Chocolate Chip Zucchini Nut Bread (Mom's)

I've been waiting for Mom to jump on here and put this one up herself but she's a little computer challenged ;) so I'm just going to add this before we forget. It really is a great one. The zucchini/chocolate may sound like an odd combination, but really what you end up with is a very moist and delicious quick bread. Or muffin! The loaves make great gifts, the mini muffins make for a lazy and quick snack(no inconvenient cutting involved, just pop in your mouth!). My kids love these.

Mom's Choc Chip Zuke Nut Bread

INGREDIENTS/DIRECTIONS

3 eggs - beaten until light
Add: 1 1/2 cup sugar(I do more like 2)
3 tea vanilla
1 cup oil (I cut the oil to 2/3 cup and added another cup of zucchini)
Mix well

Add: 2 cups grated zucchini (I add almost 3 cups)

Add: 3 cups flour
1 tea salt
1 tea soda
1 tea baking powder
3 tea cinnamon (I also add some allspice and nutmeg)

Add: 3oz pkg instant chocolate pudding mix (I never have this on hand so I don't put it in personally)
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup choc chips (I add almost 1 cup )

Grease and flour the muffin tins or mini loaf pans(I find it doesn't work to try to make a larger loaf than the minis). Bake at 325 or 350 for 20min and check to see if done. I find the mini muffins are done at 325 and 20ish mins, the loaves take around 10min more. To check to see if they're done, take a toothpick and insert into center. If there's batter on it when you pull it out, isn't done! Also you'll notice the edges brown. Most times the entire top of my loaf is brown. Don't worry, it probably isn't burning.

Stacy's Brazilian Soup

(as Blogspot hates me this evening, this is freakin take 2 in writing this all down!)

I am so proud! I did this myself! Ok, so I used one recipe and it's mismatched photo as a base but made up the rest based on what I had. Here is the base: http://www.vegetariansrecipes.org/2666/Brazilian-Black-Bean-Soup.html and you can see in the pic, not so much the same thing according to the directions below the picture!

This is what I came up with using the base plus stuff in my kitchen that needed used or I thought sounded good:

8cu water
1 can black beans drained/rinsed
1 can pinto beans drained/rinsed
3-4 med. tomatoes chopped to desired size
1 sm-med. onion white or yellow(I had yellow)
3 green onions diced
3-4 cloves minced garlic
1 bell pepper whatever size and color(I had a small green one from the garden)
1 pint corn(frozen from our garden!)
2-3 cu chopped zucchini(of course, from our garden LOL)
1 cu leftover cooked rice from an earlier meal
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 tbsp chili powder(used Penzey's medium hot, yum!)
1/2 tsp cumin ground or seed
salt and pepper to taste(sppose I ended up doing 1/2 tsp each)
1 tbsp lemon, lime or orange juice

*served with
tortilla chips
shredded cheddar cheese
avocado
mango
oranges

Pretty much threw it all in the stock pot, save for the already cooked rice and green onions which I did the last 10 or so. Let it boil/simmer for 45min til it cooked down some. Then let each person add cheese and chips. The new thing for us? I put chunked avocado, mango and oranges on top of each person's served bowl. Sounds weird, was totally delicious(and thanks to that mismatched photo to the above recipe link!) This made quite a bit. We ate it for dinner and now have 2 meals in the freezer plus 2 servings for Isaac to take to work AND still more to share for the roommate and her boyfriend tomorrow. Pretty much you can take the base and do whatever you want with it, I imagine. A side note, this was so filling I have no idea what else you'd eat with it or why you'd even want to try!

Cooking Frenzy Continues

Yes, this would be the third entry for today. Though when I have the day off, I tend to just cook all my meals at home. After today's breakfast adventure, I went on a few errands with Nik including one to World Market.

Now, if you knew the part of town that I lived in, you'd be asking why I went to World Market when the half-a-dozen different markets just within a few blocks representing an equal number of nationalities would be necessary. Well, I certainly do appreciate the wide variety of foods available to me in this neighborhood; however the typical ingredients found in Italian foods are often in short supply- especially when certain ingredients do not over-lap with other cuisines. On my list of things to make before school starts and I begin finding time available to me to cook dwindle, quality risotto requires arborio rice. I also recently ran out of balsamic vinegar (gasp!) and decent extra-virgin olive oil (double gasp). Thankfully all three are readily available at the World Market in Evanston and are much cheaper there than if I were to venture out to the Whole Foods in the same area and better quality that the kinds offered at Trader Joe's down by my work.

So tonight's dinner was one dish and light after the ultra-rich hollandaise sauce of this morning.

Risotto
3 1/2 cups chicken broth (stock base substitute is entirely fine and unnoticed)
a few splashes of Vermouth (gives much better taste than white wine unless using a very good and usually fairly expensive wine)
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice

Heat the chicken broth and vermouth over medium heat in large sauce pan. Add arborio rice. Cover and let cook for 10 minutes.

3 Tb Olive Oil
4 cloves of garlic chopped to medium sized bits
4 medium-sized shallots chopped
Cremini mushrooms cut into moderate-sized pieces (as many as you like)

Sautee the garlic and shallots for 5 minutes or so over medium-low heat (too much heat will risk burning your garlic; you want it hot enough to soften them and flavor the oil). Once the shallots and garlic pieces are soft, add the mushrooms and stir together. Cover and let cook for another 5 mintues or until mushrooms have darkened slightly.

Add mushroom mixture (including oil) to rice. Stir in chopped fresh chives. Cook uncovered until most of the liquid has evaporated and rice is soft.

*I like to add finely grated Parmasean cheese once I've turned off the heat. I just like a hint of the flavor, so it isn't much. And if you try to add that kind of cheese when it isn't finely grated, you'll end up chunks of it instead of it melting into the rice. It also gives pops of cheesy flavor- but not in a good way like chunks of mozarella in a marinara sauce.

Dessert for us was simple. Nik made ginger snaps; I, a peach and blueberry sherbert.

Ice Cream:
6 ripe peaches, peeled and quartered
1/2 cup blueberries
1 Tb ginger
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream

Put into blender for a few minutes.
Make per your ice cream machine's instructions!

*I'll let Nik post up the ginger snap recipe!