Yay for Summer!!

I've been taking a lot of deep cleansing breaths lately to fully enjoy my upcoming summer waiting in front of me. One food that signifies summer for me (and that I make repeatedly because it is SOOO good) is Chocolate Zucchini Cake. No, you cannot taste the zucchini. :-) The teachers at school loved it and I think you will too!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

1/2 c. butter or margarine
1/2 c. oil
1 3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/4 c. cocoa
2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
2 c. grated zucchini
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. chocolate chips
1/4 c. chopped nuts


Cream butter, oil, and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, buttermilk, and cocoa. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Fold in grated zucchini. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Mix brown sugar, chocolate chips and nuts and sprinkle on top of batter. Bake at 325 for 40-50 minutes until cake tests done in the center.

Fantastic served warm :-)

Memories

Just finished reading Obama's book, FINALLY. I've been reading this for a minimum of 6 months and pick it up for about a chapter and then put it down for several months, so continuity has definitely been lacking. That said, it's a very clear statement of his policy and why he believes that. His chapter on race is definitely interesting, but the last chapter of the book is about family and how legislation about families (and family planning) should occur. In the process, he tells several stories about his and Michelle's family.

The one that struck me was him explaining his younger daughter's 5th birthday party, which he got to help plan. (He didn't usually get to do this because he was busy with political work.) Either way, the party involved taking kids to a gymnastics center and tumble around for a while. At the end, they took the birthday girl and put her in the center of a big multi-colored "parachute." They lofted her into the air several times and he described the sense of pure joy on her face and his hope for her happiness as follows:

"I wonder if Sasha will remember that moment when she is grown. Probably not; I can retrieve only the barest fragments of memories from when I was five. But I suspect that the happiness she felt on that parachute registers permanently in her; that such moments accumulate and embed themselves in a child's character, becoming a part of their soul."

As I pondered that eloquent statement, it occurred to me that I also have very few memories of being that age, but that I definitely identify with the notion of having many happy memories that seem to imprint themselves in who I am. I don't necessarily have very specific moments that are little pinpoints of happiness, but general imprints from many happy experiences over time: going to summer camp, sailing on Lake Superior, going to Grandma's house and eating Cheetos, finding "lost" quarters at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and spending beautiful summer nights with friends playing games. What moments have accumulated and embedded themselves in your character? Which experiences have become a part of your soul?

As a friend and I were discussing these types of memories, we decided that the joyful feelings we retain from childhood are their own gift. A happy childhood itself embeds itself in our character and impacts the rest of our lives. And for this, I'm abundantly grateful to my parents and grandparents. Thank you for everything.

More Ice Cream, Please!

For Memorial Day, Steve and I decided it was time for more homemade ice cream, so he/Darla made Butter Pecan, which was spot on in flavor and I made Mint Oreo. Good news. The mint Oreo is awesome!! I followed the same recipe as I did for the first foray into ice cream making, but with the following changes:

-Instead of 1 1/2 T. vanilla, I put in 2 t. vanilla and 2 t. mint extract.
-I left out the almond extract.
-After the ice cream freezer stopped, I mixed in (by hand) 2 rows of crushed Oreos.

So good!!

For good measure, I also busted out one of my favorite summer recipes:
Chocolate Zucchini Cake
1/2 c. butter or margarine
1/2 c. oil
1 3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/4 c. cocoa
2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
2 c. grated zucchini
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. chocolate chips
1/4 c. chopped nuts

Cream butter, oil, and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, buttermilk, and cocoa. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Fold in grated zucchini. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Mix brown sugar, chocolate chips and nuts and sprinkle on top of batter. Bake at 325 for 40-50 minutes until cake tests done in the center.

Asparagus Again

Who knew? Did you know that asparagus is part of the fern family? Did you know it keeps growing after it's cut? Did you know it can grow 6-10 inches a day??? I stumbled across this information on the Delicious Days blog. (If I would have thought of that, I definitely would have used that as my blog title. Love alliteration!) Their article on asparagus (and where is the appropriate place to trim it) has lots of fascinating info, such as below:

"Most of the loss of sweetness and toughening happens in the first day after harvest. Farmers can minimize it by chilling new-cut asparagus right away. But a delay of just four hours between harvest and chilling causes the spears to toughen significantly. So does allowing the chilled spears to warm up to 60 degrees or more in a grocery display or at the farmers’ market."

Enjoy!

*Ok, I just re-read my posting, and I realize that this is a pretty dorky thing to find fascinating, but I know some of you out there are just dorky enough to appreciate it :-)

Peaches for Me!!

When my alarm went off at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, I slapped it off and jumped out of bed. Isn't it funny how some early mornings getting out of bed is like removing yourself from a slab of concrete that was poured on you over night, and other mornings, you feel the sun streaming in, take a deep breath, and revel in the night of sleep you just enjoyed? Today was neither of those, but definitely closer to the second. Why was today different? It was peach-picking day!! The hap-hap-happiest season of all!

Every year, a friend and I go to a U-Pick peach orchard about an hour away. Who knew that peaches trees grow extremely well in Arizona? Evidently, the owners of Schnepf Farms. So, we got up early, made the trek out to the farm, and meandered into a large grove of peaches, that exuded the smell of ripe peaches before you even neared a tree. It was heavenly. We returned with nearly 30 lb. of peaches each. Needless to say, it will be the week of the peach at my house. So, if you have any favorite peach recipes, let me know. I love to use them for jams, smoothies, in lettuce or spinach salads with poppy seed dressing, or grilled on shish-ka-bobs. I might try peach butter this year, but we'll see. However, my first order of business whenever I have fresh peaches is to make mom's peach pie, which is to die for, in my book :-) Key ingredient (as it is in so many of our family dishes): cinnamon.

Mom's Peach Pie

2 pie crusts
5 c. peeled, sliced peaches (approx. 9 med. peaches)
1 t. lemon juice
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. flour
1/4 t. cinnamon

2 T. butter

Preheat oven to 425. Put first pie crust in 9-10 inch pie plate. Mix lemon juice and peaches in a bowl. In second bowl, mix sugar, flour and cinnamon. Add peach mixture to sugar mixture. [If peaches are very juicy, sprinkle bottom of pie crust with instant tapioca or other thickener.] Put peach/sugar mixture into pie crust. Dot with butter. Place second pie crust over peaches and seal edges. Cut "steam vents" in top pie crust. Put pie plate on cookie sheet or something else to catch any potential drips in the oven. Bake pie for 15 minutes at 425, then turn heat down to 350 and bake for another 45 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before eating.

Awesome Asparagus

I recently (in the last 2 years or so) discovered that I LOVE asparagus. And now that I live thousands of miles away from home and have to wait till asparagus goes on sale, I find out that it grows WILD on the farm at home. Dang it. I did recently find out that it can grow very well in AZ, so we'll have to get busy on that. Anyway, I have two favorite ways to make asparagus. Actually, I usually just cook the asparagus in a little bit of oil, salt and pepper. More specifically, I have 2 favorite sauces I like to make with asparagus. (Both come from my favorite recipe website, allrecipes.com.) One is a traditional hollandaise sauce and the other is a super easy balsamic vinegar dressing. It goes a little something like this: 

Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

2 T. butter

1 T. soy sauce

1 t. balsamic vinegar

Brown butter in a small saucepan. (Melt butter in a pan over medium-high heat about 5 minutes, or until you start to see brown bits stick to the bottom of the pan. Don't burn it though.) Remove from heat and add soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. After mixing, drizzle over cooked asparagus and serve. 

Note: the picture above came from one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply in Season. If you're interested in simple, produce-based cooking, this is the place. 

Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick!

Although Saturday Night Live is sometimes hit or miss in it's funniness, this is one sketch that I've always enjoyed: Amy Poehler's "Kaitlin" character. Kaitlin is a hyper 12 year old. Go figure, like I have any experience with that age, right? See what you think: