Zucchini Humus!

Before school broke for summer, a colleague gave me a recipe for zucchini humus. Last night, I had a taste for falafel, so I decided to give it a go. First thing you do is peel and chop a zucchini.
Pour a tablespood olive oil in a pan, sautee some garlic and the zucchini until it's soft.

Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons tahini, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon paprika and 1/2 teaspoon salt. The original recipe called for pinto beans, but that was just odd, so I added a cup of garbonzo beans instead.

Then....technically, you're supposed to put it in a food processor and blend the heck out of it - but I don't have one so I used a mixture of a potato masher and my hand mixer.

It surely didn't have that smooth texture, but it was still very, very, very good. The spices were the perfect blend. the zucchini doesn't give it any additional taste, but it's a good addition none the less and it got zucchini out of the fridge which is always a bonus. I doubled the recipe when I made it, so I've got some left over for pita chips. Yummy!

My friend from the spinach leaf problem post, "Auntie Daddy" as the kids call her, came over for dinner and good times.

So glad she could make it!

For dessert, we all went out back and picked some blackberries from the surprise bush that's coming over the fence.

The girl and I spotted a squirrel eating some off the bush this morning. She was amazed. She also stated that the garden was not a garden because it didn't include flowers and if it was HER garden she'd have flowers...so after we dropped off the boy at baseball camp we went to fetch her those flowers. We'll post pictures of those tomorrow.

The morning comes early. Sweet zucchini humus dreams!

Finders Doesn't Always Equal Keepers

One of my summer projects is cleaning out the playroom. The kids have so many toys that they've just outgrown - the boy moreso than the girl. Yesterday, the girl and I cleaned out about a third of the playroom and today, after dropping the boy off at the ball field for camp, we took some things to the Goodwill. While we were there, I thought to head in and let her spend some of her veggie stand money.

She found a wonderful rocking baby crib that she is just in love with. She played with it all day which is worth the price. She also found two books - one Little Mermaid and the other a Snow White. Score!

Walking down the aisle to the books, I happened upon this bandana skirt which I think will be just adorable with a white shirt and a jean jacket for school. Score for me as well!

Finding surprises when you're not looking for them is not always pleasureable, however. Look what we found in the parsley this afternoon.

They were so hard to get off of the stems and the texture of the stickyness just totally whigged (sp?) me out. Any idea what they are? The girl says they're "disgus-thing." I'm inclined to agree. One kept popping up orange horn like things every so often. Creepy!

The zucchini and squash is struggling right about now. Inspite of all of the bees doing their jobs, they are either not pollinating or the bugs are just prooving too much for the plants. I pulled three of them today that didn't look like they were able to put out any more viable veggies. They've been in the ground since March, so I can't complain. I've got about 7-8 small 2 cup bags in the freezer and some more in the fridge. There are several plants still out there so I think I'll still be happy with the season's output.

The morning comes early. Hope you find better things in your dreams than these caterpillars. YUCK! Man! Do I even eat any more of the parsley or just rip it out? I can't stand it!! Eeewwww!

Time to Make the Cupcakes

Is it Chicken Little who always shouted that the sky was falling or was Chicken Little the one who kept asking people if they'd help her bake the bread? Whatever character it is, I felt like the latter yesterday. For days I had been promising the kids to make "Muzzini Cupcakes" (aka Zucchini - the girl can't say zucchini). The days got away from us as they are prone to do and we never got around to it. Finally the kids prostrated themselves on the ground and begged. No problem. We had time. I gathered all of the ingredients for Granny's chocolate zucchini cake and went to find the kids to help.

The girl was playing on the couch. "[Girl]," I said. "Come help with the cupcakes." "No thank you, Mommy." she replied, "You're a big girl. You can figure it out." I moved on to Thing 2 who was playing Legos in the dining room and in the zone. I didn't even bother asking as he wouldn't acknowledge me when in that state anyway.

It left me alone with the cupcakes...and the cupcake batter! SCORE!

They turned out excellently. Granny's recipe is fantastic. Click on the 101 zucchini recipes link to the right to see it. I added some more on there the other day also.

So, whereas I did make them myself, everyone shared in eating them and you can't go wrong with that.

They each had three right then and there for lunch and then another for dessert after dinner. I'm going to try to make a few batches so I can freeze them for the year. It's what we did last year and it worked out very well.

Here's the harvest for today. I'm thrilled the beans are starting to come in - it's good to have some variety.

Lastly, things have been quiet for a while on the Keychains for a Cause front for a while. We've gotten a few orders here and there, but nothing big for about a week until Sunday when I was contacted about making some lanyards for an administrative meeting. I used the thinner, but smoother webbing and the requested hot pink satin ribbon. They came out very nice!

They look better with the smaller 5/8 ribbon so the black shows, but the 7/8 ribbon will still fit. I don't really want to use the wider 1.25 inch webbing as it's a bit coarser and wouldn't feel good on the back of the neck. I delivered them today and they were thrilled with the sturdy webbing - so much nicer than the string lanyards that bunch up and look like dirty shoe laces. I'm thinking about putting them on the website as well to complement the keychains - thoughts?

Summer Lovin'

When EG came to visit last month, we just had to build something. The kids were adamant that we build marshmallow guns. The process was made infinetly easier by me buying the wrong parts, so they didn't work so well while EG was here, but a few nips, tucks and glued bits made them work much better now.

I came home from graduation practice the other night to find everyone outside shooting each other with marshmallows. Here's the boy completely unaware that his father has him fuzzy eyeballed. The marshmallow hit him right on the forehead.

As all good fathers do, under the guise of, "Here, let me fix that," the man comandeered both weapons and sent the kids scattering for ammunition to throw back by hand.

Next I knew, the girl ran in the house and got the man his own bag of marshmallows so they could team up on the boy.

She, most certainly, needed a bath when they were done.
Thus, summer began.

Side note: went out to the garden this morning and realized the zucchini was giving up the ghost. I got to thinking about Kate and Crew and her Garden Blogger's Death Day. It seems like she's not blogging anymore and I miss her wry sense of humor. Do you think she'd mind if we resurrected it?

Gotcha!

Assassin Bug: 1
Cucumber Beetle: 0

Nature at its finest.

Progress!

I must say, this year I've seen more squash bugs and vine borrer moths than I've ever seen before. I just can't seem to keep up with them, they're that abundant. We'll do what we can while we can, but I honestly think that even though I feel overrun now, by the time they make an impact, I'll be ready to see the plants go by the wayside anyway.

The bees, however, are a more than welcome sight in the garden. They've been around for the last week or so which has let me stop hand pollinating. This one is so laden with pollin himself that he had trouble flying out of the flower
The beans are coming in everywhere! I wish they froze better than they do, but we'll have some good eating for a while with them and the rest can go for a veggie stand for the boy.

In my pictures yesterday I neglected to show the side yard. Here are the cherokee purple and brandywine plants, both of which have some small toms, but they're the cracked huge kids. The brandywine look much better than they ever did last year so I'm hopeful!

Here's the zucchini take today. I also got a couple eggplant and the first cucumber! Woohoo!!

These can't fit in the veggie bin of the fridge, so I'll be cutting and freezing them. Do they NEED to be blanched first or can I just cut them up and shove them in the freezer?

The One That Got Away

Ever look at a semi dinky zucchini and say, "Eh, I'll give that one more day"?
Then, when you go out there in the heat of the day when all of the plants are wilted to the ground and you can finally see beneath the leaves you realize you must have said that statement many times in the last few days.

I've never, ever seen anything grow as fast as squash/zucchini. I just pulled a hoard like this Monday night. Looks like we'll be roasting veggies tonight!