Wednesday, August 08, 2012

not easy being green...

pattern: Classic Baby Blanket, by Rayn Blair
yarn: Knit Picks Simply Cotton Worsted, Green Tea, 6.5 skeins
hook: H / 5.00 mm (Clover Soft Touch)

notes:
Easy pattern! I used a larger hook (J) to make my foundation chain, since mine tend to be too tight. This worked like a charm. The only difficulty was figuring out how to do the scallop edging on the sides. The directions were vague, and I haven't figured out a good formula for where to insert my hook since the sides are kind of loose and floppy and you can't just skip stitches like you do on the ends. Anyone have any suggestions or rules of thumb?

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in the kitchen

zucchini tots ~ recipe here

Paul's boss bestowed us with a bounty of zucchini from her vegetable garden. Yum! I've been trying out a bunch of new recipes as a result.
 
Besides the zucchini tots, another success came from an old church cookbook that belonged to my Grandma Franzie. I love these church cookbooks! Most of mine are from Minnesota from the 1950s through 70s.  The ethnic and foreign foods sections are always terrific and kind of a hoot (so many recipes for lefse and lutefisk!), not to mention all the hot dishes. The coffee cakes are almost always amazing, far better than the grim prospects that lurk within the Starbucks pastry case.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
1 C. vegetable oil
2 C. sugar
2.5 C. grated zucchini
1 T. vanilla extract
3 C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 T. cinnamon
1/2 C. chopped nuts
2/3 C. chocolate chips or chunks (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Beat eggs slightly; add oil, sugar, vanilla, and zucchini. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Add nuts to dry ingredients. Make an indentation in the center of the dry ingredients; mix in the wet ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips (if using). Pour batter in two greased and floured loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 min.

Do you have any favorite zucchini recipes? I still have a giant zucchini sitting on the kitchen counter.

7 comments:

Grace said...

Mmmm Those zucchini tots look really good! My dad has a lot of zucchinis in his garden too, so we will have to try this recipe out!

Anonymous said...

One of my favorites is a zucchini pizza: mix about 4 0z of goat cheese with the juice from half a lemon, spread it on a pizza crust, and top with thinly sliced zucchini, the rest of the lemon juice from the lemon, slivers of basil, and some salt/pepper/olive oil. Cook it up and nom. So good!

Tracy Altieri said...

The zucchini tots sounds right up my alley! Lovely baby blanket!

bibliobleez said...

I've been following your blog for a while, and had the same zucchini dilemma a few months ago. I found this recipe via pinterest, made it for a family get together, and it was a hit!

http://realmomkitchen.com/7878/carrot-and-zucchini-bars-with-lemon-cream-cheese-frosting/

Chris said...

Spiffy blanket!!

Mmmm.... zucchini bread...

Katie M. said...

Those tots look delicious! And I just might have to try that zucchini pizza recipe above. Yum!

Nutmeg said...

Did you put a round of sc around all 4 edges before you made the scallop border? This round of sc, often called a "foundation round," is assumed before any fancy border can be worked, even if the pattern doesn't explicitly tell you to do it. It usually takes a bit of trial and error to find the right number of stitches to get the edges to lay flat, but a good place to start is 3 sc per 2 rows of dc and 1 sc every other row of sc.