Showing posts with label zucchini. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zucchini. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Zucchini Carrot Cake

I love cooking with zucchini from my Dad's garden in the summer. This is a yummy cake I made last week:

Zucchini Carrot Cake
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup shredded carrots

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients. Add oil, eggs, vanilla; mix well. Fold in zucchini and carrots. Pour into greased 9x13 pan and bake for 45 minutes. when cool, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Cream butter and cream cheese. Add powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until smooth. Fold in nuts.

I love this cake. The icing is so good I could eat it with a spoon. Phoebe liked it too, minus the nuts. I think I might make it as muffins the next time.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Bikini Bread and other ramblings

Dad has zucchini ready in his garden now. I love zucchini from his garden. Love. It. Today I made zucchini bread with chocolate chips (with chocolate chips because I was dying for chocolate). Phoebe helped and told everyone she was making Bikini Bread. Not suitably named because you can't wear a bikini after eating two loaves of it like I am going to do. (Recipe from Paula Deen here.)


To update you on weird things found in my fridge, I found a Lego today along with a tomato with a bite out of it. The other day I found a diver "guy". The trend of toys found in the fridge leads me to believe the culprit is Owen. (The tomato incident though has Phoebe written all over it.)


(BTW, the pink stuff in the pitcher in the pic above is my Crystal Light raspberry lemonade that I totally love this summer.)




Chloe and I got our hair cut yesterday. I like hers a lot. Mine, not so much. It's the first time Chloe has ever had bangs in her life. They are long side bangs and she got some layers around her face, and about an inch cut off the length.

And finally, six years ago right now I found myself in the hospital ready to give birth to my baby boy, Owen. Chloe and I had been at the pool all day with my friend Mindy and her daughter Camryn. That was back in the day when we only had one girl each. Those girls would swim for hours and we'd kick back and gossip the afternoons away. That day was very hot and the pool was busy and rowdy. All day I told Mindy I was having contractions. It was June 25th and my due date was July 7th. I knew I was in labor. I oddly didn't panic. I knew it would take forever to have him, as it did Chloe. So we swam. When we were about to go a lady asked if she could have my chair. After I rolled myself out of it, I said sure we were leaving. She said I looked like I was about to have the baby any day. Why yes, I was. I told her I thought that day was the day.

I went home, took laundry off the line, cooked dinner, and got Chloe ready to go to my parents. I told Danny we would be going to the hospital but he stayed on the computer and took his time reading whatever it was he was reading while I scurried around. So that evening we finally made it to the hospital. I was dilated to 3 or 4 (I can't remember which now). The dr. on call sent me for an ultrasound and thought the baby was big (he wasn't, but bigger than Chloe who I barely had)and we should go ahead and do a c-section. I was worried about that because I didn't have one with Chloe. He called my dr. and my dr. said to wait until morning and he'd come in. They gave me cervidil and a sleeping pill. By morning I was ready to have Owen. I pushed for 2 hours and nothing. They were thinking I'd need a c-section so they gave me an epidural. I hadn't ever had one before and found it blissful. Finally after much drama that I won't bore you with, they wheeled me in for a c-section. He was facing up, instead of down like he should have been to be born, and he had a big cone head from being stuck so long. My first boy (as he likes to call himself) was born on June 26, 2003 at 5:37 pm. He was 7 pounds 9.4 ounces and 19 3/4 inches long.






What a joy he was then, and now.