Lemon-Glazed Zucchini Bread...and More Tomatoes!

I have not made zucchini bread for years, maybe since my children were little, and they actually loved it!...why not now?...I really don't know!

I used to have a fantastic recipe from Bon Appetit, but that was from the seventies, or eighties and those recipes almost, always called for at least 1 cup of vegetable oil, and 2 cups of sugar...yikes!!! there goes your cholesterol level, and killing you with sugar!...no thank you! At any rate, this recipe, I assure you has very little oil (1/4 cup) and lot less sugar (1/2 to 3/4 cup)...so, no wonder I didn't make it until now, although I've always been relying on my banana breads with excess ripe bananas always at hand. ...also having zucchini on hand, but using it in savory dishes!

Whatever you do, just don't tell your 5yr. old child that this is zucchini, the green vegetable that they are being served, tucked away, inside this wonderful lemon-sugar glazed bread. I made that mistake, and my 5yr. old granddaughter would not touch it with a 10ft pole! I posted this photo, because I wanted to show off the glaze on the top, and also the photo itself. Both was done by Sophia, my 10yr old granddaughter. She certainly loved the bread, and even had seconds. What a difference 5year makes! If you really want to camouflage the zucchini, all you have to do, is to peel it first, then grade it, the way my daughter Lora made it, with the same recipe. I, of course left the little green specks in it...which is the "beauty" of this delicious and moist zucchini bread!

See the little specks of green?...that's what real zucchini bread is all about...seeing the actual specks of the beautiful shredded fresh zucchini.

 Lemon-Glazed Zucchini Bread
adapted from The Best of Cooking Light 2.

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup finely shredded zucchini
(pat zucchini dry w/ paper tow after shredding)
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil 2 tablespoon grated lemon-rind
2 eggs

For the Glaze:
1 cup sifted-powdered sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 8 x 4 inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl, add the sugars, the eggs, oil, and milk. Whisk together till well incorporated and creamy. Add the flour mixture together, to the wet ingredients, add the grated lemon, and fold in the shredded zucchini.

Spoon the batter into the loaf pan, and bake for 30 minutes on 350 degrees. Lower the temperature to 325 degrees, and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove from pan to cool completely, before drizzling the glaze on it!

Combine the powdered sugar, and lemon juice. Stir with a whisk. Drizzle over loaf. Yield 12 serving (1 slice)

These tomatoes... each of these portions came in a plastic bag just like the ones you see in the photo. They are ripe tomatoes, some have a little blemish as the one you see in the foreground, but otherwise, they are perfect and ripe...ready to can them or cook with them. They also make the best salsa, a well. They would be perfect for a tomato tart...Yumm! All the possibilities, endless! Each of these portions cost only $1.00 at our local produce market. Even those apples in the upper photo. My daughter Lora and I divide these up (she gets the apples) because she makes pies and tarts, and I take a bag or two of the tomatoes. You can also blanch them, take the skins off and flash-freeze them if you don't want to take the time to can them! Great "thrift finds"...and huge savings:DDD
Hope all of you had a wonderful Labor Day, and now it feels like a Monday, and yesterday felt like a Sunday!
...maybe it's just me who feels it!

Canning Tomatoes...and missing Gina!

My friend Gina, from SPCookieQueen had just announced that she will have to take a break from blogging for a while, and may not be coming back! In the meantime, she had just posted her 7 Links that I tagged her with, and it is so beautiful with all her heartfelt posts, and favorite things that she posted, that I was so pleased to see, but not so pleased to hear the news that she may not be returning to her blog...sigh!

You see, Gina was one of the first blogger that befriended me on my blog, when I first started, and I will be forever grateful for that. She is so talented, and has come such a long way with her photo props, as she has explained in the past how she is doing it with the proper lighting...etc. All her recipes are so amazing, from soups...to desserts, and the photos are superb! I will personally miss her blog, and her, mostly. I have mentioned to blog at least once a month, because of her busy work schedule, so hopefully she will do at least that. As for the recipe for the actual Marinara Sauce...canning tomatoes. just link to her site! I only made a few jars of these, and I must say, it was truly a success...so thank you Gina for all your wonderful contributions...you are truly a beautiful friend, and a fantastic blogger...please do not leave permanently, not just yet!

Here's the recipe for How to can Marinara Sauce  from fresh tomatoes!

All I did was to saute some chopped onions, and chopped garlic in olive oil, and added the jar of canned Marinara sauce...heat it up, and I arrived at having the most wonderful Marinara Sauce I had ever tasted in my entire life...seriously!

...and to make it even better, I sauteed some frozen deveined, and cleaned shrimp to add to the sauce! Yumm! ...just can't have any other sauce better, than your own canned sauce!

Have a wonderful Labor Day!

enjoy this special day with your family, friends, and find beauty in nature, and in everything that you feel that is close to your heart!

HAPPY LABOR DAY TO ALL MY FRIENDS IN  THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!...you earned it, so CELEBRATE!

Watermelon Knife...and Awards!

If you've never seen, or used a Watermeon Knife, neither did I, until I won the amazing giveaway from 

Chef Vicki, At Home with Vicki Bensinger.

 She was hosting this amazing giveaway on her blog. The KUHN RIKON Watermelon Knife is made in Switzerland, and its a high quality Japanese carbon steel, with an 11-inch serrated blade. The safety sheath is more desirable to bring along on picnics or camping trips, and for easy storage at home. Thank you Vicki for the fabulous giveaway gift, and thanks to the KUHN RIKON team for such an amazing giveaway gift that I won!

Just look how it glides through with ease...although this watermelon is not as large as the ones I usually buy, but I wanted to make sure that this does not have seeds, and is perfectly ripe, which it was, and oh, so sweet! I'm not quite done demonstrating, because I wanted to do more special cutting with this beautiful Watermelon Knife...love the color of bright red, and green as well...just like the color of the watermelon.

I turned the knife over to the opposite side so you could see the high quality Japanese carbon. Just don't put this knife if the dishwasher, to dull the carbon, or fade the pretty red color...although I did not read it in the instruction, I never put my good knifes in the dishwasher.

Well, I decided to get a little fancy with the cutting. I cut the watermelon in half, then, I cut a small piece off the bottom of one half, to make it stand even. Also, I hollowed out the watermelon and cut the chunks into smaller pieces, and I put them back inside. With the other half of the watermelon, I cut them across into slices, and then into wedges, and linted them back into the watermelon half. Also, I sliced some starfruit...which by the way is not done right, I was supposed to peel them...then slice them.

So, check out the cute picnic table cloth...it was a "thrift find" fabric, brand new, but it appears that it's from the seventies, I made it into a picnic table cloth, so much fun for the little grandchildren.

I also receive a bundle of star fruit, also known as Carambola from my ex-hubby...here's a basket full of starfruit at his house (our house) where my children grew up...he has all kinds of fruit trees, including star fruit, and various herbs, including the Sicilian rosemary.

My two precious grandchildren posing for the watermelon...both 5yrs old, two months apart. First cousins...we've been told that they look like twins! Mattia on the left (son Joe's) Luca (male) on the right (daughter (LORA'S)...they get along so well together, as long as Luca lets Mattia boss him around. She's a little "spit fire" and he is so "laid" back, and "yesses" everything to her. He worships the ground she walks on...seriously! When he gets tired of her bossing him around...that's it...fun and games are over, and she wants to go home...playtime is over!

...and finally the Awards!...Such beautiful "pretty in pink" awards!

 It's been a while, since I received this lovely Pink Lady award from my dear friend Petra,

@Reformkori Konyha from Hungary

She was kind enough to include me in her circle of Hungarian blogger frends and passed on this lovely little award! Thank you Petra...Köszönöm Petra, nagyon hálás vagy a dijért...igyekszem tovább adni!

This second lovely Pink award, I received from Maria, and Xara

@ COOKANDFEED...from Canada, and Greece! I am so honored to receive this equally pretty, and pink award, with a "cherry on the top"...how cute is that?! I will be happy to pay this award forward, as well to 10 bloggers! Thank you Maria, and thank you Xara!

p.s. one more thing...I will pass these two awards on to 10 bloggers each. It will take a little while to link, and notify 20  10 bloggers, but I will do it. I'm one of those bloggers that like to include more people so we can get to know more bloggers, and share the fun!

Hugs,

Elisabeth

...and the awards goes to the following bloggers! Congratulations!

Petra

Kim-Livl Life

Dzoli

scrambledhenfruit

Veronica's Kitchen

Michelle Smith

Quay Po Cooks

Patty-Patty's Food

ping

Sandra

Chicken Enchiladas...and Vegetarian Burritos!

I have not made chicken enchiladas in such a long time that I have almost forgotten about it...not really how to make it, just not thinking about making it. There are so many choices to make for dinner, but I really like to try new and healthy dishes out, instead of the "humdrum" basic things.
Now that I'm feeling a lot better and get the full use of my arm back, I feel so relieved that I can go about my daily routine.
We were worrying about hurricane Irene coming to us in South Florida, but it decided to go towards the East Coast which does not look too good. Reaching all the way up to New York, and Maine.
We are experiencing the heavy winds, and storm, but nothing compared to what tha Bahamas is going through, and now the Carolinas.

Just peeking through my balcony to check the pouring rain on Thursday afternoon, in a matter of minutes you would thing the hurricane was coming through. This poor palm tree lost a few branches from the heavy wind, and for an hour we were getting pummeled with the heavy rainstorm. I was not about to go outside to venture out anywhere! Now it's calm again, but it will start up all over.

If enchiladas is not something you prefer with homemade enchilada sauce, then you might like a burrito filled with refried beans, black beans, chopped tomatoes, pickled jalapeno, fresh corn shaved from the cob, cheddar, and Colby cheese...and don't forget the sour cream. just heat up, and enjoy. Really delicious and filling!

I love Mission Flour Tortillas, especially the large burrito size. I like to use this for my enchiladas.

The Multi Grain tortilla wraps I used for the burritos, which were really very good!

It's so important to make your own enchilada

sauce...there's nothing like homemade!

Just start out sauteing a chopped onion, chopped garlic in 2 Tbsp vegetable oil, add 2 15 ounce of canned tomatoes 1 vegetable bouillon cube melted in 1/2 cup warm water, 1 Tbsp chili powder salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, a few dashes hot sauce, and cumin.
To thicken the sauce mix 1 Tbsp corn starch added
to 1/2 cup cold water. Add that at the end of simmer time which will take no more than 25 minutes. Stir, let it come to a bubble and turn off heat

Note:
You can leave the tomatoes in chunks when you cook them, or put them int the blender

Also, you can use tomato sauce in place of the canned tomatoes

The chicken, is already cooked (leftover store bought rotisserie chicken breast) flaked and heated up in about 1 cup of chicken broth.

With a tong, dip both sides of the tortilla shell in the sauce, transferred from the pot, to a large skillet.

Put about 1 Tbsp. of the shredded chicken on the dipped tortilla shell, a portion of the shredded cheddar, and Colby cheese.

Roll up as best as you can, and place them side

by side.

When they are all rolled up, add some more sauce
on top, bake in a 350 degree F. oven for about 25
minutes,  add the shredded cheese, and bake for an
additional 20 minutes, until cheese melts and gets
nice, and golden.








Roll up enough tortilla shells filled with chicken, and top with shredded cheese.

For the vegetarian burritos, start out by spreading
refried beans, add black beans, tomatoes, corn,
and last, add shredded cheese, roll up, and place in
vegetable sprayed baking pan, top with cheese and
heat up in a 350 degree F. oven till heated through and cheese melts, for about 25 minutes.