Even on a small hobby farm such as ours, harvest time means crazy time. We spend lots and lots of time picking and preserving the fruits and veggies we’ve grown, cleaning up the garden to get it ready for next year, and preparing for the cold winters our northern state experiences. It’ll be two years on October 1st since Read more
Lest ya’ll think I’m a bitter, angry *$@%, I figured I’d better write a follow up to yesterday’s rant. Let me start by saying Read more
This is going to start off sounding like an arrogant, self-centered rant, but bear with me. 🙂 Let me just preface this post by saying that it does not reference anyone in particular. Any similarity to any person, fiction or non-fiction, is merely coincidental. If you’ve read through the blog the last couple of weeks, Read more
This weekend was FUN. Hubby came home Friday night telling us about a free (FREE!! My favorite word these days. 🙂 ) event not 15 minutes from our home. Read more
When we share, either on the blog or in person, why we believe it’s so important to grow and preserve your own food, we get a mixed bag of reactions. Some react with awe and wonder, quizzing us on what it’s like and what’s involved. Others think it’s cool but not important. And still others think we’re crazy. While that may well be the case 🙂 , I’m here to share why we think it’s so very important to learn how to grow and preserve your own food. Read more
With all the chatter in recent weeks regarding the sad news about beloved actor and comedian Robin Williams, I thought it might be time to share my own story about Depression. The Robin Williams story hit home for me for two reasons: Read more
The more I learn about canning and preserving, the more I realize I know very little about canning, preserving and cooking in general. I’ve always considered myself a pro in the kitchen. I love to cook, and, at the risk of sounding arrogant, 🙂 I’m AWESOME at comfort food meals like Thanksgiving dinners and meat and potatoes stuff.
The other day, however, Read more
Happy Saturday, friends!! Hope you’ve carved out at least some time to relax this weekend. So, regular readers might know that I went through a pretty rough patch this summer and got myself into a boatload of doubt and discouragement where our debt payoff journey is concerned. Our journey started as a large one (we had a 65% debt-to-income ratio when we began our journey towards debt freedom in January of 2013) and we knew that our victory would take serious effort and concentration. Read more
We did it!!! We planted potatoes this year for the first time, and actually got a small harvest!!! Now, it wasn’t the harvest I was hoping for, but aren’t they beautiful? Growing potatoes was odd. Read more
Well, it’s August now, and your garden should be overflowing with giant zucchinis that you have no idea what to do with, right? 🙂 There is much that can be done with zucchini, but one of my favorite ways to use it up is by making this prize-winning zucchini bread recipe. Zucchini bread is really simply just a different form of banana bread. It’s sweet, moist, and if you really want to, you can pass it as healthy. After all, it does have vegetables in it, technically. 🙂
This recipe from my mom actually won our oldest first place at the county fair here one year. It’s a delightful treat and easy to make.
2 – 2/3 c. sugar (we only put in 2 cups) 3 c. coarsely shredded zucchini
1/3 c. unsalted butter 1/3 c. coconut oil
2/3 c. water 4 eggs
3.5 c. flour 2 t. baking soda
1.5 t. salt 1 t. cinnamon
2 t. vanilla 1/4 t. baking powder
2/3 c. chopped walnuts 2/3 c. raisins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom of two loaf pans. Combine sugar, butter, oil, water, eggs, soda, salt, cinnamon, vanilla, baking powder in large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add zucchini, nuts and raisins and blend well. Add in flour, a cup at a time, and mix until thoroughly blended. Pour evenly into loaf pans. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. The recipe says 60-70 minutes, but for us it took about 45 minutes. I would check after 40 or so. Cool for 20 minutes or so before removing from pans. Sweet and delicious! And if you’re looking for another great way to use zucchini, try this recipe from over at Eat, Laugh, Purr.
*Tips: You could decrease the amount of sugar or replace some with brown sugar. Grandma also adds 1 t. cloves to her recipe, but we don’t. Also, make sure the coconut oil is in a liquid state; it mixes better that way. This happens at about 75 degrees in our house. You could soften it on defrost in the microwave too, or simply use all butter instead of half and half. Also, the recipe tastes equally delicious without the walnuts and raisins too.
