2013 - Week 35

Hello from Week 35. As I mentioned last week, my task at the moment is house hunting, which is pretty much a 24/7 job, so I most definitely got my five hours in this week. We started going to open houses and showings, so we're getting a good idea of what it is we are looking for :) This is all very exciting, but kind of stressful too . . . we're just trying to remember that it's all in the Lord's hands and it will work out when it's supposed to.

So besides all of that, I've been keeping active using the Fit Sugar ten minute workouts. I really like them, because ten minutes seems doable, no matter what the workout is, plus, they actually work and are really encouraging (I've done this one a couple of times and liked it). There have been a few that I haven't really liked, but I would recommend them to anyone looking for something quick and effective to do at home. I also did some Wii Fit exercises because my second Wii-mote had some corrosion issues so I can't play the boxing game until it is fixed or replaced :( Oh well, it's good to switch things up every once and a while.

Now, just so you don't think it's been all work and no play, I have three tasty recipes to share with you. Instead of getting a CSA box this year, we've been visiting our local farmer's market every weekend and spending the amount of money that we would have spent on the CSA box. It's been a good method because we can get things that we know are fresh but that we are in the mood for eating too (last year we had an over abundance of beets). Patty pan squash has been a recent find that I had never used before. I've just been chopping it into small cubes, sauteing it in some butter and serving it with a little brown sugar on top . . . yum :) I did a similar treatment to some radishes except added garlic salt, fresh ground pepper, and some minced red onion while cooking (and omitted the brown sugar of course) and they were actually pretty good. They smelled a little funky the next day, but I think that was just the radish smell coming out, and they tasted fine.

I finally got around to taking care of that giant zucchini too. I made a double batch of zucchini pancakes and four loaves of zucchini bread, and I think I still have enough left to make a least another two loaves . . . that was one giant zucchini :)

For the zucchini pancakes, I found that I needed to keep adding flour as the mixture sat because it got more runny as the moisture in the zucchini came out into the batter. Also, adding that much butter and olive oil every time was just excessive . . . I ended up just adding a little bit of olive oil after the first few batches and then eliminating it altogether because I was using a non-stick pan. I highly recommend serving them when diced fresh tomatoes on top . . . I don't know where the inspiration came from to do that, but it was fantastic. Red onions and Parmesan cheese were pretty good toppings too, but just the tomatoes with a little bit of onion was my favorite.

Zucchini Pancakes

The zucchini bread recipe is definitely a keeper. I tried it with walnuts and another batch with chocolate chips instead. I think my next batch might have both in it. The bread got an almost strudel-like crust on top and it was so moist. I would like to substitute some applesauce for half of the cup of oil (because I don't like using that much oil at one time) but I didn't have any applesauce that the time. At any rate, go get some of those zucchini that are so abundant at this time of year and make some of this bread . . . you won't regret it :)

See you next week :)