Happy Birthday, Monkey Girl!

So, Thursday, my baby turned 14. Yeah, not so much of a baby anymore. And I still wouldn't trade her for anything in the world.

However, since it's apparently my job to try and embarrass her now that she's a teenager, I thought I'd share the following wonderful photos with you.

(Cassie and Little Kitty, the best cat a girl could ever have)

 

This would from one afternoon after kindergarten. LK really was one of the best cats ever.

 



 

And this would be from late spring, I think. As you can see, she still needs the occasional nap!

 

Seriously, I am very proud of the caring, kind-hearted young woman my youngest daughter is growing into. And her hugs are still the bomb!

Happy birthday, Baby Girl. Love you!

Summer Bucket List - Zucchini Bread

Land-O-Lakes had a challenge to create a summer bucket list for the last few weeks of the season. It seemed like a great way to celebrate the coming end of the hot, humid weather to me! So, I scurried off to Pinterest and created a special board just for the challenge. I'll try to write up everything I manage to try, provided I don't get distracted by other shiny ideas.

Right now I want to share my zucchini bread recipe. Tomorrow my Tuesday afternoon gaming group at the Wizard's Guild/Universe of Super Heroes starts meeting again. Since I know how famished the girls usually are after school, I thought I'd take in something they can snack on. And really, this is the time of year for zucchini bread, even if I did cheat tonight and use the frozen stuff because it was already grated.

With the exception of my mom, everyone who's ever tried my bread loves it. It must be one of the few things I really get right. (And it's not that mom doesn't like it, she's just more partial to pumpkin bread, which was part of her Christmas present last year.) And it's really very easy to make. I mean, I use the recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook! But I've learned a few things over the years that make mine really moist and tasty and I wanted to share them with you today.

First of all, if you don't have one of BH & G's cookbooks with the Zucchini Bread recipe in it, you can also find it online. Very nice for pinning to my Summer Bucket List board.

Melinda's Easy Zucchini Bread
3 cups flour (1 1/2 cup all-purpose and 1 1/2 cup wheat?)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten slightly
2 cups finely shredded zucchini and/or summer squash
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup totally mix-ins (raisins, cranberries, nuts, chocolate chips, etc...) (Optional.)

Preheat oven to 350 and grease two loaf pans. Set aside pans. In a large mixing bowl, combine everything from the eggs on down to the mix-ins. Stir well and set aside while you mix the rest of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add contents of the smaller bowl to the larger one and stir well. Stir in the mix-ins as well.

Divide batter between the two loaf pans - it'll be about 2 1/4 cups each. Bake for 45-55 minutes until a tester inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool on wire racks for 15 -30 minutes before gently turning the pan over to let it release the loaf.

Secondly, this recipe works wonderfully with yellow summer squash as well. You can mix it with the zucchini or use it on it's own.

Thirdly, here's a gratuitous, badly lit pic of my two loaves. It's badly lit because, well, that's our kitchen in that area at night AND I'm using one of the girls' video camera for a camera camera. Sorry.

Fourthly, toss the walnuts. Seriously. Don't use 'em. There are so many other fun, tasty, and interesting things to add in their place. My family's personal favorite is chocolate chips, which was the add-in in the upper loaf above. My favorite is raisins or cranberries, and since I've been on a cranberry kick lately, that's what the bottom loaf contains. The only dried fruit that I haven't liked so far is dried dates. They just don't have enough flavor to either add anything to the taste or to stand out on their own. Oh, and I've been known to mix fruit and chocolate. We all win!

Fifthly, you can make it healthier by substituting half whole wheat flour and half of the sugar with a sugar baking substitute. I used a stevia blend in these loaves, although we were out of whole wheat flour. If I hadn't been feeling so lazy, I might have ground up some oats and tried an oat flour instead.

Also, I love to add some extra fiber to the mix. If you can find it, Beneful makes powdered, unflavored product that's perfect for adding to foods. For two loaves - a double batch - I use between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of the stuff. The bread sticks with you longer and slows down the sugar absorption, which is just the thing for diabetics like me.

Sixthly, have fun with the spices. The actual recipe calls for cinnamon, but I forgot that I used the last of it a week ago making zucchini bread. So I ground up some cardamon and used that instead. Since cardamom can have a strong flavor, I figured out the total of cinnamon and nutmeg needed and then halved it. One half was cardamon and the other was nutmeg. I've also used ground ginger to good effect.

Seventhly, don't hesitate to freeze loaves for later eating and gifting. We love pulling a loaf out of the freeze come January. I usually wrap them in cling-wrap and then place them in gallon bags. You can get about two loaves to a bag. If you're thinking of gifts, you might want to bake them in a small, disposable aluminum pan. You can leave it in the pan to freeze.

If you want to gift zucchini bread but don't want it to be frozen for that long, just chop/shred the zucchini and freeze it in pre-measured portions. Since I usually do at least a double batch, I freeze two cup allotments.

Finally, I pretty much always make a double batch. And very little of it goes to waste. Also, I've been using glass loaf pans and have discovered that, in our oven, 45 minutes is all it takes. The 50 minutes listed in the recipe was just 5 minutes too much.

And there you have it! Tryllyam's Tips for Zucchini Bread. Go! Bake! Enjoy!

Now, to finish out that bucket list...

Kitten Update

I'm working on a couple of actual, honest-to-goodness posts. Really. It's just been a really long month and a half. However, I wanted to put sometime up new for you to look at, so here's an updated pic of of Lilly Mathilda. :-D She's pretty much doubled in size since we got her, tears around the house like a whirlwind, and snuggles on me at night to sleep. I'm seriously even more in love with her.

 

She's totally spoiled, getting a partial can of moist food morning and night. And you should see how excited she gets when she knows its food time. I've taken to feeding her on my desk while I work on the computer.

 

 

And here she is curled up on my work table, napping. The little pillow is there for size comparison. If you care to scroll down to the bottom of the previous post, you'll see her standing on the same little pillow.

So, hopefully that'll put a smile on your face for now. I still need to do a post on the comic convention that we went to in Marietta last month.

Meet Lilly

We have a new little girl at the house. I think she's about 7 weeks old now and boy has she grown in the week since she moved in! I forgot just how fast a kitten can change.

Meeting Baby for the first time. As you can see, he's thrilled with the new little addition. (This is day two, I think.)

 

We got her last Tuesday. This is her on Thursday, in her brand new collar, which is now somewhere downstairs. ;-) The hand on the left is mine and on the right is Monkey Girl's.

 

 

This was yesterday. Tackling an unfinished pin cushion. It's about 3 inches square.

Stalking my desk. Doesn't she look fierce?

And finally, snuggled in Monkey Girl's arms. Okay, really she's trying to figure out how to get away again....

Peace

I should be going to bed, as tomorrow is yet another busy day in the many days that have made up this week.

But here I sit, enjoying the cool air and the night song drifting in through the open window. In the distance, there are the sounds of traffic and once a train passed by.

The whirring of the laptop fan is running and the sound of the washing machine is going deep in the background of the house. Rosie is curled up on the sofa near me and will soon be snoring.

Otherwise all is quite and peaceful.

Tomorrow there will be the book fair, and the Friday invasion of the girls' teenaged friends.

But for now, it is still. And I am content.

Yep.

You can tell it's Friday at our house. I picked up 6 teens at the high school and brought 5 of them home with me.

Oh, and you can tell it's a beautiful day, as evidenced by the shoes sitting there sans feet.

What Spring Break?

Well, that week went fast! Last week was spring break for Athens City Schools, a week during which at least the girls and I usually do something together. Usually we go spend a few days at my grandmother's and a couple of years ago, Mr. Incredible took the week off and we went to Gettysburg for the week. It's usually a fun, relaxing, recharge your batteries time. Really.

But now that we have two teenagers who are both back in public school, it's a bit of a different story. The only day I didn't either go somewhere or operate Mom's Taxi was Monday. I kid you not. On Monday, the weather was really icky, Monkey Girl didn't have track practice, and we just hung out at the house in our pj's playing on our computers.

I figured she'd have practice on Tuesday, but then I got "The Call." It came from my wonderful sister-in-law, asking if the girls could go check out a consignment shop in Lancaster with them on Tuesday, since that seemed to be the only day that would work for them. This was great. The girls were excited to go. We'd only been waiting on a day that worked for everyone. AND I'd have the day all to myself to maybe do some writing. Except that three sentences later, my wonderful sister-in-law wonderfully asked me to go along and my girls wouldn't hear of my staying home. Now, for the record, I'm not being sarcastic about my SIL. She really is truly wonderful. And I really did have a great time hanging out with the girls, as well as their aunt and grandmother on Tuesday. It was a fun day. We even discovered a new consignment/antique shop between Logan and Sugar Creek. I'm giong to try to get some of my earrings up there for them to offer for sale.

Wednesday saw us retracing our steps towards Lancaster, as Monkey Girl need to get a cavity filled up at Children's Dental in Columbus. Total time of the appointment, from the moment we hit the hospital lobby? About 1/2 hour. I think only 10 minutes were spent on her cavity, it was that little. She didn't even need anaesthesia, it was so small. Now that's the time to get them taken care of. And we still had the rest of the afternoon before us. Heck, leaving Columbus by 4:30 meant next to know rush hour traffic yet, which absolutely amazed me. it also meant I wasn't exhausted from the stress of driving with crazy people, so I had energy to brave the Rivervally Mall in Lancaster. We hit Hot Topic and Claire's, then finished up our day with dinner at Waffle House. Waffle House rocks by the way. And, once again, I had a marvelous time hanging out with the girls. Tuesday and Wednesday let to some great memory-making hours well spent. And I wouldn't trade them for anything. I still didn't get any writing done, though.

Nor would I the next two days either. Thursday was a mini-adventure hauling various kids around - not all of them were mine - as Mom's Taxi. Oh, and we mixed up the time for track practice, which apparently started an hour later than it does during the school week. *sigh* Monkey Girl missed pretty much two full weeks for practice thanks to having a bad case of strep the week before spring break.

I did however think I'd be rid of them for the night - prime snuggle time with Mr. I. But then the girls shuffled around what was happening. MG did go to her friend's house, but Drama Queen changed her mind about hanging out at her friend's. Until one of them called and they all harassed her into coming over. (She had a blast.) Mr. I and I did get a few hours to ourselves, including time out of the hosue for dinner. Since the goal had been just to spend time together, it was a success. (Applebee's, however, doesn't really have anything on the menu for someone following a vegetarian diet, let alone the CHIP diet, which is what Mr. I. has been doing.) I picked DQ up at midnight, while reflecting that my mother never would have let me stay out that late when I was her age. Times have changed.

Friday? Ummm, I'm trying to remember Friday. I know I wound up running somewhere, but I can't remember where right now.

So, that was my spring break. Busy, busy, busy. It was good though. Only now, I'm behind where I wanted to be with writing projects. But then again, none of them are on a deadline for anyone but myself at this point and I got to spend some truly enjoyable, quality time with my kids and my husband's family. And whether or not I ever get the book finished or published rather pales in comparison to those experiences. I mean, I wrote the book in part because of my daughters. They're only really mine for a few years longer. As for my in-laws, well, I love them as well. It would have been nice to see my grandmother last week, but in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't have traded any of the rest of it for anything else.