Zapplesauce

After receiving some giant zucchini from Nana's garden last summer, I found this recipe to turn zucchini into apple.  It isn't magic, but it feels like it!  Cook the sliced zucchini in a bit of lemon juice, add some sugar and cinnamon and you have yourself what tastes like apple!  I used it in an "apple crisp" and completely fooled my husband, who hates zucchini.  We called it "deceitful crisp."

So this year, after another crop of zucchini, I had a grand idea - if I can use zucchini in pies and crisps like apples, why not sauce?  It works!  Use the same cooking method, and then blend it smooth.  Done and delicious.  It uses up a lot of zucchini all at once, and the zucchini-haters have no idea.

And in case you are wondering, I am on track for finishing my 100 recipes in the year!  77 recipes as of today, so only two each week for the rest of the year to get it done.

Recipe 25: French Toast Churros

I found this recipe for French Toast Roll-Ups on The Girl Who Ate Everything.  And it was delicious - like fruit filled churros, leave a smile on your face, go back for more, yummy.  Here's the recipe off the website:

• 8 slices white sandwich bread  *(make sure it is soft, or it will fall apart)
• softened cream cheese, diced strawberries, or Nutella
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon
• butter, for greasing the pan

1. Cut the crust from each slice of bread and flatten it out with a rolling pin.
2. Place about 1-2 teaspoons of your chosen filling 1 inch from one end of the bread in a strip. Roll the bread up tightly and repeat with the remaining pieces of bread. 
3. In a shallow bowl whisk the eggs and milk until well combined.
4. In a separate shallow bowl mix the sugar with the cinnamon.
5. Heat a skillet set over medium heat and melt a tablespoon of butter.
6. Dip each bread roll in the egg mixture coating well and then place them in the pan seam side down. Cook in batches until golden brown, turning them to cook and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes per side. Add butter to the pan as needed.
7. Put cooked rolls immediately from the pan to the cinnamon sugar and roll until completely covered in sugar. You can serve with syrup for dipping but I think they're perfectly good all by themselves.

I followed her "inspired by" link and they had more suggestions for fillings - peanut butter, jelly, dulce de leche, marshmallow fluff, any kind of fruit, preserves.  I made some with jelly and some with bananas.  Yum.  I didn't dredge in cinnamon, just sprinkled, and that was plenty.  

I dipped the crust trimmings into the egg and cooked those up too.  They were like French toast French fries .. toast fries?  Appropriate to go with the "churros" - like carnival food.  Definitely a treat.


*Half way through March and already at 25 new recipes?  I'm well on my way to 100 new recipes in a year!

Recipe 16: Sunshine Muffins

I've posted orange muffin recipes before: here and here.  But these are completely different from either of those.  A lot more dense, almost the texture of cornbread.  I got this recipe from Aaron's Granny's collection of recipes - I think he got his love of cooking from her.

Sunshine MuffinsPut in the blender:
  1 orange cut into eight pieces (yes, the whole thing)
  1/2 cup orange juice
  1 egg
  1/4 cup oil
Blend until smooth.  Then add:
  1 1/2 cups flour
  3/4 cup sugar
  1 tsp baking powder
  1 tsp baking soda
  1 tsp salt
Blend.
Add optional ingredients:
  1/2 cup raisins
  1/2 cup chopped nuts
Pour into muffin tins and bake at 375 for 15 minutes.
Makes a dozen large muffins.


And if you've been keeping track of my recipe count, I've skipped a few numbers.  I've done the recipes, just haven't done individual blog posts for them all.  But I've got a list of them all right here!

Recipes 2, 3 and 4: Sausage, Soup and Pears

Wednesday I made Potato and Sausage Bake.  Sound familiar?  That's because I found the recipe posted here on this very blog six years ago.  (My goodness people posted a lot that first month.)  Pretty tasty - similar to the potato packets Aaron likes to make on the barbecue.  Cupcake gobbled it up, except for the carrots and onions.  Aaron liked it alright, but we both thought it needed something to make it a main dish.  Maybe a mushroom sauce?

Today was a good day for soup.  Particularly this soup, Zuppa Toscana, like they make at Olive Garden.  I was able to chop up extra potatoes and cook up extra sausage yesterday so making the soup was even easier.  I didn't use the crockpot as suggested (because I don't have one!) so it was done in about an hour.  YUMMY.  It's warm and hearty and has lots of great textures.  I'd totally make it again.

And for dessert, I made some Maple Baked Pears.  Got the recipe in my email today and we just happened to have some pears (which we normally don't).  Why not?  Not something I'd make on a regular basis (I don't usually make dessert), but could be a quick "fancy" little dessert for company.

spinach and apple salad

Well, check me out! I told Adam recently that I was bored with the typical garden salad we were eating - leaf lettuce with chunks of tomato, bell pepper, onion, etc. with Italian vinaigrette. I even asked for fresh spinach to make salads with - how weird is that?!? (My sisters will tell you that it's very weird!) Anyway, this is the dressing Adam found to go on fresh spinach leaves and ... here's more weirdness - I don't normally like fruit in my salads but I liked this! My eating patterns just expanded a bit more. Crazy.

apple vinaigrette for spinach salad

Of note on the recipe:

1. This makes quite a bit of dressing, so you'll probably want to cut the recipe if you're feeding only a couple of people.

2. Adam cut the amount of apple cider vinegar in half (1/2 cup to 1/4 cup) and left the other amounts the same. I think if you put in the full amount of vinegar, that would be ... well, a lot!

3. He mixed it in the food processor so the apple and onion were pretty much mushed but there was still texture to it.

4. The salad is just the spinach leaves and the crumbled bacon. We did not use bacon because we didn't have any. Adam put in chunks of apple (mmm, Pink Lady apples). Next time, I will plan to use bacon because I'm curious about the mix of spinach, apples, and bacon.

banana cream pie from scratch

Number 40 was a banana cream pie from scratch. Last year, I got pretty turned off by the "banana cream pie" made from a box of vanilla instant pudding so I wanted to try it from scratch this year for Thanksgiving. I actually did this as a test-run a couple of weeks before for a couple of the missionaries who were transferring the next day. It turned out great! We're never going back to the boxed instant pudding junk for this!

Old fashioned banana cream pie

Some notes ...

1. The recipe says to scald the milk - I looked it up and basically, you heat the milk in a saucepan stirring constantly until just before it boils, and immediately remove it from the stove.

2. I mixed an entire banana mashed into the filling before pouring it over the sliced bananas in the crust. This was suggested in the comments, and it added to the banana flavor.

3. I put it in a regular pie crust. We think it would be better in a graham cracker crust.

4. If you have shallow pie plates, this makes enough filling for 2 pies.

date and apple squares

This is 5 for 50 ... the other cooking I've done in the past week or so has been stuff I've already made. I'll get a couple of those up as I have time.

1/2 cup margarine
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
4 tbl light corn syrup
2/3 cup chopped dates (I used the dried ones that are by the raisins and craisins at the store.)
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 apples peeled and grated
1-2 tsp lemon juice
walnuts - halves or chopped

1. Preheat oven to 375, line an 8x8 pan with foil.
2. On stove, heat margarine, sugar, and corn syrup. Stir until margarine is melted.
3. Add dates and cook until softened. Work in oats, flour, apples, lemon juice.
4. Put mixture in pan. Put walnuts over the top.
5. Bake for 30 min, then lower oven temp to 325 and cook for another 10 min. until firm.

The recipe is from our Cookie cookbook, but it turned out more like a cake. It was also very, very mild in flavor - I could taste the wheat more than the apples and dates, which seemed to completely dissolve. I thought it was a good breakfast food because it's pretty healthy and not too sweet.