Neighborly Zucchini Bread

Visiting Shae & family on Saturday night, so we had to bake.  Don got a zucchini on the way at a vegetable stand, so we decided we should make some zucchini bread.

Shae has a zucchini bread recipe from an old neighbor when she was younger.  It goes something like this:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix well and then add

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup pecans (optional -- we skipped this)

Mix well and add

• 3 oz box instant vanilla pudding
• 2 cups grated zucchini

Divide into 3 loaf pans
Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees F

Alternatively, we think you could use 2 loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for one hour.  Shae wants to test this latter, but we'll see what the Little One thinks of that idea.

It smells yummy here now.

Wheat-free, egg-free, dairy-free, soy-free Chicken & Rice

Recently a friend of ours had a new baby. In order to nurse the baby, she has gone dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free. Recently she was over along with another friend who can't have wheat. As Don and I were discussing what to serve for lunch, he said it sounded like the only thing we could make was "lemon pepper chicken." A few days later he asked me what I planned to make, and I said that his suggestion of lemon pepper chicken sounded good.

The recipe I used was based on the slow cooker lemon garlic chicken II recipe from allrecipes.com But, of course, with a few changes.
The following is for 10 servings.
2 teaspoons dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3-1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup teaspoon water
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk or so of celery, minced

Take the oregano, salt, and black pepper and mix in a bowl. Rub the mixture into the chicken. I had to use a lot more of the mixture than what they called out in the recipe.

Put the oil in the pan and brown the chicken for 3-5 minutes each side. Then put the chicken in the crock pot.

Next, using the same pan you fried the chicken, put the lemon juice, water, garlic, and celery and bring to a boil. Then pour it over the chicken in the crock pot. I added extra water (and some extra lemon juice) so that the chicken was covered by liquid.

Then cook for 6 hours or so on low (3 on high) or until chicken is cooked.

I drained some of the liquid out of the crock pot to cook some rice in to go with the chicken.

In addition to the rice and chicken we steamed some asparagus as a vegetable to go with the meal.