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Showing posts from August, 2018

Favorite Zucchini Bread Recipe

A great way to use up zucchini is to bake a couple loaves of zucchini bread. I have stored several containers of grated zucchini in the freezer so that I can make more of this bread over the next few months.  Once baked, this zucchini bread also stores well in the freezer. The recipe originally came from Jane Brody's Good Food Book , but I've made a few alterations over the years to produce a more moist loaf. Favorite Zucchini Bread Ingredients 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour 1 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons cinnamon 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 4 eggs 3/4 cup canola oil 3 cups grated zucchini 2 teaspoons vanilla 1 cup chopped walnuts Directions Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray canola oil on the entire insides of two 9x5x3 inch loaf pans. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients until well combined.  Add walnuts. Set aside. In a separate

Stocking the Root Cellar and Freezer

In keeping with the desire to build a homestead, one of the goals this year was to put in a large enough garden that we would be able to stock our root cellar and freezer with our own home-grown produce .  The shelving that lines the walls caught my attention when we bought this old house and the dream began. It took considerable effort to clean out the cellar, including sweeping out years of cobwebs, removing boxes of junk left in there by the former owners, and scrubbing the floors and shelving.   I'm pleased with our progress in restoring this home's cellar to its intended purpose.  Jars of home canned produce are now beginning to take up storage in there. So far, I've canned green beans, beets, applesauce, a variety of different types of pickles, and zucchini relish . The apples on our old apple tree just ripened and so there will be lots more applesauce coming to the shelves soon. The beets are also still going. I've canned both plain beets and pickled beets

Preserving Summer's Bounty

The garden has been producing very well.  We've been harvesting zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, beets, kale, herbs, rhubarb, and green beans.  It seems a good time to share a few photos. This is the first year that we tried making pickles.  We also made zucchini relish using a recipe my sister, Cathy, shared.  So yummy! We also managed to put up a few jars of green beans and beets. The garden is only part-way done on those two, so there will be more jars to can. Barney the barn cat has visited us as we've gathered vegetables for dinner.  He likes to follow us up and down the garden paths and beg for attention. The sunflowers have grown about 8 feet tall.  Their heads are so heavy that they are starting to droop a little.  I'm debating whether to let the birds have the seeds or to try to dry them for eating.  I'm not sure what's involved in doing that - a bit of research will be required soon. This weekend, we realized the zucchini had g