Zucchini Bread

Remember when I froze zucchini and had no idea what I was doing?

I finally made some bread a while back. I made a recipe I found on another blog and it was wonderful! I left out the raisins. Yuck. :)

I used the zucchini that I froze w/ the juice and everything worked just fine. I did notice the lady in that blog skinned the zucchini before using it. I didn't. IDK if it makes much of a difference. I will probably skin them next time.

Making baby food

Making baby food is really a simple task that can save you a lot of money in the long run.

A tub of baby food is about $.63/each and you go through one a day in the beginning, and 3 a day eventually. Lauren will be eating 1 a day. If you figure that I did a batch of sweet potatoes for $3.00 (lasts 2 weeks) and I would have paid about $8.75 for this in the store, I saved about $6. Once she is eating 3 times a day obviously this will save us $18 every couple of weeks... or about $40 a month!

**Side note - this is the first time I've ever boughten sweet potatoes or squash. I bought them regular price and have no idea if what I paid is a good deal for them or not.**

Another great thing about making your own baby food is that you can have a much greater variety. Think avacados, zucchini, mango, eggplant, etc.

So here we go:
Cut squash in half.


Scoop out seeds.

Handy Pampered Chef Core and More in action!

Scrub sweet potatoes, poke with fork and wrap in foil.


Stick in oven at 350. Walk away for about an hour.

Squash cut side down in with some water in the pan.

When you pull the sweet potatoes out of the oven, cut them open to cool so that you can pick them up and simply let the skins slide off. Make sure that you keep the foil under them as they are very sticky and I hear it takes a lot of work to get this off your pans.


I used an immersion blender first


and then blended to get that super thin runny consistency for baby's "1st" step foods.


Thin with water, breast milk or formula as needed.

Pour into ice cube trays.

Each cube is approximately 1 oz.

Freeze and then pop out of trays for easier storage in zip lock baggies!


I got 35 oz. from 3.5 sweet potatoes and 30 oz. from 2 butternut squash.

A great resource is WholesomeBabyFood.com.

Plant watch 2010 - grow vegetables from seeds

Like last year, I am growing most of the vegetables for my garden from seeds. I decided to wait one extra week before I started them because of all of the snow we received this winter. I figured it would take an extra week to dry up.

I planted my tomato and pepper plants yesterday. I use Better Boy and Roma tomatoes and bell, jalepeno and banana peppers.

I want maybe 15 plants of each kind of tomato, 3 plants of each kind of pepper. I needed to buy 2 packets of Better Boy seeds. I got 30 plantings out of those two packets. I plant each seed individually instead of a couple seeds in each spot because when you plant a few seeds in each spot you waste some because you then have to go and thin them out later. This way if the seed sprouts, I can use it. If it doesn't in that spot....oh well. I planted 30 when I want 15 because every seed will not sprout and some will probably die. If I have extras I can give them to family.

Peppers and the roma seed packets come with so many seeds in each packet. You will only need one packet unless you want a TON of peppers. Each pepper plant yields a lot of peppers so this is why you don't need so many plants.

I planted the extra seeds that come in the packets because I figured I had the seeds and am going to spend the time growing them - I might as well plant them and give them to family. Maybe some year in the near future I can start a little mini greenhouse operation. Plants have gotten so expensive to buy in stores that I'm sure I could sell quite a few!

Last year I used peat pods to start my seeds. This year I just put a layer of dirt in the bottom of my greenhouse trays, put seeds in, covered with dirt and misted with a water sprayer. I will then transplant them later into individual containers.

Brown Thumb

I have a brown thumb. I think in the last 3 years I've killed probably 4 houseplants. One of those was sentenced to death by my sister in law and just wouldn't die at her house. For some reason, a while after it came to live with me it died.

A house needs plants though. Right? I have not given up yet. I have a peace lily which is one of my favorites and it has somehow survived my wrath. This plant came from Adams grandpa's funeral so maybe that has something to do with it. It is by no means in great shape. It hasn't gotten much bigger from when I first got it and there are usually some leaves that are brown.



Lately it has been getting sadder and sadder. But there was an actual reason that I could see happening. The soil was washing away when I watered it. I always thought that you were supposed to put rocks in the bottom of the pot to help the water drain.



Google however tells me different. It says that rocks are bad because the soil will wash away. Hmmmm. So it was time to re-pot. I went out to my shed and found a pot with this black thing in the bottom. Looks like it'll let the water drain but maybe keep the soil in so I tried it.



I learned that after you re-plant you are supposed to fill the sink and set the bottom of the pot in the water to let it soak up as much as needed for about 1/2 hr. So I did that and here is my poor plant now.



It has a much better environment to live in now and hopefully it can start to grow and flourish instead of just try and survive.

Lauren carefully watched over my work so hopefully she can help me turn this brown thumb green.

Canning Jalepeno and Banana Peppers

I use jalapeño and banana peppers in my salsa so I have them planted in my garden but my tomatoes aren't ready for salsa yet so I have a bunch of extra peppers. Since these are things you can use in or on many other food items I figured I'd give canning them a go.

I found recipe's on the internet.

For the Banana peppers I pickled them.

10-12 banana peppers
1 hot pepper
1 C. white vinegar
1 C. water
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. dry mustard seed
1 t. peppercorns
2 cloves garlic

Bring vinegar, water, salt and mustard seed to a boil.

Sterilize your jars. For this I just stick them in a glass dish w/ a little water in the bottom and stick them in the microwave for 5-6 minutes.
This is a pic from when I was doing pickles but you get the idea:


You'll also want to sterilize your lids. To do this I stick them in some boiling water.


While things are boiling/sterilizing cut up your peppers



Also cut up one hot pepper.

When all that is done, grab a jar, fill it with the peppers, the slices of your hot pepper, peppercorns and garlic. You might want to layer in the garlic, hot peppers and peppercorns. Pour boiling brine over. Leave 1/4" headspace.

Wipe the top of the jar to make sure there isn't anything to hinder your seal and put your lid and ring on.

You should give them a water bath at this point. I didn't and they sealed just fine. If you aren't going to give them a water bath, make sure you work quickly enough that everything is all nice and hot.

I think this recipe will give you a pint jar.

I however don't use a ton of peppers and only wanted a few at a time for putting on a pizza or nachos or something like that. I used the 4 oz. jelly jars.


That's it for those.

For the Jalepenos I also found a recipe online.

10 cups jalepeno peppers sliced (you can also use this recipe for banana)
2 cloves garlic
4 cups white vinegar
2 tsp pickling salt

Sterilize everything and boil your vinegar and salt.
Pack jars w/ peppers and 1/2 clove garlic
Pour brine over and leave 1/4" headspace.
Wipe top of jar, put lids and rings on.
Water bath (or not if you so choose)

I did little jars again but I'd guess this recipe is going to make you maybe 3 pints.

I would leave both of these sit for a few weeks before eating.

Freezing Corn Whole

I've done a couple batches of sweet corn this year. I posted instructions on how I do my freezer corn last year here, but this year I also decided to freeze a little on the cob.

All you have to do is shuck your corn and clean it.


At this point you might want to blanch the corn if you are going to be leaving it in the freezer for an extended amount of time. I plan to leave it in max 3 months so I didn't blanch.

Then just package!

Once again I'm using the Ziplock Vacuum bags. That way I can open the bag, pull a few out and reseal.

Canning Pickles

I have been doing some pickle canning the past couple of weeks. I got a recipe from Adam's grandma that she says is really good and the pickles are crisp. This recipe you can also use to do one quart at a time as you get the cucumbers.

Here is the recipe:

Dill Pickes
Have jar(s) and flats in boiling water
1 quart: Fill jar with dill, garlic and cucumbers
Bring to boil: 1 ½ c. water
½ c. white vinegar
1 T. canning salt
Pour over cucumbers in jar.
Cap and seal

So, I picked my cucumbers. I don't know why mine are doing this but a lot of them are growing about 2 inches long and then growing out. It's weird but for pickle cucumbers you want dark, slender cucumbers with lots of warts.

Sorry the pics are crappy but I took them on my phone.

Wash cucumbers (and jars)


Prepare dill and skin garlic.


Slice cucumbers


I heat up the jars in the microwave with a little water in the bottom of a pyrex dish for 5 minutes.


Heat up the lids in boiling water.


Boil the water, vinegar and salt, stuff the jars, pour juice in jars, put the lid on and screw on rings.


Let sit for a couple weeks to allow the cucumbers to "pickle".

ENJOY! I can't wait to try this new recipe.

Freezing Zucchini

It's that time of year again. Zucchini explosion.


This year I've decided to try freezing some. I've never done this before so it's kind of trial and error. With this batch I grated some and will use it for bread/bars/muffins. I will later try and do some chopped up for soups.

Of course I started out by washing them and cutting the ends off but I also figured I should take out the seeds.


I used my handy Pampered Chef tool for this and it worked perfectly.


I left my hand in the pic so you could have a reference for how big this zucchini was. I got a little more than two cups with this size.


I used side of my grater that is on the left. I figure this is more grating, the one on the right more shredding.


This is what it looked like when I got it grated.


Now for the dilema. Do I freeze w/ all the juice or not? Since we're going w/ trial and error here I did both. Since I am going to be baking with this batch of zucchini I figured it'd be better to go w/ less juice.

The first bag I just grabbed some off the top here w/ some that was sitting in the juice. I didn't pour all the juice in, just didn't squeeze it out.
Looked like this.


Next I decided to try some strained.


Looked like this:

Still some juice but not quite as much.

Next I decided to press the zucchini w/ my hand while it was in the strainer. Looks like this:


Once again, still some juice but not quite as much.

We shall see how it turns out! I'm using the Ziplock vacuum bags this year. I like them. It helped to let the part w/ stuff in it hang over the edge of the counter while I sucked the air out so the juice stayed out of the way of the hole you suck the air out of.

Garden Update

I went to check on my garden last night. With the holiday last weekend this week has gone really fast and we've had some rain so I haven't worried about it. I knew I needed to til. Well this is what it looks like:



I think it's angry at me. It wants to go back to the "pasture" it was before I disturbed it. I think I'll do some weeding tonight.

Oops, the above was supposed to be posted on Friday. I must not have clicked the right button.

I did get to til on Friday so the garden is looking MUCH better. Everything is growing although it seems to be not as big as the stuff in my moms garden.
I took these before tilling so excuse the weeds:
Pepper - this is the only plant something seems to be eating. Not the other peppers either. Just this one plant:


Beets I planted from seed a little late:


Chives from seed:


Cucumbers from seed. These viney type plants grow much faster than other stuff:


Dill from seed. Even if I never use it, it'll make me happy just to smell it while I'm out there:


Potatoes from starter potatoes:


Red onion started from seed:


Yellow squash:


Watermelon:


Zucchini:


Yellow onion from sets:


Tomatoes: