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.

What is that.

I'd been meaning to try tofu a lot more, for whatever reason I can't think of at the moment. It's an interesting texture and filler, and I'm sure everyone else has figured out what to do with it. So far I've had it in miso soup, and fried, like in that picture, and I distinctly remember my mom trying to sneak some into fried rice once when I was in middle school - I did call her out on it, and she denied it vehemently, even after I looked in the fridge and found the extra tofu sitting in an open box.

Last week I was flipping through a bento cookbook (from the blogger at justbento.com, yes that book) trying to get motivated, and kept going back to a fried marinated tofu recipe. Then I went to justbento and went with a much simpler version, the agedashi-dofu. Except without the dashi. And without the horseradish. >.> So it was really just flour-coated tofu fried in a pan. Really.

This is because it was lunchtime, and I had no idea what to make for lunch. I pressed the tofu for about 30 minutes, dredged the cut-up pieces in flour, and fried them in a pan. It pro-o-bably needed more pressing, since they tended to pop a little when I tried to flip them over. The picture above is actually of the last four pieces leftover from lunch - I ended up cutting up a whole block of it and frying it all.

Result? Crispy nuggets with a kind of scrambled-egg innard. Pretty tasty if you pair it with a good sauce. I'm boring and ate it with soy sauce (and some leftover rice because that's how I am). The girls ate it up with ranch dressing, so I figure it's a success! ::thumbs-up::

Yes, ranch dressing. What? The four pieces left over didn't last long, either.

Show and Tell Cake Post!

So it wasn't a Saturday Night, but it was Saturday Afternoon, when I enlisted the help of Kathy and the girls for some birthday cake goodness.

Mmmmmm, cake.

The birthday girl being two and not yet a "fan" of anything more particular than what was already in front of her, I thought about making a cake based on one of her pajama sets. So here we are at pink whales. Bwaha.

Pilsbury choco cake on the inside, homemade buttercream icing (Wilton recipe) on the outside, with some premade fondant from that Duff's Ace of Cakes line. Hey, the tub said it tasted great, so I was curious.

Was happy to find that the gel coloring did blend in pretty well with the white fondant after Colin microwaved it and mashed it up for a bit. He also cut out the whale on the side there. Kathy did most of the crowd control by keeping the girls out of trouble while still in the thick of things, and still managed to cover the cake in white icing while doing it. Yay, Kathy!

The fondant was really pliable after it got nuked, but because for some reason I thought it was a great idea to make the center whale out of only the stuff, we had to stick it in the freezer after it got formed to keep the tail from drooping. That center whale is indeed, nothing but fondant.

The little spike next to whale on top is Derek's addition, while Colin cut out the whales, and Kathy did the little fish cutouts. I did the blue icing, at least. >.>

So was the fondant good? Good enough, I guess. The extra leftover from last night disappeared over the course of a few hours (Derek is prime suspect in that), while the whale's tail (still pretty pliable after sitting overnight) was single-handedly devoured by the birthday girl shortly after lunch. She's been the happiest camper nearly all day.

Mmmmm, cake.

Surprise! It's a post!

Last week, Shae and the girls stopped by to visit, and we had onigiri (and a grilled cheese sandwich for Omi). Me being lazy about email, I didn't catch Shae's after-note, in which she asked a bit about that lunch, until today.

Onigiri's really simple, in the sense that it's like a sandwich. The rice serves as filler and container for other fillings and flavors, and it's nice and portable. I learned about it at an onigiri party my Japanese prof held back in college, and we still make them, since it's pretty easy.

Onigiri
(riceballs)

Rice (short/medium grain packs a bit better, but you can use long grain if you want)
Filling: cooked meat, veggies, or whatever you think would taste good with rice
Salt/spices

1. Cook the rice. You don't need a special cooker for this, just a pot to cook it in. We have a cooker, so my measurements may be off, but generally to cook rice, for each cup of rice, you add one extra half-cup of water, so:

r = amount of rice (cups)
w = r + 0.5 (cup)

If you're using a pot, you put the rice and water in it, let it come to a boil, then lower heat to simmer, cover it, and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Or until it's cooked, because that's what we're going for. >.>

2. Prep the filling. The filling I'm talking about is what you'd put in the rice ball as if it were something with a tasty center, but you can just mash everything together if you don't want to encounter one mash of filling all at once. Shredded or sliced pieces of meat are good for this - I've used canned fish and chopped-up deli meat, but you can experiment. Sauce might also make things tastier, but don't use too much, or the rice ball won't hold together.

3. Shape the rice. Fill a bowl of water and wet your hands with it. Sprinkle your hands with salt, or another spice you want on the rice ball, then pick up a handful of rice. The rice is hot. This is important. Please take care. Hot rice is easier to shape into what you want, but yes - it *is* hot. The water is so you don't have rice sticking to your hands, so use it as much as you need to.

Pack the rice together, then, if you're putting in filling, make a little bowl in the rice with your finger, and fill it with the filling. Add a little more rice to cover it up, then pack the rice together as much as possible. When it sticks together on its own, you've got yourself a riceball!

We like to add nori (seaweed) strips to the onigiri, but some people aren't fond of it, and even though it's common to see onigiri with it, it's not required - eat what you want, y'know.


Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Yes, I know, simple again, but I never learned how to make them nicely until we went to Derek's parents' home. So. There.

2 slices of bread
1 slice of cheese
butter

Butter the bread, then sandwich the cheese between the bread, with the butter side out. Heat up a pan to medium heat, then grill the sandwich until both sides are toasty-brown and the cheese is melted.

Yay!

Here's a recipe that I came across at Recipezaar* when looking for a way to dress up Ramen noodles (which I have been craving since a couple of my coworkers started eating them for lunch at work). Anyway, it's quick, easy, and actually has a pleasant blend of tastes. (Obviously you can vary what you add to get different flavors).

*Recipezaar = my favorite recipe site (besides this one, of course!), because you can sort by ingredient, including ones you want to use, and excluding those you don't have on hand.

TUNA RAMEN DINNER

* 1 (6 ounce) can tuna in oil (I used tuna in water, but added a bit of oil to the pan -JG)
* 1 (3 ounce) packet ramen noodles, any flavor (I used chicken -JG)
* 1/2 cup frozen mixed vegetables (I used carrots and peas. If I make it again, I'll probably add in a full cup - the peas have a very nice favor against the tuna -JG)

1. heat a nonstick frying pan to about medium heat, and fry the tuna until hot and slightly crispy. You can use tuna in water, but it sticks less if you use tuna in oil.
2. At the same time, cook the ramen on the stove top and add the veggies to the pot as well.
3. Drain the ramen and veggies and add them to the frying pan with the tuna and continue to cook until the noodles become slightly sticky.
4. Pour the seasoning packet over the whole thing and mix.
5. Enjoy!

Pockets

To make a pizza pocket:

Mix bisquick according to recipe for biscuits on back of box. (or use any other biscuit recipe you like)
Roll out the biscuits very flat.
Place on top of half of the biscuits pizza ingredients (e.g. sauce, cheese, pepperoni, pepper).
Place second half of biscuits on top, pinch sides together.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until they look like done biscuits.

Tonight, we made taco pockets. We had leftover taco meat mozzarella cheese, and spinach to put in them. Yeah, I guess that's kind of weird. But yummy.

The other great thing is that you can make a bunch and freeze the leftovers and reheat them later in the toaster oven. Much cheaper and yummier than a store bought hot pocket.

And they can be packed for picnics.

I'm thinking I should make some peanut butter and jelly pockets for lunches sometime.