For Paula, Zucchini Bread....A Walk Down Memory Lane

Hey All,

Where did the summer go? I swear.... So tonight I was contacted by my friend Paula. I met Paula back in my days in Wyoming, we worked together and usually found ourselves up to some type of surreptitious behavior. Needless to say I was lucky to have a like minded soul helping keep things entertaining. We've since moved to quite different parts of the world, but we do still keep in touch.

So she was ranting something about hippies and if they only knew about what actually went into a box of baking soda. It struck up some interesting and snarky conversation reminiscent of the good 'ol days when life was water and rocks and big tumbling ovens..... That carried on for a bit and gardening came up. Well lucky her, she's lousy with zucchini. Mmm, how I do love me some zukes. I haven't taken to growing them, much like Paula, many of my local friends are often lousy with the buggers and I inherit the bounty. At any rate, she was looking for a zucchini bread recipe.

This brings about another story from my college days. One evenings my best friend called me to tell me she had something very important to show me. She appeared on my porch with what appeared to be a baby covered in a blanket in her arms. Oh jeez, really? Well, no, it was a 30 some-odd pound zucchini her mother (I swear the woman mutated everything she ever planted into gargantuan proportions, ask me about Momma H's Mutant Day Lilies sometime.) had grown. Knowing I had freezer space and a knack for making a preserving good food she sent it my direction. I think that thing kept us in zucchini bread for most of that year of college....a great easy breakfast in the morning.

This recipe comes from More-with-Less Cookbook, (c) 1976, Twenty-ninth Printing, July 1982, pg. 82. This cookbook was a gift from my Aunt upon high school graduation. She had a copy and spied it at a yard sale and instantly remembered how useful it was while living on a tight budget with her young family. She told me to at least read the first couple of chapters to get some ideas for the years of tight budgeting ahead. I'm sure glad I did, I ate well all throughout college and never broke the bank. I'm not sure if its still in print, but if you can find it, get it. You'll never regret it.

So here it is Zucchini Bread, makes 2 loaves, oven at 350F:

Preheat oven.
Combine in a mixing bowl and beat well:

3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups raw, peeled, grated zucchini
1 tablespoon vanilla

Sift together:

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons cinnamon

Add to zucchini mixture and stir until blended.

Optionally add 1 cup chopped nuts.

Pour into 2 greased 8" bread pans. Bake 1 hour. Remove from pans and cool on rack.

Optionally, frozen zucchini can be used if pureed in a blender.

I always used to sprinkle a bit of sugar on top too, to give it a nice crispy crust.

Hrm, I just remembered I still have a couple pounds of zucchini in the freezer from last year. Guess I need to get cracking and have some kitchen time.

Roast Beef Ranch Wraps....

Hey All,

So I haven't been blogging much lately. That's not to say the eating hasn't been good, I've just been busy and recently under the weather. Has anyone else noticed that summertime colds are the worst? Of course because of the nice weather, I'm failing to keep myself well rested....there is just too much to do and enjoy.

So lunch today was an easy affair, but one that had that moment of "Nice!" to make me want to blog it. Husbear is working on the carburetor cleaning and I've just been fiddling around in the gardens, but we were both grumbling about food.

A quick survey of the fridge and freezer produced ranch dip, tomato, romaine lettuce, and some whole wheat tortillas. Ta-da, wrap time....

4 Slices the tomatoes and then cut those in half to make half moon shapes.
4 leaves of lettuce.
4 tortillas smeared on one half with the ranch dip.
Roast beef to make 4 good hearty wraps.

On with the lettuce, tomato, and roast beef, roll and viola. Quick, easy, and super satisfying :)

Now for Something Completely Unrelated

Hey All,

So as some of you know I have this thing for commercial aviation. Ever since I was a young 'un I've been fascinated by planes ranging from the B1900 all the way up to the A380. A few years ago, I stumbled upon Airliners.net and have become a daily viewer to get my fix of all varieties of aircraft. Not too long ago, what did my eye spy, but daily service between PVU (that's Provo, UT) and DEN (Denver, CO).

Well, today was the day Frontier 1655, PVU->DEN started service.

So does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is the Salt Lake Metro area going to be the next to enjoy scheduled commercial service to more than one airport? I would love to see it, and can easily see PVU becoming a great alternate, especially if they can get the UTA (Utah Transit Authority) on board with connection to the impending rail service. I doubt we'd see the likes of Southwest moving down there, but I'm putting my money on 18-21 months before United is flying it.

Herbed Grilled Flatbread, for easy reference

Hey All,

So way back when, when I was young and ambitious, I used to read just about every periodical I could get my hands on regarding herbs, herbalism, aromatherapy, and all my other favorite complimentary therapies.

Among those, was a really simple recipe for Herbed Grilled Flatbread (The Herb Quarterly, Summer 2006, with my adaptations). It looks complicated, but trust me, I have yet to screw it up, so it can't be even remotely hard. So here we go:

1 package (which is 1 1/2 tsp from the jar) yeast
3/4 cup warm (I get the yeast where you can be quite hot...I prefer a hot to the touch water as the yeast perk up quicker and produce more yeasty flavors)
1 tsp sugar
2 cups flour
1 Tblsp fresh herbs. You can do it with dry, but cut that down to 1tsp then. Conventional wisdom is 1/3 the amount of dry herbs when a recipe calls for fresh.
1/4 tsp fennel seeds, lightly ground. You can skip the fennel seed, but I contend it makes this stuff taste the way it should.
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp (or a couple good cranks of your grinder) Black Pepper
1/4 cup olive oil, plus oil for brushing. USE OLIVE OIL! I've tried substituting other oils and it just doesn't taste right.

Activate the yeast by mixing the yeast, water, and sugar in a small dish.

Mix the flour, herbs, and salt together. Add the olive oil and mix. Then add the active yeast, bring the dough together and knead until smooth and elastic. Um, I'm not sure how else to describe this. If you've ever made good bread, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Its one of those you just know with experience. So if in doubt, you can overknead this recipe and it will be fine.

Coat the dough and let it rise for at least 1.5 hours until it doubles. Then divide the dough in half, and each of those halves into 3 pieces, so you have a total of 6. Roll these to 1/4" thick, coat with oil and grill on a low flame (or on the edges of the grill where it isn't so intensely hot), about 5-7 minutes per side. The big thing is don't burn them...

And Viola! Serve them warm, or if you must, wrap them up in foil or plastic wrap to keep them pliable.

One of my favorite things to do with this is a pita type affair with ground beef that has been seasoned beyond recognition with Mediterranean herbs, cucumber yogurt dill sauce, and salted/sugared onions.

Today, I'll be adding a bit of lavender (white grosso, so the flavor is quite subtle) to the bread and making my lavender-apple chicken. The chicken was this thing I made one evening in Wyoming when I wasn't sure what to do, so I let fancy be my muse. I think I talked about it in the post before this one. If you need a more formal recipe, be sure to comment or get hold of me and I'll provide some better guidance. On this one, we'll be doing caramelized onion with a sprinkle of bacon...YUM!

Summer Steaks, marinading ideas

Hey All,

So its springtime in SL,UT and very soon, once these clouds roll over us, it will be full on summer. That means its time for barbecues on the patio and lighter fare that doesn't involved an oven.

I wasn't planning on entertaining today, but alas, I found the bug. Been sitting on the porch drinking Wasatch's Jalepeno Cream Ale and enjoying the temperamental weather. Its been a great day of reconnecting with old friends, enjoying the geekery the Husbear and I share, and just enjoying life. My big projects at work are at least out of my hands for the moment, no audits are going on, and quite frankly it is nice just to sit here and look at the beautiful (although not complete) garden I've created.

So that's the jist of my personal life; let's talk food!

One of my favorite ways to prepare steaks for grilling is to marinade them in a vacuum sealed package. Tonight, I just sprinkled them with McCormick's Spicey Montreal Seasoning and then added about 4Tblsp. each of balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. I sealed that up (the sealing really helps the flavors penetrate) and we'll cook here in a few hours.

Really you can do almost anything with the half/half balsamic/Worc blend. Add a bit of sugar, tomato paste, and garlic and you've got a BBQ flavor. A bit of ginger, soy sauce, and cilantro and you've got a Thai BBQ flavor. The possibilities are literally endless.

I'm going to roll a bit of sushi to go with it for a nice summer dinner. Friends are bringing snacks and salads, so it should be a good meal. And I should mention if you are doing a dinner and plan sushi as an appetizer, make sure your guests know that. I exhausted myself a few weeks ago with a dinner where sushi was supposed to be the appetizer but it ended up being the main course.

Another favorite I'm going to bring out this summer is my lavender apple chicken. Its another sealed up marinade you might like to try. Take boneless chicken boobs with lavender, garlic, and a bit of sugar sprinkled liberally on them. Seal those up with a dose of 50/50 apple cider vinegar and sherry. Grill it and YUM!

So welcome summer and happy times with friends! Now, I'm gonna go nap a bit on account of high octane beer.

Oh, that public record thing....

Hey All,

So just to follow up so you aren't freaking out. That thing I couldn't talk about was an FDA General Compliance Audit at work. It went well, I think it posts in the public record in 30 days, so if you are into that sort of thing, knock yourself out.

And in other news, Blogger was down for maintenance last night, so you got to miss out on my opinions on an article about sushi I read a while back. One of my favorites, and last night's dinner selection was Simply Sushi Downtown. Yes, its all you can eat, yes, its pretty generic fare, nothing out of the ordinary, but guess what, THEY DO IT WELL! As a matter of fact, they ARE ONE OF THE BEST!

That is all, stay tuned for the weekend :)

Star of India.....lots of dining out

Hey All,

Its been a week of dining out, and doing it reasonably affordably. Dinner for two the past couple of nights hasn't exceeded $35, with tip, and yes, I usually tip at least $5 as a base.

Some stuff is going on that I'm not sure I can talk about in a public forum, well at least not until it becomes public record. No, no divorce, I'm not going to jail, or anything like that.... I'll explain once its over.

So last night we went to Star of India. My boss turned me onto this place when we were in the old location, as it was only a quick jaunt down the hill to have what he tells me is "real Indian food, not mislabeled Pakistani food". I'll have to trust him on that one, as up until moving to SLC, my exposure to Indian cuisine was minimal. Another one that gets high marks, although I haven't eaten there recently is Bombay Grill up in Ogden. We discovered this one on a lark, and my co-workers of Indian descent consider it to be the best...in fact one and his wife often schedule date nights to make the trek up there.

Ok, enough blather about that. I had shahi paneer and keema nan...YUM! I found this recipe over on Manjula's Kitchen. I've been a huge fan of hers for some time now, and finally get to link her :) So anyway, Star of India does theirs with almonds and a touch of raisin....delicious. The light sweetness of the dish went amazing with the Keema Nan. If you've never tried Star of India, I give it a high recommend for good food, afford-ability, and their awesome lunch buffet.

Tonight we wandered over to ESTE Pizza's Downtown Location. I'm not sure if I'm becoming picky or if I continue to be underwhelmed. Another coworker turned me onto this one, but I haven't found the same lust/desire/craving for it I do other places in the valley. Perhaps its that I'm not a huge Italian cuisine fan, save gnocchi, I think its the German and Irish blood in me; I simply adore dumplings of any sort. So not super high on my list, but not one that makes me run away in terror either....

This weekend we'll be hosting the "Mongolian Hoard"....ok, no, just quite a few friends for grilling. I'm also using this as an excuse to continue practicing sushi....not sure how much I'll document, but expect at least one or two pictures.