Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Do you have baseball bat zucchini and don't know what to do with them? I have the perfect sinful recipe for you to use up all that zucchini. Who doesn't like Chocolate cake? I LOVE it. I think this recipe really brings out the amazingness of zucchini! The cake turns out so moist and dense. If you peel the zucchini first, your family will never even notice!

1/4 margarine or butter

1/2 cup oil

1 3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vailla

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 cup shredded zucchini

2 1/2 cups flour

4 TBSP cocoa

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

In your mixer, whether it be Kitchenaid or Bosch, cream the butter, oil and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time and make sure that the mixture is well blended. It should look nice and creamy. Add the buttermilk slowly to this mixture. Add the zucchini and the dry ingredients all at once and mix thoroughly. Pour into a greased/sprayed with PAM 9/13 pan. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes. Sprinkle with chocolate chips(optional).

TAKING LEMONS AND MAKING LEMONADE-Salsa style

WHAT A WEEK! My garden is really producing so I am trying to keep up with it. I have been drying zucchini like a mad women and trying to save up my black berries so I can make jam. Unfortunately my puppy also really likes blackberries so I don't think I will win that battle. BUT the real kicker are the enormous amounts of tomatoes that I am getting this year!

I decided to buy my plants this year from a neighbor who had a green house in his back yard. I have heard so many good things about him, I was really excited to get my produce plants from him. I got zucchini, bell peppers, cucumbers (or so I thought) and tomatoes. I wanted to get a couple of varieties of tomatoes so I asked for 4 plants of cherry tomatoes, 4 plants of better boy tomatoes, and 4 plants of moscavich (sp) tomatoes. The Moscavich tomatoes are supposed to be an early producing tomato and the better boy were supposed to come in later. Unfortunately I didn't get what I ordered from him. I don't know if he just got them confused while they were in his green house or if he got the seeds mixed up, I am not sure, but I got grape tomatoes instead of better boys. I was not very happy at first when I found out because I had big plans for canning tomatoes this year but I have decided to "Take my lemons and turn them into LEMONADE".

I collected all of my small tomatoes and decided that I would try to make salsa out of them. I did have some big ones since I still have 3 big tomato plants but most of the 5 quarts were small tomatoes. I really didn't know what I was getting myself into when I started this project but maybe I can give you a glimpse into the tedious work involved in making salsa.

The first thing you have to do when canning tomatoes is you have to blanch them and peel off the skin. I don't know what you are picturing but right now I just see the nightmares that haunted me all night last night, PEELING 4 QUARTS OF CHERRY AND GRAPE TOMATOES!!!!! It was a tedious task for sure. I decided to blanch them all at once so I could just sit down and peel them. I put a movie in and sat there and peeled. It took me a whole hour! I am not even exaggerating.

After this tedious task was done (believe me, I was glad it was done), I went forward with chopping veggies. I started with green peppers which was super easy then jalapenos. I learned my lesson from last year and put on gloves. The next veggie to cut were the onions. I had such a hard time last year cutting onions, I was weeping the whole time. This year I found some protective glasses my husband had in the garage and put them on and it worked like a charm, I didn't cry once, woot! Then I did the celery, added all of the seasoning and let it simmer. I got my recipe from "The Ward Cookbook, Mom's Best Recipes". I used this recipe last year and I absolutely loved it so I think it is going to be my go to recipe from now on. In the recipe it said to let the salsa simmer for 1 hour but I got really side tracked...

I decided to take our new puppy for a walk during that hour. This alone is a huge feat not to mention I took my 2 year old with me. My husband was still working so I didn't have the option of making him come or watch the child. Let's just say that I ended up with the child on my shoulders and the puppy in my arms. It was a hot day so the puppy (who is a black lab) was very stubborn and hot and wouldn't move. It was quite an adventure. Needless to say, I didn't make it back in time to get the water bath going and the jars washed and sterilized before the hour was up. The mixture simmered for 2 hours instead. OH WELL.

I got it all done though and while the jars were in the water bath processing for 15 minutes I was able to mow the lawn (also a huge feat with the 2 year old and the puppy) but, I GOT IT ALL DONE! I was exhausted! The rest of the night I just laid on my bed and indulged in watching Friends and folding laundry.

I know what you are thinking...and I AM crazy. I can now feel good about spending time on my blog today. I hope I can get something done today, I am planning on making zucchini chocolate cake for the neighborhood party today. Wish me luck.

Canning Machine!

Canning...seems like an intimidating word but it really easy. It also cuts down on having to buy canned fruit which can get really pricey. I also really love that I can control how much sugar goes into each jar which is more than I can say for the canned stuff.

I started my week by going to my favorite local fruit stand, ALLREDS. I love these guys because their fruit is always good quality and I can get a box of seconds for $6. I know what you are thinking, how is that possible but they are usually the peaches that are bruised and sometimes under ripe, but no matter what the shape the peaches are in they are always juicy and delicious. I have no qualms with canning slightly bruised fruit.

My cute husband has been watching Allreds for the last 2 weeks waiting to tell me when they open and they finally opened so I zipped over there. The only peaches they had available were the which don't really make great canning peaches but I wanted to get a head start this season so I am not doing all of my canning after I have started teaching again. I bought 2 boxes of fruit and then I went to my favorite grocery store BUY LOW and got all of the fixins for salsa (since this was also in my week plan). While I was at BUY LOW they had a great sale on their pears so I

decided to get a bunch of pears to can as well (I know...ambitious!) I got home and got out my big canning pot because it usually takes the longest to get going. I filled it with the correct amount of water and got it on the stove to start boiling.

I then got the other pots boiling, one to blanch the peaches, one for boiling water to add to the peaches in the jars.

Blanching the peaches is an art because you can't leave them in the pot too long because if you do then the fruit starts to cook and goes all m

ushy. I had this problem a while back and I didn't get a very good batch. This time I was very careful. I blanched the peaches and then I peeled them. I then put them into the Jars which I had previously washed and had in the oven at 225 so they could be sanitary and warm (if they aren't warm they will break in the water bath). When the jars were full of peaches I added 1/4 cup of sugar and enough water to fill the jars til they are 1/4 inch from the top. I put on the lids and then put them into the water bath for 25 minutes.

I have had many bad batches where none of the jars seal but I was super happy that this time I was able to get all 21 jars sealed! Yeah!

The same day I decided that the pears needed to be done before they got too ripe. Pears are tricky because you don't want them too green but you don't want them ripe either. If they are too green they aren't sweet enough but if they are too ripe then you just get a mushy mess. The

pears that I got were on the verge of being too ripe so even though I was super tired from doing the peaches I decided to just get the pears done! (It helped the my husband wasn't home from work yet and my daughter fed herself pizza).

I started by blanching the pears. I was very careful that I didn't leave them in too long because pears will go mushy and you can't can them. Then I put them into jars in quarters. I added some fruit fresh so they wouldn't go brown. (I didn't do this last year and my pears went brown, they still tasted good, but just didn't look as pretty in the jar.) I only put 1/8 of a cup of sugar into the pears because I added the fruit fresh powder and just I processed them in the water bath for 25 minutes also.

In total I got 10 jars of pears and 21 jars of peaches. All in all I think it was a productive day!

Buttermilk Biscuits

I just love this recipe. It is so easy! I was so exhausted from my crazy week at Trek that I was super lazy yesterday and didn't want to do a lot in the kitchen, so I decided to take some of my precooked chicken in my freezer and put it into the crock pot with a can of Cranberry sauce. I got some potatoes, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash and green pepper from my garden and made roasted veggies in the oven (it sounds like a lot of work but it is really easy to just throw it in and let it bake). I also wanted to make some rolls but I ended up just making these super delicious biscuits instead and they turned out so well. The best part about them is that the next morning we were able to have egg sandwiches!

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup shortening

3/4 cup buttermilk (you can use sour milk also but I just happened to have some buttermilk in my fridge which ultimately is why I chose to do this recipe yesterday)

Combine all dry ingredients into a large bowl. With a pastry cutter, cut the shortening into the dry mix. Add the butter milk and knead for about 5 minutes to make sure they are super fluffy! Roll the dough out and use a cup or a round cutter and cut out the biscuits. Cook at 450 for 8-10 minutes.

I read somewhere that if you put extra buttermilk on the top of the biscuits that they crisp up a little bit better but I didn't try this, maybe next time.