The strawberry-blueberry zucchini bread is not quite what I was expecting.
I think I'd cut the cinnamon in half, and that's unusual for me because I often wind up doubling cinnamon from what recipes call for. The berries are pretty much drowned out by the cinnamon. However, this was the first one that I couldn't taste the zucchini at all. I think the cinnamon masks the cucurbitacin.
Adding the blueberries probably contributed to having too much moisture, the blueberries seems to burst in the oven and the area right around any of the fruit looks a bit like raw dough. (I don't think it is really raw, the internal temperature was 205 when I took it out, the total baking time was 20 minutes more than what the recipe called for.) The pictures on the site I got the recipe from has a bit of that, too.
It just calls for a loaf pan, it doesn't say what size. I used a 9x5, I don't think it would have fit in a smaller one. It sort of collapsed a bit as it cooled and more after being removed from the pan.
https://www.thefoodhussy.com/strawberry-zucchini-bread/
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I do not usually bake 100% wholegrain breads, although I do have a couple of recipes that I like. My breads are usually 60 % wholegrain or sometimes 75%. After mixing the wet ingredients (except for the oil!), I add all the wholegrain flour, and sometimes some of the bread flour. I mix, then let it rest for 15 minutes, so that the wholegrain flours absorb the liquid. I mix the salt with the rest of the bread flour. If it is a new recipe, I hold back part of the bread flour initially. I might at this point change to the dough spiral. After mixing in the flour on speed 2, I slowly add the oil while the mixer is running.
Like Mike, I have discovered that I need to let the mixer knead longer than the stated time, especially with bread flour, and I use the third speed on my Cuisinart for kneading, although the instructions with the machine said second speed. I usually check after 6 minutes, then give it more time to get to where I can pull a windowpane.
Can you turn the bin on its side, Len? That's what we had to do to help out a juvenile raccoon that was in our garbage bin, although at least ours was empty.
We have found that our bins (trash and recycling) and the neighbor's two bins that are next to it, need to be set up so that the raccoons cannot stand on one side to flip the lids up to get inside the bin next to it. I hope the raccoon gets out.
This is a first for me. Where I live it's not uncommon to see raccoons, skunks, coyotes etc. Yesterday afternoon I opened my garbage bin (it's a plastic tote on wheels with a hinged lid, provided by the garbage company) and saw a raccoon in it. I was hoping it would leave overnight but no, it is still in there. Apparently the inside of the bin is too slick to get a grip on and there are not enough trash bags in there to give it the height it needs to crawl out. So I opened the lid and dropped in a wood post so it has something it can climb up on. Hopefully it leaves this evening.
Thanks for the cookie suggestion Mike. I found (using the search button) that my grocery store does carry the Goya Maria Cookies, although perhaps not the chocolate version. I'll look for them next time I shop. The chocolate cookies I baked from scratch worked find in the icebox cake, but I was hoping this "cake" would be a quickie that required no baking and little time investment.
According to the WSJ, domestic sugar supplies are below average, and USA requirements that 85% of sugar be produced domestically means candy makers and others can't purchase sugar from other countries.
This is likely to affect Halloween and holiday candy prices. (What doesn't affect them?) :sigh:
Today's blueberry zucchini bread is very good, but rather crumbly. Not sure what would make it less crumbly. (The Internet says less oil or less leavening. It only uses a half-cup of oil but 2 teaspoons of baking powder, maybe next time I'll cut that down to 1 tsp.)
If you have a grocery store that has a good sized ethnic foods section, Goya Chocolate Maria Cookies might work for that recipe. I've seen other Goya products in local stores here, though I haven't specifically looked for these. We have a significant Hispanic population and several stores that cater to them. They're also available online.
I just took a buttermilk blueberry zucchini bread out of the oven, I took it to 205 degrees, about 10 minutes longer than the recipe called for. Smells good, but it will be a few minutes before I can remove it from the pan and then it still has to cool enough to slice.
I'm probably doing a strawberry zucchini bread next, and then probably the one with the chocolate chips in it.
I picked 2 more medium zucchini (12/20 ounces) today so I've got plenty of zucchini to work with.
I read an article online recently (probably WSJ) saying that there haven't been many fireflies come out yet, across the nation, due to the hot dry weather.
Well, after 3 weeks of nearly daily rain, I saw a few fireflies tonight, so maybe they're just late here.
The pizza is all gone, BA. 🙂
The chicken is pretty bland so it just kind of blends in. I used a (from frozen) chicken breast because I was out of sausage. But the chicken was perfect to use with the shrimp as I wanted the shrimp to be the main flavor component. Sausage would have competed with the flavor of the shrimp. Although it's not real common, it's not unusual to see shrimp offered on thin crust pizza in the independent pizza shops in Chicagoland. That is how I discovered it (as a kid) and obtained a taste for it. They usually use the tiny shrimp.
I think tonight is going to be a burger with mashed potato and a vegetable.
I shredded about two pounds of zucchini from the garden and used about half of it to make a chocolate buttermilk zucchini cake:
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/buttermilk-chocolate-zucchini-cake/
The only change I made to the recipe was instead of sprinkling a half cup to a cup of chocolate chips on top, I mixed a cup and a half of chocolate chips into the batter.
My neighbor's youngest son is seriously interested in a career in agriculture and has been raising chickens and ducks in his back yard. He brought me a dozen eggs the other day in return for a big stack of egg cartons. (We have dozens of them in the garage.) I'm going to take him a big chunk of the cake, since it has 3 of his eggs in it.
Sigh. Like Navlys, I know they are not good for me (saturated fat content), but I do miss them, and would not mind just one good hot dog one of these days, although if I had to choose between a splurge on a hot dog and a splurge on a brat, the brat would win.
One of my favorite foods is a hot dog roasted (somewhat charred) over an open fire. With plenty of spicy mustard, of course!
Today is National Hot Dog Day.
The first head of broccoli has started forming, but it has black spots on it, probably mold from the extremely wet weather the last few weeks. I'm not sure I'll be able to salvage any of it. I'm probably going to cut that head off tomorrow.
The other plants (I planted 6) aren't forming heads yet.
