Attack of the Zucchini

The zucchini are taking over. I've had to cut them back again and again because they're attacking the other plants. Every time I go out to the garden I find a zucchini that I missed the last time that has grown to the size of a small child. To make matters worse our friendly neighbor gave us some zucchini from his garden. Does anyone know how to store zucchini - you know the equivalent of canning tomatoes?

Tomorrow my mom is making zucchini cookies and I'm making a zucchini, squash and ricotta galette!

Do you know what comes along with zucchini? Zucchini flowers/blossoms. Lots of them. I've noticed that the fruit only grows at the base of the plant, but as you can see from past posts we have lots of vines(?) growing off in every which direction. And these my friends produce the male-non-fruit-bearing-flowers. Did you know you can eat the flowers? Did you know that they are DELICIOUS?

A few weekends ago I went crazy. I cook zucchini chocolate muffins (if you make these cut the cocoa in half and substitute half a cup of apple sauce for half a cup of oil - trust me), zucchini potato pancakes, and stuffed zucchini flowers.

I based it off of this recipe but to make it more of a meal I cooked up and threw in half a package of italian sausage. Let me tell you these were divine! If you're going to make these pick the flowers in the morning when they're perky and open (I didn't pick them until the afternoon when they were closed and shriveled and they were hard to stuff), then place them in water to keep them fresh.




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Too Good Not to Share

If it's true you are what you eat than my family will soon be summer squash. The zucchini and yellow squash have litterally taken over the garden. I had to cut a bunch back from covering my tomatoes and lettuce. While a lot of the branches are only producing flowers (which supposedly are delicious to eat too) we have a good amount of actual fruit (yes it's a fruit not a vegetable).

I have a lot of good green zucchini recipes - just last night I went crazy and made deep fried breaded zucchini and some yummy chocolate zucchini muffins. But I don't really have that many yellow squash recipes. So this morning I tried to look some up online. Then I said "the heck with it" and just made up my own. And let me tell you it's AMAZING.

Summer Squash and Potato Pancakes:

Ingredients:

1 medium squash shredded (don't peel)

1 medium potato shredded (you can peel but I didn't)

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c finely shredded cheese

chopped up green onion - maybe two tablespoons, I just did one stalk

salt, pepper, garlic

After shredding the potato and squash put them either in a clean dish towel or a fine mesh strainer and squeeze out as much water as possible. Mix everything together.

Heat a non-stick pan with some oil - use a good amount so it wont stick and so you'll get a nice brown - and spoon piles of the mixture in. Flatten slightly with your spatula, once they start to brown flip them and brown the other side. Place them on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 400 degree. You can probably skip the baking and just cook them longer in the pan but I had bacon cooking in the oven so it was just easier to keep them warm that way.

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Bon Appetit

Book Club #2 - Matched and Blue Plate

My second book club meeting was for the book Matched by Ally Condie.

After my first book club experience I was looking forward to discussing a book I actually liked (rather than seriously hated). This book has been compared to the Hunger Games - one of my all time favorite series. And I should have known - because I've done this before - that going into a book with high expectations is a mistake.

A side note: After seeing a tweet by the ever amazing Nina Badzin I'm going to try to be fair but not mean in my reviews. I don't think I mentioned this in the first post but if you're a writer, an aspiring writer, or dream of being a writer you really should follow Nina on twitter and subscribe to her blog.

On to the review. I don't know if it's because I read this with the thought that I will be discussing it for a book club in the back of my mind or if it really just wasn't up to my expectations but I felt extra critical of this book. Matched was slow. Very very slow. When I read a book I want to connect with my heroine and for the first 300 (out of 400) pages Cassia is dull; void of personality and character. I think a good author can build up the back story at the same time as she moves the plot along. IE I don't want 300 pages of back story and explanations. I found myself being easily distracted and having to go back and re-read paragraphs because while my eyes saw the words my mind didn't register the meaning. It just wasn't keeping my attention.

My second problem is that I don't consider myself well read. Yes I read a lot but I read a lot of fluff. And one of my literary pet peeves is when authors extensively use quotes and poetry that I recognize. There are so many amazing poems out there to choose from that when I see one in a book that I recognize I think the author was not motivated enough to search from something unknown and they took the easy way out. This stems from the fact that I don't usually recognize poetry quotes because of the actual poem but because they are quoted so often by others. Condie bases a large chunk of Matched on Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. Who doesn't recognize the words "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Thirdly, I think Condie just tried too hard. She has a habit of repeating a sentence twice. She would take Cassia's thoughts and try to turn them into poetry. I understand she wants Cassia to be a poet and passionate but it felt forced - particularly during those first 300 pages when Cassia had no passion or personality.

But this reviwe is not all bad. After the first 300 pages Condie had me falling in love with Cassia and Ky, and even Xander and her parents. Finally everyone had fire and passion and emotions that I can connect with. I admit to crying on Trax and almost missing my stop because I was so into the story. If only she could have written like that from page 1 or even page 100. And that's where I feel like this book falls short of Tanya's standard of literary greatness. I have high hopes for the next two books. Hopefully Condie can keep the momentum and fire alive and not revert to Society dullness.

The meeting itself was GREAT! I had my doubts after the first meeting which only lasted 45 minutes, had very little discussion, and terrible food. This time we met at Blue Plate. The family took me there after my confirmation earlier this year so I knew I liked it. I'm sorry the conversation was so good that I forgot pictures. I got the corned beef and hash with eggs. True to the waiter's words the corned beef is made in house with the breakfast potatoes as the hash. They add shredded cheader cheese - which is good but unnecessary and oily. Next time I'll get it with poached eggs sans cheese. The portion is huge and I'm excited to eat it for breakfast.

Next Tuesday we're meeting at Chapin Cafe and reading Room by Emma Donoghue. I plan to take notes as I read and write up a few questions that I hope encourage better discussions and analysis of the book. Why yes I am a nerd.

Synopsis:
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.


Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

Our Garden

You know how some people have green thumbs? They can make any thing grow? I seem to have the opposite effect, a black thumb... the black thumb of death... I look at a plant and it dies. Ask the poor African Violet my friends gave me. Ohh wait you can't he's DEAD.

Despite my handicap I decided to give growing a vegetable garden a try. The back of the yard was already set for one, with neat rows and wooden planks separating the rows. So while the naughties were gone my sister and I tackled our respective gardens. Utah received a ridiculous amount of rain and snow this year and so the weeds have been astronomical. Here are pictures of the garden before we started:

We rented a tiller from Home Depot and spent an entire Friday weeding and tilling and half killing ourselves getting both gardens weed-free and ready to be planted. Sorry I don't have an after picture - I could barely move and I had the worst sun burn of my life.

I took the advice of more seasoned gardeners and covered my newly tilled ground with black painters plastic to 1) cut down on weeding and 2) keep water from evaporating. I then cut holes and planted my tomato, onion, pepper, and chive starters and my zucchini and lettuce seeds. It snowed the next day and killed everything. BLACK THUMB OF DEATH!

With attempt two I used slightly more mature starters. I still lost some (including poor Peeta my pepper plant) and some came back to life after I was sure they were goners. In the end I have managed to not kill: 3 tomato plants, 4 pepper plants, 4 broccoli plants, one small row of lettuce, an unknown number of onions, basil, cilantro (which is doing some really weird things), mint, rosemary, and 5-6 zucchinis (best vegetable for beginners because they grow like weeds).

Here are pictures from June 8th right after I planted everything post-freeze:





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Tomatoes

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Peppers

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Onions

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Zucchini breaking out of it's seed

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See the tiny green specks? Lettuce

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Then on June 25th:

Broccoli

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Zucchini

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Lettuce

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Tomato

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And this past weekend (ignore the weeds they're gone now):



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That I do believe is zucchini



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Books And Brioche

Books and Food! The two loves of my life after my naughties (ok maybe tied with my naughties).

I found a book club through meetup.com after being inspired by one of Nina Badzin's recent post. I've always wanted to join a book club but have never really made the effort to find one. One of my biggest concerns was how opinionated I am... I have strong feelings about books and I don't think I should have to censor myself. My second concern is my choice of books. If you're my friend on GoodReads.com you know I have an ummm immature taste in books. I'm currently trying to remedy this by reading through Time's 100 novel's everyone should read list but over all I'm a young adults or urban fantasy addict.

Then I realized a book club would be great because of those two concerns. I like to be opinionated and my reviews on GoodReads.com isn't always enough to satisfy my need to opinion-ate. And what better way to expand my reading list then by reading books others have suggested.

So for this first book club meeting we read Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. 

I was a little apprehensive when I read the synopsis...

"This is a true story about a young woman during the French and Indian War who witnesses much of her family and village massacred and then is taken by Indians. With her two young sons, and a baby due any day, she travels hundreds of miles on horseback and foot to the Indian camp, then has to make a heart-wrenching decision - stay and marry an Indian, even as her two sons are taken away to another Indian camp, or leave her baby in the care of another Indian woman and travel on foot with nothing but a tomahawk and the clothes on her back back to her home and husband."

Wait what? Leave her kids? So she could go back to civilization and be with her husband? But I read it, and hated it because yes indeed she leaves her kids in the hands of the savages. Top that off with 200+ pages of walking through the woods, eating roots, and having diarrhea, the book was a huge fat bust in my opinion. This of course made me worried about the meeting because I STRONGLY hated the book and the main character. 

We meet yesterday at Stella's - which incidentally had TERRIBLE food - and it was a group of 6 other women. 3 who were regulars and 3 who were new like me. 

After ordering food, discussing the upcoming books and doing a little "tell me something about yourself" we get to the point where we discuss Follow the River. As it turns out it's one of the girl's FAVORITE book of all time. After she talks about why she loves it. Teardra the book club leader asks me what I like about it... Pause... "Nothing." Then I go on to explain and it turns out everyone else hated it too. Over all it was a lot of fun, the other girls were nice - even if they were a little condescending about my genres of choice.  The next meeting I'm going to is at Blue Plate (a restaurant that I love) and the book is Matched by Ally Condie, a book that I'm truly looking forward to.

And now the best part: Brioche. At 10:30 last night after book club I thought to myself "what would be better than chocolate brioche for breakfast?" So I dragged myself out of bed and made some dough. I followed this recipe loosely http://www.cookyourdream.com/2010/02/chocolate-brioche-and-monthly-mingle.html.

I was pretty worried because when I say loosely I mean, I used the right ingredients and proportions but didn't follow the instructions at all.

Still the results were fantastic! The only thing I'll do different next time is put more chocolate in the middle.

Happy Reading and Happy Baking!

Edamame and Cookie Cups

Happy Sunday everyone. We skipped church today since Naughty 1 still had a fever last night. No need to infect everyone else. Its too bad because the church was doing a fundraiser at the Incredible Pizza this afternoon and I was looking forward to taking the brats.

Ohh well next time. To make up for the missed funness I decided to bake up something neat for the naughties. I had seen on FoodGawkers earlier in the week where someone had made cookie cups and that sounded delicious and fun. And easy! Simply whip up (or purchase) your favorite cookie dough. Then press a good sized ball of dough into the wells of a well greased muffin tin. Bake according to your recipe. Let it cool and pop those suckers out. Once they've cook fill with candy. I was a little worried because the cookie dough puffed up during the cooking process and they were no longer cups, but once they cooled the middles dropped back down.

Midway through the cooking process I felt a little guilty about the impending sugar rush so I steamed up (read: microwaved)  some edamame. The naughties love edamame and ate it all up, even asking for a second helping. And I felt like a good mommy.





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Re-Interpreting My Perspective

NOTE: I wrote this up last Wednesday with the intention of posting it that night. Well that didn’t happen. Wednesday ended up being a L.O.N.G. day – 14.75 hours of work [yeah overtime], and of course I kept forgetting to email this to myself. So here it is a week late but just as true and just as meaningful.

It’s a new year. A new start. A new chance at new opportunities. And I for one want to start it off right.

I’ve decided that what I – and most everyone – needs is a new way to interpret my perspective. So here I go. Here was my day and thoughts from yesterday. The first part is my current old outlook on life and the bold italics is my new, ever improving outlook.

Alarm goes off at 5am. Ugg is it already time to wake up?

Wow I got 7 hours of sleep, in a nice warm, comfy bed, In MY safe, secure, beautiful house.

Off to the TRAX at 5:40 and it’s FREEZING outside. I always cringe when I first sit on the seats of the train because who knows what type of dirt is on those seats. I then get to walk the two blocks from the TRAX station to my office in the frigid temperatures.

Thank goodness that I have a job.

I think that’s worth saying again. THANK GOODNESS I HAVE A JOB. And that my office is close enough to TRAX that I can ride (for half price because my job subsidies the cost) and my parents can have the car. And thank goodness that the train is warm and the seats are cushioned and that I can relax and read and not have to deal with stupid Utah drivers before I start my day.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to give up the elevator and only take the stairs – not just that but the alarm on my computer is set to go off 4 times a day and when it goes off I go walk all the way down the 6 flights of stairs and all the way back up. And as always that first time climbing the stairs in the morning is killer and it feels like it’s hotter than Hades after being outside.

Thank goodness I have a job! (Are you tired of this one yet? Cause I’m not!)

And how great is it that I have a nice cushy job that’s inside a heated building with all the necessary amenities to make my life easier. How great is it that I’m healthy and whole and have the ability to walk up and down the stairs.

I take a moment to look over my credit card statement and cringe at the balance. I notice that the charge for my new glasses has come through. I’d forgotten how much they cost me even after the insurance and my HSA. I’m never going to be out of debt.

It’s a good think I have great insurance that covers my glasses or I’d have had to pay out double what I did pay. And even better that my employer offers me an HSA so I can pay for this pre-tax.

It’s year-end closing time which means tons of work! I can’t get anything done because people keep emailing, calling and stopping by asking me to do this or that. I ended up working 12 and a half hours. I’m tired and sore for sitting at the desk for 12.5 hours. I have a headache from staring at a computer screen and tiny little numbers for 12.5 hours. And ohh joy I get to walk back in the dark, in the cold, in downtown SLC, wait for my train and then sit on those dirty seats again.

How amazing is it that not only do I have a job – but that my job allows me to work overtime and earn time and a half pay! How blessed, lucky, spoiled am I that I don’t have to worry about who’s going to pick up the girls from daycare because I need to stay late at work. That I don’t ever have to worry about them being mistreated, not taken care of, or worse while I’m at work because I have the most amazing, selfless parents in the world, who love my kids. I don’t have to ever worry that they’re not being fed well, that they’re not clean or properly clothed. I know at all times they are loved and happy (even if they don’t realize it), and safe. How lucky am I that my parents provided me an amazing education that gave me the skills I need to do my job and do it well. How lucky am I that I have parents who taught me the benefits of working hard, of always trying my best, and doing what it takes to get the job done. Isn’t it wonderful that we live in a day and age where instead of having to write out our accounting records by hand on pieces of ledger paper that I can use a computer which does half the work for me.

I get home from work and the first thing I notice is the smell of fried food. Really MORE fried food?! After all that grease and oil on my sister's birthday just 2 days ago. My mom has made vegetable and fish tempura and some miso soup for dinner.

How amazing is my mom that she not only cooked dinner but that she waited to cook my portion of dinner so that it would be hot and fresh when I got home from work. How lucky am I that I have healthy, delicious, home cooked food to eat and plenty of it. How wonderful is my mom that she makes dinners that she knows I like, because let’s be honest, there’s no such thing as too much chocolate, cheese, garlic or fried foods! And I really enjoyed it once I started eating it!

This isn’t everything but it’s a start. How different would our world be is everyone took a few minutes to examine something from their day they thought was bad and find the good in it? How much happier would we all be? Obviously this doesn’t work with everything, there are some things that just plain suck but it’s also the small things that build up and push us over the edge. Leave a comment about something crappy in your day today and then your re-analysis of it. I hope everyone has a great week!