over the fire. I've included cooking methods for microwave, oven, grill and campfire coals. Enjoy those carrots! 

 

2 C baby carrots or chopped regular carrots

1/3 C lemon juice or 1/2 lemon

2 tsp dried or 1 Tbs. fresh rosemary

Salt and pepper to taste

Microwave method:  Place baby carrots in a microwave-safe bowl. Pour lemon juice over carrots then sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper. Cover lightly and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Pierce carrots with a knife or fork to test for tenderness. Continue microwaving in 30 second increments until carrots reach desired tenderness.

 

 

Foil cooking method: Take a large piece of aluminum foil and fold up on all sides a bit forming a bowl. Place baby carrots and ½ of lemon in the foil. Sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper. Fold foil around contents sealing into a pouch. Place pouch on a cookie sheet and bake in a 350°F oven for about 30 minutes or until tender. You can also throw the foil on the grill or in hot coals if you are camping.