Zucchini Squares

The best thing about cooking is that I am inside with air conditioning and I am still being productive.  I an even watch TV while working.  The second best thing is eating what I made, assuming it is edible.  I do like to experiment with recipes

After finding some great zucchini and basil in the garden, I decided to use them for dinner.  I just bought a Bisquick All-Time Best Recipe book at the grocery store.  I have a rule of thumb for purchasing those small paper cover/magazine recipe books at the grocery check out.  If I can find at least five things I want to make, then I get it.  This one had more than that, so now it is mine.

                      
Notice all the paper strips that indicate a recipe I want to try.

As usual, I don't have or want to use everything in the recipe, so I change it to suit me.  Accordingly I renamed it to fit my rendition.

Zucchini Squares.

1 medium sized zucchini, about 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced
1/2 cup Heart Smart Bisquick
1/2 onion cup onion, diced
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
2 Tablespoons basil,  thinly sliced
2 eggs
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1/4 teaspoon Fines Herbes or use Italian Seasonings
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 350.  Use Pam to spray a 2 quart casserole dish.  Set aside.

I got a mandoline slicer for Christmas, so I had to use it to slice the zucchini.  Feel free to just thinly slice it by hand.

                            

Place the onions and the zucchini in a medium bowl.  I added the eggs whole on one side and then whipped them around with a fork in the same dish. 

                          

There is a technique called chiffonade for cutting up herbs.  First wash the basil and dry it with a paper towel.  Gently tear off the leaves and stack them up, one on top of the other.  Roll the stack into a long tube, like a cigarette.  Then thinly slice across the tube.  This is chiffonade and will give you thin slices of the herb you need.  In this case, the basil.

                       

Add the basil and everything else to the mixing bowl and make sure it is fully mixed.  Scrape everything into the prepared casserole and bake for 25 minutes or until it starts to brown.  Cut into squares and serve.

                          

If I had more than just the two of us to feed, I would have used this as a side dish and made a salad or some sort of meat.  Maybe pork chops or chicken breast.  This was just fine for the two of us. 

                            

I did make some fruit to go along with it.  I sliced up strawberries and fresh peaches from the Bryant Orchards, where we buy all our peaches in the summer.  I would have sprinkled lemon juice on the peaches to keep them from browning, but I neglected to buy new lemon juice after our power outage, so I just hoped they wouldn't turn colors.  I like to sprinkle a bit of Splenda on the strawberries on the theory that shipping them from where ever they grow them means they were picked too soon.  They are never as sweet as when they are locally grown, hence the Splenda.

                             

I served the fruit in a glass dish with a bit of Cool Whip, but a dollop of vanilla yogurt would have been great, also.

There are leftovers for tomorrow when I WILL make a salad.

Odds And Ends

Usually when we go on vacation I clean the whole house first.  There are a few reasons for this...besides my OCD.  If we get robbed I don't want the cops to think we have been ransacked when we haven't!   We usually have someone to pet sit and I don't want them to see how we REALLY live...a bit of tongue in cheek. But most importantly I don't want to come home to a dirty house.

With our power being out for so long before we left, I had to settle for sweeping and wiping down surfaces with a spray bottle of cleaner and some paper towels.  So now I have to clean up when all I really want to do it rest up.

Leaving in the summer also means that the weeds take over.  I hadn't weeded for awhile because it has been so hot and I couldn't take a shower with no power to run the well pump.  No point in getting sweaty and dirty when you only have baby wipes to clean yourself.

                           

My favorite method of weeding is to spray with Round Up.  Lots of times when I pull the weeds, they snap off at the ground leaving the root to regrow.  We also have a lot of weeds with thorns, like horse nettle, and they can poke rather painfully through even the thickest leather glove.  Another advantage to spraying is not having to bend over.  So when I can I spray and when I can't I pull and that was a task I had to do this morning, also.

                          

The fire blight that has attacked my apples has a big more blightiness left  and I had to trim a few fruit trees.  I had to remember to dip the blades of the pruners in a 10% bleach solution between each cut.

The cut branches had to be placed on the burn pile which has grown out of control again since the storm that toppled so many trees.

The tomatoes have outgrown their cages and were in danger of toppling.  I found a few tomatoes that I picked while they were not quite ripe.  The last time I waited the birds ate them.

                               

I found a zucchini for dinner.  The first one!  Oh, man.  Do you see the ones that I found after a bit of digging?  I may have to make zucchini bread or cake or something.  Or maybe something savory so I can use the basil.  I'll have to think about that.

                               

There are a bunch of zucchini flowers that I am considering making into fried zucchini flowers with goat cheese. 

                          

We just went to the store yesterday to replace EVERYTHING...you know, mayo, mustard, salad dressings...everything that had to be thrown out.  The inside of the refrigerator door is looking nice and tidy, though, in case I am looking for a silver lining.  And I am.  But it means no more grocery shopping for awhile and so no goat cheese.  If only we had chickens and goats.  Only kidding.  Downsizing the animals is my current philosophy.

I have finished all the things I had to do today and now I will do something I want to do.   Maybe I'll knit.  Or read.  Or maybe I'll try to find something to fix with zucchini.  I just got a new recipe book around here somewhere.....

Wishful Thinking

We just got back from a week long trip to Michigan. Lee was born in Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula, so that makes him a Yooper ( U.P. equals Yoo Pea, therefore Yooper.)!  He hadn't seen his relatives there since his college days and it was great fun to meet everyone.  I didn't write about it while we were there because I had heard stories about people posting their status on Facebook and coming back to a ransacked home!  So now I can tell you.

It takes two looong days of driving to get there, but we all had fun together.  Our two daughters came with us to meet their aunts and cousins and made everything fun.  They got to dip their toes in two of the Great Lakes and swim in Lake Michigan.

                         

Lee's aunt has a farm on the outskirts of Escanaba.  She had tents up and games for the kids. 

                       

His family is wonderful and we loved them all.  I don't know why we never went to meet them before now, but I am glad we finally rectified that.  Like any good family reunion, there was more food than people and we all ate plenty.  It was Lee's birthday, so we had cake and embarrassed him as little as possible.

                        

The downtown of Escanaba was a fun place.  It is lots bigger than our wee town of Buchanan.  We parked and walked, notwithstanding the heat.  Lee pointed out places he had worked and shopped or ate and homes in which he and his grandparents had lived. 

                       

Along the way we passed a gift shop called Wishful Thinking.  They had some things set up outside to draw us in and I found a small metal ant.  I have started to collect dragonflies to put in the memorial we built for my sister, Roz.  It struck me that Roz was the aunt to my children and given that we in America pronounce "aunt" as "ant" it would be fun to add an ant to the garden.  I picked up the ant and showed it to the girls.  Just then a small dragonfly flew past me and landed on the window next to us.  We were so excited.  I decided it was a sign from Roz and had to buy the ant.

Upon our return I took the ant to the garden and I am going to try her in various places to find the best spot.  I don't want someone to smash it or trip over it!  Perhaps I will glue it to a post.  While I was out there I had my own wishful thinking.  I wish I had spent more time with Roz.  I wish I had called her every day and told her how much I loved her.  I wish she was still here so I could do it now.

Lemon Cookies

                        

I was tasked with bringing lemonade to the library Picnic/Barbecue.  I am no longer a full time employee, but they keep me around for emergencies and in the hopes I will bring them occasional treats.  I was not interested in only bringing lemonade.  I thumbed through a few Joanne Fluke mysteries and found a Lemon Cookie recipe in Cream Puff Murder that sounded good.  Unlike most of her recipes it did not make enough for an army, so this was a good amount to take to the library without too many left over for Me!  This recipe made about 5 dozen small cookies.

Lemon Cookies

1 stick of butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tablespoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup milk

Glaze

1/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 sugar


Heat the oven to 350°.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Use a microplane or a zester to zest a whole lemon.  If it is big enough one lemon will get you all the zest and the juice for the cookies.  I used a bit of the kind of lemon juice from a bottle for the glaze to make up for the fact I only had about 1/8 cup left after the cookies.

                     

Add in the lemon juice and zest with the eggs, baking powder, baking soda and salt and blend with the butter.

Mix in half the flour and milk.  Then add the rest in and mix everything up.

Drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Make them small, about the size of a cherry.  Otherwise they will spread out and get too thin and crumbly. 

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes.

If you put them on parchment paper it will be easier to remove them to the cooling rack and less messy to spread the glaze.  I used a Silpat.  Then I waited one or two minutes to remove the cookies to the cooling rack.

When you put in the first batch, make the glaze.  I put the sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and heated it to dissolve the sugar.  I also used a silicone pastry brush.

As soon as you put the cookies on the cooling rack, brush the glaze over the warm cookies.  My glaze kept getting separated so I would place the pan on the warm cookie sheet and stir to mix it up between batches.  You may want to put some waxed paper under the cooling rack to catch the drips.

The cookies were nice and lemony.  If I had it to do over again, I would zest 2 lemons and then I would have enough fresh lemon juice for the glaze.

Viking Cookies

                             

I like to read mysteries.  There is a satisfaction in a good mystery.  The bad guy always gets caught and usually gets what is "coming to" him.  This differs from real life and is one of the many reasons I prefer a good book to the news

                    

Joanne Fluke writes the kind of mystery that is called a "cozy".  This is a mystery that is mostly bloodless.  The actual crime takes place out of the view of the reader.  Then the protagonist solves the mystery and every one, except the murderer, moves happily onward.  My favorite part of her mysteries involves the recipes.  For the uninitiated there is a whole sub-genre of murders with recipes.  Diane Mott Davidson is another favorite of mine.  Her mysteries are a little less cozy and as the protagonist is a caterer, has a wider variety of recipes.  While I might check out a regular murder from the library, I purchase the ones with recipes that I want to fix.  (Note to self:  If you write a book, include recipes.)

I haven't made cookies in quite sometime and I went to my stash of Fluke mysteries and found a new one.  It had to be one that would freeze as there are only the two of us at home.  But you never know when someone will stop over and you need something to serve.  I decided on Viking Cookies.  The recipe made a ton of cookies and they freeze well, so my criteria was met.  On with the baking.

Viking Cookies

2 cups butter (four sticks, melted
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom  (nutmeg will work in a pinch, cardamom is better)
4 1/2 cups flour
3 cups white chocolate chips  (the real thing, not vanilla chips)
3 cups rolled oats

This makes 10 to 12 DOZEN.  If you don't need this many cookies, feel free to cut the recipe in half!

Pre heat the oven to 350.

Melt the butter in the microwave.  I covered the bowl with the paper wrappers from the butter to keep it from spitting all over the inside of the microwave.  Set it on the counter and let it cool while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

I use a Kitchen-Aid mixer.  It is really handy, especially for such a large batch.  The last few ingredients really put a strain on the mixer.  I can only imagine what it would have done to my arm!

Scrape the butter into the mixing bowl.  Add in the white and brown sugars and blend well.

                                    

Add the baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.  THEN add the vanilla.  This will prevent you from getting a handful of wet measuring spoon and from dripping liquid in one of your expensive spices.  Mix in the eggs.  Ms. Fluke beats them with a fork first.  I just dump them in the mixer.

Add the flour in 1/2 cup increments. 

                                

Whenever I have more than 2 cups to add, SOMETHING happens to make me forget where I am.  The phone rings or the cat starts scratching the couch.  Something.  So I keep a piece of paper nearby and make a mark for each cup added.  In this case I needed 9 times each 1/2 cup measure.  I would have made a hash of it for sure if I hadn't marked each time I added one.

After you can no longer see the flour, add in the white chocolate.  I could not find enough white chocolate chips.  I even went and asked at the customer service desk.  They only had one bag left and this recipe calls for one and 1/2 half bags of white chocolate chips.  Ms. Fluke was very insistent on this.  But I had some vanilla chips and I added them for the final cup of white chocolate.  If there is a difference, other than size, I couldn't tell you.

                                 

Now add the oatmeal one cup at a time.  It will be VERY stiff by this time.  It almost worked its way out of the mixer.

                              

Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheets.  The saved butter wrappers are good for this.  I use Silpats. No greasing, no sticking.  I also use a small cookie size ice cream scoop.  Perfect size, way less work and much faster.

With your hand or spatula, gently smush the tops of each cookie mound.  This will keep them from rolling around when you transfer them to the oven.  Bake for 11 to 13 minutes until they are golden brown.  Cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheets before you transfer them to a cooking rack.  I hope you have a LOT of cooling racks.

                             

Joanne Fluke recommends rolling the cookies in foil and then placing them in a freezer bag.  I just put them in a Ziploc Vacuum bag.

No Well Peach Jam

I had bought 3 boxes of peaches to make jam.  Then we lost power and they sat on the counter.  They got softer and I knew I had to use them or toss them.  I couldn't stand the thought of throwing them away and my friend couldn't come over because we were roasting and had no toilet because the well pump couldn't pump water.

                            

I figured if they could make jam on Little House On The Prairie, I could do it in my house!  We had several flats of half liter water bottles. 

                            

I filled pots with water and heated it for washing and rinsing the canning jars and lids. 

                          

I had a peach rinsing bowl and started peeling.   They peeled easily because they were perfectly ripe.  I had a garbage bowl for peelings and pits.

                            

The stove is gas (way easier than Little House) but the ignition is electric, so I used a gun-type lighter for barbecues.  It worked great.

                           

I also needed fresh lemons and when Lee went out for some errands, he picked some up.  I washed them with baby wipes and rinsed them in fresh water.  I rolled them with the palm of my hand to loosen the juice, cut and squeezed them in a bowl.  I didn't worry about the pits as I was just going to scoop out a Tablespoon of juice at a time.  I followed the instructions in the Sure Jell package for the recipe.

I chopped the peaches in a small dice and put them in a large four cup measuring cup.  As I chopped I added a Tablespoon at a time and stirred them to keep the peaches from turning brown.  It took 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice.  Then I mashed them so that there was still small hunks of fruit.  That's the best part of the jam!  I did this after I stirred in the Sure Jell to mix it even more thoroughly.

                            

I measured out the sugar so that it was all ready and started cooking.  There is a lot of stirring and it boiled a lot faster than when I had made the blackberry jam.  The peaches only had 4 cups of fruit and the blackberries called for 5 cups, so that had something to do with it.  I chopped the peaches for the next batch while the first batch was cooking.  I kept stirring and checking the batch for boiling.  Remember the old saying, A watched pot never boils.  And then remember my addition to that, An unwatched pot boils over!  So check back frequently!

An aside on the boiling of hot liquid on freakishly hot days in homes with no air conditioning.  No matter how hot it gets it is NOT a good idea to take your shirt off.  And that's all I'll say about that.

I decided to make these "vegan".  The recipe says that you can use one teaspoon of butter to keep the jam from foaming when cooking.  Instead I just skimmed the little bit of foam off the top before putting the finished jam in the cleaned jars.

After the jam was in the jars and the lids screwed down tightly..careful, they are REALLY hot... I lowered them into my large pot to boil for 10 minutes.  I was glad that I hadn't emptied the pot from the last batch of jam, because it took a LOT of water and I didn't have to deplete my supply of bottles to fill it.

                                   

I started my first batch at 8:00 and finished the last at 12:00.  I had three full batches and one sugar free (Splenda) batch of three jars.  There were 3 peaches left over. Oh, and Lee ate one.  So that worked out perfectly.

The clean up also used bottled water and the hot water from the pot used to sterilized the jars.  Not bad for no power.  Now I have the jam to take to Lee's family reunion in Michigan.  The rest of the jam I may give as Christmas gifts.  Therefore I have named them....wait for it....No-well Jam.  Get it???? Noel???  Sure you do.

Derecho

We have just experienced our first Derecho.  It hit at 9:00 at by 9:30 there was around 1 million people without power.   It is like the world's shortest hurricane.  For us, no power also means no water.  This coincided with a heat wave that made for some miserable conditions.  It has been over 100 degrees and the humidity has been oppressive. 

There are trees down everywhere we go.  Many of them have taken down power lines .  It has been four days and could be a week before all power is restored. Ordinarily I love having our own well. We never had to worry when those with town water had to boil all drinking water for a year.  But when our power goes out, so does the pump that brings the water from the well to the house.  There is a tank that filters the water and sends it into the house.

We can still use the water and even flush the toilets, until the tank runs dry and then....nothing.  You never know how long the power will be out, so you have to conserve from the first.  This means no showers, no face or hand washing, no dish washing, no tooth brushing and more important, no toilet flushing.  Lee is superior  many ways and in particular in the ability to use the outdoors for certain functions.  I am not, so we just tried to flush as little as possible. 

After two days we called and discovered WalMart had power and water.  Baby wipes make an acceptable bath, if you use enough of them. We bought plenty.  We wanted gallon jugs of water and settled for flats of small bottles.  We also looked for a car charger for our cell phones.  They were out.  I forgot to look for a book light.  They are way easier to use than trying to hold a flash light at night when trying to read and mine are all used up.  They rarely last very long for me.  My Nook was sadly low on power.

Fortunately we have a small generator.  It is not much, but it will run the refrigerator out in the garage.   We  moved all we could from the house refrigerator and have been running the generator off and on.  We had to steal gas from the mower to run it as the local gas station didn't have power and we didn't want to drive all over with the gas can.

The power came to our neighbors over the train tracks, but stopped there and no one on this side has any power or water.  I guess it is true what they say about living on the wrong side of the tracks.

We are very lucky we had just filled the 100 gallon tank for the horses.  This kept them for a long time and we were able to dip water out to put in their stalls for at night.  We have a smaller 40 gallon tank that we have taken to the neighbors and filled.  That will tide us over for awhile and then we can go back. It sure is nice to have great neighbors.  Thanks Rose and Bob!  They also fed us after they got power and let me use the shower and the toilet.  I LOVE mod cons.  They even let me enjoy their air conditioning. 

                             

The only air conditioning we had was the basement.  Our basement is unfinished and has a walkout.  It is about 60 to 65 degrees during the winter and even with this heat wave it has been around 70.  Because there is a walkout there are windows on one side and so we have light until about 9:00.  So a good part of the day, and night,  has been spent down there with the pets trying to keep cool. 

                             

So, other than temporary discomfort we only have a bit of tree damage.  It could have been worse and it has been for many people, so we are counting our blessings. 

                           

We do have a tree from SOMEWHERE that has blown in to the middle of our field and is draped over the power lines.  Lee has reported it, but it must be way down the list as no one has come.  I don't want it to fall on him so I have been discouraging him from trying to fix it on his own!

                         

We have a cedar tree with damage.  It smells like pencil shavings!

Our walnuts have a bit of damage but they are still standing.  One tree fell on the hot wire for the pasture, but the horses are elsewhere, so we will get to that when it cools off a bit

I hope we get the power back soon, but at least I found a way to access the Internet.The laptop at a place with Wi-Fi works, but it is slow and clumsy and I probably didn't catch all the editing problems, but at least I am back online...temporarily.