Zucchini Bread

Alright, so our nice neighbor's dropped off some veggies to us the other week.   They gave us a summer squash and the most GIGANTIC zucchini that I've ever seen in my entire life.   We made a huge dish of veggie pasta (sorry, no pics of that), and I still had three quarters of the Zucchini left.

I found a recipe on Pinterest for chocolate chocolate zucchini bread, and so I thought I'd try it.

It was good, but I should have added more chocolate chips, and probably substituted apple sauce for the oil, because I think it was just a tad dry.    (Even G thinks so, and she usually eats anything with chocolate in it.)

Recipe below:

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cakes
Adapted from Food Network
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 packed cups grated zucchini (don’t peel it)
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven at 350 F. Spray two 9×5 inch pans with nonstick spray.
In a large bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a medium bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the oil and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients along with the zucchini and chocolate chips. Stir just until combined, and divide between the loaf pans.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the tops are cracked and springy to the touch. Makes 2 cakes.

Dilly beans, pickles and asparagus

Spent the day making dill pickles, asparagus, and beans.  Tried several different varieties as well as spice levels.  Last year my pickles were pretty soft so I did some research and am trying to immerse them in ice water for 3-4 hours prior to canning.  We opened a jar last night and the ice bath seemed to work, woo hoo.  Didn't really want to use alum as I read too many things about toxicity.  My family is happy and full!

Greeting cards

Linda and I spent the day making some greeting cards.  I had a thing for flowers today, except for the deer.  The deer I did twice once for my dad and one for Ken's dad.  The others will go to ?  Maybe even one of you...  LOL!  Still need to get to my holiday cards and my one sheet wonder for other occassions.

Return to knitting

So I used to knit quite a bit, but haven't for quite some time (basically since Sophie was born). My mom gave me a book of patterns for knitting doll clothes after she bought Sophie her American Girl doll, so about a year ago Sophie picked out a pattern. And, voila, a year later her doll has a bathrobe and slippers. Hopefully it won't take me another year before I finish another knitting project.

Please pass me a stiff drink - Rubiy

So, every trite cliche about having children is true.  As a matter of fact they are SO true as to be humbling.  I really was just in labor with my firstborn.  I was just cradling her as a newborn.  I just watched her take her first steps.

Well, apparently the passage of time has a wicked sense of humor and, on Thursday my baby starts FIRST GRADE!  And, as if that weren't enough, she has TWO loose teeth.  One of which will probably fall out in the next couple of days and the other one won't be far behind.  The adult teeth have already pushed up through the gums behind them.

I'm not sure I can handle this.  So, obviously, I channeled my angst into shopping (I bought tooth tins in which to keep her baby teeth - it's not weird Sara and Erin, everyone does this,) and I made her a pillow to hold her teeth for the tooth fairy.

We're moving on Friday (the day after she starts FIRST GRADE!!) and she's very worried that the Tooth Fairy - with whom we've made a deal, she will leave cash AND the tooth, because my daughter was appalled that the Tooth Fairy would just take it - won't be able to find our new house.  We asked her if she thought Santa would be able to find our new house, which of course doubled her stress level. Sigh....

So, I told her that I'd tell the mailman to let BOTH the Tooth Fairy AND Santa know that we'd moved, and ask him to show them where out new house is.  Which, of course, was the most logical solution to the problem.

I'm not sure how much more time I can spend averting not only my own, but a six year old's existential crises.  Now for that drink...

p.s. Yep, still a terrible photographer.  It's a wool felt pillow with a pocket for a mouth, metal buttons for eyes, and missing a tooth of it's own.  Oh, and it's hot fuschia with an electric purple back.  It's kinda awesome.  

Could use advice

I have 13 of these tulips that I hand appliqued.  They are from a pattern to make a quilt, the problem is I don't have enough of the background fabric.  So, do I try to match the background the fabric or get something different for the other blocks?  What do you think?

Okay, so I made this "frames" to break up a big space of wall.  It is the same wood we used for a border and looks better than the picture.  I can see that I need to do some rearranging and straightening.  Overall quite easy, just used a miter box, glue and clamps.  I guess I don't have much to say; I must not be much of a blogger!

Princess Turkey Luau

While heavily drinking at a happy hour last week, three lovely ladies had the idea to throw a surprise party for our friends Jeff and Xavier. Both had birthdays in July, so this Saturday seemed random enough. And the most devious part of our evil, genius plot is that each guy thinks it's a surprise party for the other guy and have been enlisted to help. Mwahahahaha...

Being both drunk and thrifty, we decided to have a luau, using the leftover decorations from my birthday party back in March. Later in the week, I find out Xavier is getting Jeff a Disney Princess cake, while Jeff is decorating Xavier's cake to look like turkey sticks! (For those fortunate enough not to know, turkey sticks are this sad culinary creation that Xavier makes for his crazy strength training diet - GO PROTEIN!) Thus, this surprise party has morphed into the Princess Turkey Luau. 

So, where are the crafts, you say? Well, we clearly needed a banner so that when then boys walk in, they immediately realize it's a surprise for BOTH of them! TA-DA!

This is the first Princess Turkey banner, complete with kindergarten style hand turkeys and Disney Princesses from a coloring book. I must admit I had help coloring the Princesses... turns out all you need is a bottle of wine and some cheese, and you can convince grown ups that coloring is the coolest thing ever! Each picture also has glitter detail - snazzy! Thanks for modeling, Ariel...

And since it's 1000 degrees in Texas right now, clearly people will want to hang out outside, so we needed a second banner. Indeed, I am nothing if not thorough. BFF here = Bros/Frienemies Forever (which is a pretty perfect way to describe their strange bromance)

So there you have it - my first "craft". I think that is counts... I had glue and glitter everywhere and sliced open two fingers so that's pretty hardcore. I also think it fits nicely in the category of SURPRISE! Hence, "craft"! The party should be a blast, especially if we can pull of our grand deception. Either way, I make a mean pineapple punch! What lucky boys...