Remi's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

The pile of zucchinis on my kitchen counter is verging on ridiculous.  Almost every day, I'm bringing in yet another zucchini from the garden (as well as cucumbers -- hooray for pickles!).

Not that I'm complaining or anything...

If you've got a zucchini plant in your garden, I'm willing to bet you're in a similar situation. I've been grating them, freezing them, baking them, cooking them --  but there's still the seemingly unending pile of them. (I like how Barbara Kingsolver describes the pile:  "the pyramid of excess vegetable biomass that was taking over our lives.") 

What's a gardener to do with such a surplus? Foist them upon others, of course! As is the joke, a plastic grocery bag full of zucchini isn't always a welcome gift. Some people even shun this garden offering. But I know a sure way around this: give your zucchini away in loaf form.

The recipe I use for zucchini bread comes from my sweet friend and canning buddy, Remi. She gave me the recipe years ago and I'm not sure where she got the recipe or if it's something she came up with herself, but I'll just say that it's so good and so easy to make. Best of all, it makes two loaves -- one to give away and one to keep for yourself!

Remi's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon orange or lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 9x5 loaf pans (Remi put a note on the recipe that she often does three mini loaves and 1 9x5 loaf with this recipe).

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda.

In a large bowl (I used my KitchenAid), beat the eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar and continue beating until well blended.

Stir in oil, vanilla, zucchini, pecans (if using), chocolate chips, and zest.

Stir in the dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into the greased pans. (I love my new baking mold on the left --  I got from Ikea. Works so well, the bread pops right out!).

Bake for 50 minutes or until tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove loaves from pan and cool. Let them cool completely before slicing.

Wrap the bread in some plastic wrap (or do something cuter if you're crafty and gifted at packaging things up -- that is certainly not a talent of mine) and give a loaf to a neighbor, teacher, friend, or anyone else you think deserves a loaf of the moist deliciousness that is this zucchini bread. It's a nice way to make the pile of zucchini on your counter a little smaller.

{This post is linked up to Your Green Resource, Homestead Barn Hop, and  Little House Friday.}

Abbey's Award-Winning Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I wonder who first thought to add zucchini to chocolate cake. I mean, who thought that chocolate and vegetables could mix?  Well, whoever it was, it was a smart move because the two mix up wonderfully, especially in this recipe.

My friend Abbey sent me this cake recipe after seeing all the zucchini recipes I'd been pinning on Pinterest.  Abbey is a marvelous cook and baker -- everything I've eaten that she has made is so delicious. She does all sorts of fun and interesting things with food (she just made her first wedding cake this past weekend). Once, she inspired me to make a fruit bouquet for my sister-in-law's bridal shower after she brought one to a dinner at my house. In fact, Abbey is the person who introduced me to Nutella (how crazy is it that I didn't have Nutella until I was an adult?!). A friend, indeed.

Her recipe for chocolate zucchini cake is A-MAZ-ING.  No wonder Abbey won first prize with it at the county fair years ago. I always struggle a little with cake because mine always turn out a little on the dry side. Not this cake. Every bite of this cake was perfectly moist. I also love it because it's sweet but not too sweet.

I'd better start freezing some grated zucchini because this recipe is going to be my go-to recipe for chocolate cake. I can totally see myself making it year-round -- for birthdays, for special occasions, whenever I have an excuse to have chocolate cake. It's that good.

To make this cake you'll need:

Cake:
1 cup oil (I used canola)
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup milk
2 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini

Frosting: 
3 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 - 3 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

In a separate bowl (I used my KitchenAid), mix the oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and milk.

Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet ingredients.

Add the grated zucchini.

Pour the batter into the greased pan and bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Move the cake to a wire rack to cool. While the cake is cooling, start making the frosting. Don't wait too long to do this -- you want to pour the frosting on the still-warm cake so that it soaks in some of the frosting. Oh, baby, this cake is goooood. 

In a medium saucepan, boil the milk, cocoa powder, and butter until it's incorporated and thickened a bit.

Pour the boiled mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer (or you could pour it into another bowl and use a hand-held mixer). Add the vanilla and powdered sugar. Mix everything together well.

Pour the warm frosting on top of the cake.  Let the frosting and cake cool and set before cutting.

Once it has cooled, cut a big piece out for yourself. Bask in the moist, chocolaty goodness of it. Then share it with someone, announce on Facebook to your neighbors that you have cake to give away (that's what I did), because you're going to want to eat the whole thing.

And to think that adding something from your vegetable garden makes chocolate cake even better...

{This post is linked up to Homestead Barn Hop, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Little House Friday, and Your Green Resource.}

Homemade vs. Pre-Made: Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

I didn't know you could buy pre-made cookie dough at the grocery store until I was probably ten or eleven years old. Even after that, I thought it only came in refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough. It wasn't until years later that I noticed that there were dry mixes for cookies, too.  Call it a sort of spoiled naïveté, I guess. I grew up making and eating homemade cookies.

Anyway, not too long ago, I was standing in line at the store and as I was loading up the conveyer belt with all my groceries, I couldn't help but overhear the conversation between the clerk and the woman ahead of me in line. The clerk had commented on the package of cookie dough the woman was purchasing and saying how great it was. The woman said something to the effect, "Yeah, I just don't have time to make them the old-fashioned way. I think I've only done it like once."

As I listened, I just wanted to write down my go-to recipe (since I have it memorized), hand it to the woman, and tell her that I can make a batch of them in around 20 minutes, including baking time. It wouldn't be in a braggy, know-it-all way -- I just wanted to help out and let her know that from-scratch cookie-making really isn't such a formidable task. Plus, homemade cookies are much, much better than the kind made from a tube of dough.  At least I think so. I may be a little biased.

Not only do they taste better, but they're cheaper to make yourself. With the tubes and packages of cookie dough, you can spend up to 21 cents per cookie (that's for the new, all-natural dough put out by Pillsbury); to make an entire batch from scratch costs considerably less, maybe a $1, $2 at most, for a couple dozen cookies.

Another benefit of making them yourself is that you know exactly what goes in them. The refrigerated cookie doughs I looked up contained pretty standard ingredients, though a couple contained partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (I try to skip any kind of hydrogenated oil, but especially cottonseed oil) and the ubiquitous and vague "natural and artificial flavor".  Some, I'm sure are much more processed and have questionable (as in, "What is that?") ingredients in them. A couple years ago, there was a recall of all Nestle cookie dough due to E. coli contamination. This isn't really common, but food recalls do happen with processed foods.  I like making things myself because I feel like I'm in better control of what my family eats, including treats. 


 Max thought it was hilarious to try to get into every picture.

And there's one big reason I prefer making homemade cookies -- it gets my son involved and comfortable in the kitchen. We started with cookies back when he was around 18 months old (even at that age, he would go to the pantry and start pulling out the ingredients we needed) and he's been helping me ever since. Now he's always at my side in the kitchen, whether I'm whipping up a batch of cookies, a loaf of bread, homemade pasta, or that night's dinner. I believe feeling comfortable in the kitchen and learning about food prep is an important skill for kids. Plus, I have so many good memories of working with my mom in the kitchen -- I wanted to pass that on to him.

If you Google chocolate chip cookie recipes, you'll get thousands upon thousands of results. Chances are, you already have your stand-by chocolate chip cookie recipe. But in case you're trying to get away from the pre-made stuff or just want to try a new recipe, I thought I'd share my current favorite recipe for classic chocolate chip cookies.

I used to have my tried and true recipe, but once I stopped using shortening, they were hit and miss. This was due to the temperature of the butter -- it would either be too hard or too melted. As a result, the cookies sometimes would be just right, other times they'd resemble pancakes. Then I came across this recipe on the blog, Smitten Kitchen, and I've been using it ever since.  I like it because I get consistent results, plus it uses less butter, sugar, eggs, and flour than my old recipe. The yield isn't that different, either.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cold and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Unlike many recipes that call for room temperature butter, this one calls for cold butter, straight from the refrigerator. Using cold butter has made my results much, much more consistent.  Anyway, cut up the butter into pieces that are about a 1/2" or so.

Beat the butter and sugars together until smooth. It takes a little while to really pulverize those butter chunks, but give it a few minutes -- it works, I promise.

Add the vanilla, egg, and baking soda. Try to resist temptation to start tasting cookie dough. Who am I kidding? Such resistance is futile in our household (Want rationalization and permission for eating homemade cookie dough?  Go to this link from Free-Range Kids. I love it.).  Mix, then add flour and salt. Mix again.

The chocolate chip to dough ratio is pretty high in this recipe. I think that's why you can get away with less flour. It will almost seem like you've got as much chocolate chips as dough in this recipe, but I promise it works. Mmmmm...it definitely works.

Scoop the cookie dough onto a lined baking sheet. Remember my mention of the Silpat a couple posts ago? Well, here it is. You really should get one.

Bake the cookies for about 16-18 minutes, or until golden brown.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Grab a glass of milk and bask the sheer and utter deliciousness of the warm, homemade chocolate chip cookie.

Only in December -- The Best Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

Seriously, these are THE best gingerbread cookies. Ever. Not only are they delicious, but they're soft, too.  In fact, whenever people try these cookies, the most common response is, "Soft gingerbread cookies?!"

But I have to say from the get-go:  I can take almost no credit for their wonderfulness. My mom picked up the recipe years ago at a gorgeous four-star inn and restaurant in my hometown (my husband and I also had our wedding reception there almost eight years ago. We love that place.). The only change I made to the recipe was the amount of flour in it -- I think the amount indicated in the recipe was a misprint (when I followed the amount on the original, the cookies were like pancakes).

Anyway, without further ado, the gingerbread cookies that I wait all year to make...

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter (3 sticks), softened
1 cup brown sugar (I use light brown, but I'm sure dark would be fine, too)
2 large eggs
1 cup molasses
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. ground ginger
5 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, combine butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated.

Add molasses. Mmmmmm....the smell reminds me of Christmas (and my dad, who loves old-fashioned molasses candy). Mix. 

In a separate bowl, combine the soda, salt, spices, and flour.  Add to the wet mixture. Mix until smooth. 

Before you roll out the dough, you need to let the dough chill for a couple hours.  Before I put my dough in the fridge, I like to split it up, flatten it on a piece of plastic wrap, wrap it up, and stick it the fridge. This makes rolling out the chilled dough a little easier because it's ready to go.

Once your dough has chilled, roll it out on a floured countertop until it's about 1/4 inch thick.

Cut into desired shapes.  This is my boys' favorite part of the process, right up there with eating the dough.

While you're doing this, you should also be preheating your oven to 350 degrees.

On a lined or greased baking sheet, bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. It can be a little tricky to tell when they're done (wait until they're golden brown?). Just mess up one of the uglier cut-outs to test for doneness.

Let the cookies cool on wire racks before you decorate decorate with frosting, candy, and/or sprinkles.

Or just eat them sans frosting (sometimes they don't last long enough to get frosted -- my family eats them so quickly!) Serve to your family and friends and bask in the deliciousness that is homemade gingerbread.  Just one of the reasons I love December.

{Note:  A couple years ago, my mom and I thought it would be fun to use the gingerbread cookies as decorations around the house. When we did that, we added a couple extra cups of flour to the dough. The extra dough makes the cookies really hard but suitable for using as decor. When we cut out the cookies, we put a little hole in the top with a skewer so we could hang them once they were baked. We frosted them like we usually do, looped some ribbon through the holes at the top (we also used fishing line on some of them, too).  My gingerbread snowflakes looked great on my tree.  Talk about cheap homemade decorations!}

Note: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have disclosed.

For the Love of Carbs: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Review)

I've confessed my love for cookbooks and just when I didn't think I needed another one for a while (my Pioneer Woman one has been keeping me busy - can I just tell you how much I love, love, love that cookbook? Everything I've made from it is amazing), I came across this one.  The book is called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Herzberg and Zoe Francois.

Can it really be true?  Homemade baguettes, ciabatta, flatbread, and naan (among many others) in just five minutes?  Is it even possible to make anything like that in five minutes?  Yes and no. The title is just a teensy bit misleading.  There's some work to be done to get to the point where it takes five minutes, not to mention resting periods for the dough (usually about 20-40 minutes), and then the baking time.  BUT, once the dough is made, the hands-on time it takes to prep the bread for baking really takes about five minutes for every batch of bread you make.  Confused?  Let me explain...

The ingredients in the master recipe are really basic:  flour, water, salt, and yeast. The master recipe can be used to make a lot of different breads like baguettes, ciabatta, naan, flatbread, and for making calzones and stromboli.  There are other recipes in the book for things like rye bread, foccacia challah, bagels, brioche, beignets (I'll be making those soon - we've been wanting to try them since we got The Princess and the Frog), and more.  The ingredients and measurements vary, but the concept is the same.

One other necessity: a container big enough to not only hold all the dough but to also give it room to rise. When I bought my cookbook off Amazon (I love Amazon - lets me feed my book-buying addiction much more frugally), I bought one of the containers featured since I didn't have anything that would work. The containers I got are six-quart containers and worked perfectly - I wouldn't use anything smaller than that.

The great thing about the method for breadmaking in this book is that it requires absolutely no kneading.  You simply mix the ingredients in the same container you'll store the dough in. This step takes hardly any time at all. Just 3 cups of warm water, 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast, 1 1/2 tablespoons of kosher salt, and 6 1/2 cups of flour. The dough is really wet and you couldn't knead it if you tried without making a crazy, sticky mess.

Once it's all mixed, all you have to do is let it rise at room temperature in the covered container.  You let it rise and rise until dough flattens at the top - about 2-3 hours.  After it has risen enough, you can either use it in any of the recipes in the book or stick it in the fridge.  It'll be less sticky if you refrigerate it first.

When you're ready to make the bread, you just cut off a chunk of it (for the specific bread I was making, I cut off a one-pound chunk) with a serrated knife. Every recipe requires a different amount from the master batch. 

For this recipe, I shaped the dough into a ball by stretching the surface around to the bottom around all sides.  This only took a minute to do.  Nothing fancy.  Then you just let it rest on a dusted pizza peel (mine came with my baking stone - see my pizza post from a few months ago to learn more about this awesome kitchen tool) for a certain amount of time. For this recipe, I let it rest on a cornmeal-dusted peel for 40 minutes and then scored the top with a knife before I put it in the oven. 

To get the crisp crust and soft inside typical of artisan bread, you have to bake with steam.  You slide the dough off the peel onto the baking stone in the preheated oven (450 degrees for this recipe).  In a pan on a rack below, you pour a cup of hot water and quickly close the oven.  Then I baked this bread for about 30 minutes, or until, as the book says, you can hear the bread "sing" when it is exposed to the cooler air. The picture above is the first loaf I ever made from the book - it worked out, no problem. And it was soooo good. You can store the rest of the dough in the fridge for two weeks.

This is just a quick overview of the process - you really should check out the book.  It's awesome - now if we want bread to go with dinner, I just grab a chunk of the dough, shape it, let it rest for a little while, and then pop it into the oven.  Like the title of the book says, it's really only five minutes hands-on time when you want it.  The ingredients are simple and inexpensive. The process couldn't be any easier. This book truly is, as the cover says, "the discovery that revolutionizes home baking." 

On Making Bread

So I'm standing at the bread section at Costco.  I take a good look around and pick up a loaf of wheat bread.  I slip it into the cart, acting as casually as one possibly can while shopping with a toddler.  Just as I'm about to saunter away from the bread aisle and down the next aisle to buy yet another 5-lb. bag of baking soda, someone jumps out from behind the corner, with an accusational finger outstretched.

"A-ha! Buying bread at the store?!" she says, shaking her head slowly, "And you call yourself the parsimonious princess..."

Oh, the shame.

Yeah, this didn't really happen. Part of me wishes it did, purely for comedic reasons.  In any case, I still feel like I'm copping out when I buy bread at the store.  I mean, when you think of frugal living, isn't making your own bread one of the first things that comes to mind?  And then there's those stories about mothers of ten children who made all their family's bread. Heck, my husband's aunts have like six children each and they all make homemade bread for their families.  Who knows, maybe they even grind the wheat. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised; those women are incredible.

But I just don't do it.  I want to, really I do.  I'll purposefully not buy bread at the store, in hopes that it will motivate me to bake some bread. Instead, I'm feeding spoonfuls of peanut butter (aka 'He-Man suckers' - that's what my husband called peanut butter on a spoon when he was a kid. Awesome.) to my son or sending the hubby to work with yet another homemade frozen burrito because I don't have bread for sandwiches.  I just can't seem to work it into my routine. 

Here's the thing: I've come to the conclusion that even if something's frugal to make or do, if it just takes too much time it sometimes is just not worth it.  Time is money, after all. Plus, if it's not something that you enjoy, you won't stick to it. And that's the key to living frugally - there has to be an element of fun to it. I enjoy coming up with ideas and ways to save money;  I think it's fun to make food from scratch;  getting a really good deal on something can be exciting.  If frugality ever just feels like drudgery, then your methods or attitude need revamping.  As frugal guru Amy Dacyzyn said, "Frugality without creativity is deprivation."  There are just some things I'm not willing do, even to save a buck, because I either won't do them regularly (too much upkeep) or I will hate every minute of it. And if being frugal is just deprivation and drudgery, you'll never stick with it.

But I don't hate making bread. In fact, I think there's something so therapeutic about getting a few ingredients together, kneading it into a ball of dough, and turning it into 'the staff of life'.  And I honestly don't think anything tastes as good as warm, homemade bread.  So, I'm going to give making our family's bread a try again and make at least a loaf of it a week. BUT, if I don't stick with it and I buy bread at Costco again, I'm not going to beat myself up about it, either.

If you're going to give this whole bread-making thing a go (if you haven't already), I have a GREAT recipe that I used for my latest loaf.  It's from the cookbook Whole Grain Baking; the cookbook is written by the chefs at the King Arthur Flour Company, so I figure they know a thing or two about how to make a really great loaf of bread.  This recipe for wheat bread was so delicious - even though my son squished the loaf mere minutes before I put it in the oven, deflating it after all that rising time.  I was pretty angry, but baked it anyway.  Still really good. What I really like about this bread is it isn't heavy like lots of whole wheat breads, yet it still is close-grained and works great for sandwiches, hence the title...

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
from Whole Grain Baking

2 Tbsp. orange juice (according to the book, the juice "tempers the somewhat tannic flavor of whole wheat, without adding any orange flavor of its own".  If you don't want to use juice, substitute water. I used the orange juice.)
1 cup lukewarm water
4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
3 cups traditional whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons sugar
Heaping 1/2 cup of dried potato flakes or 3 Tbsp. potato flour (I used the potato flour. I found it at the natural/health food store in my neighborhood)
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1 1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. instant yeast (the book also says that you can use regular active dry yeast, but you need to make sure to dissolve it some of the liquid in the recipe before adding it to the dough)

Combine all the ingredients, and mix and knead them - by hand, mixer or bread machine - until you have a soft, smooth dough.  Cover and allow the dough to rise until it's puffy and nearly doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours.
 
Lightly grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pan. Gently deflate the dough, and shape it into an 8-inch log. Place it in the prepared pan. Cover the loaf gently with lightly greased plastic wrap and allow it to rise till it's crowned about 1 1/2 inches over the rim of the pan, 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 hours.  Near the end of the bread's rising time, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Uncover and bake the bread for about 35 minutes, tenting it with foil after 15 minutes. The bread is done when it's golden brown and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center registers 190 degrees (Heather's note: I tap the top of the bread and if it sounds a little hollow, then I know it's done). Remove it from the oven, and after a minute or so turn it out onto a rack. Brush with melted butter if desired; this will keep the crust soft. Cool the bread for 30 minutes before slicing. (Good luck with that last part - I cut it just a couple minutes after I took it out and it was AMAZING, even if it was squished. Look at the picture below, you can see the dent from his little hand.Grrrrr...)

So where do you stand on the bread-making spectrum?  Are you the exclusive baker of bread for your household?  Or are you on the other end and think it's just not practical (it does take a while, after all...) or worth the work? Or are you somewhere in-between like me?