Spare Time

Those of you who are mothers know that spare time is short and from what I'm learning, comes as a surprise.  Since my last post, my family has grown by 2.  Yep, that's right...2.  On June 4, we welcomed these two littles into the world and my how our lives have changed.

This morning, after their 6am feeding, I was surprised with some spare time because they chose to sleep.  Not only was I able to shower, but I managed to whip up a recipe of this Blueberry Zucchini Bread.  I found this recipe in my electric company co-op magazine and decided to save it because it's July and July is the month for an over abundance of zucchini.  Over the weekend, my parents brought me a couple zucchinis and of course one of them was destined for this recipe :)

What you'll need:

   3 eggs, lightly beaten

   1 c vegetable oil

   3 tsp vanilla

   2 1/4 c sugar

   2 c zucchini, shredded

   3 c flour

   1 tsp salt

   1 tsp baking powder

   1 tsp baking soda

   1 Tbsp cinnamon

   1 pint fresh blueberries (about 2 c)

What you'll do:

   1. Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly grease 2 loaf pans.*

   2. In large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar.

   3. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.

   4. Gently fold in blueberries.*

   5. Transfer to pans.  Bake for 50 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean.

   6. Cool for 20 minutes in pans, then turn out on wire racks to cool completely.

*Tips:

The recipe I have called for 4 mini loaf pans. I don't have 4 minis, so I used the 2 I have, plus a regular loaf pan, and my large muffin pan (makes 6).  I'm going out on a limb, but I'm pretty sure there's too much batter to fit into 4 mini pans.  Use your best judgement on how many pans to use for this recipe.

I would recommend rinsing the blueberries and shake to remove excess water, then toss them in a little bit of flour.  This will help the blueberries to stay suspended in the batter and not fall to the bottom.

Happy baking!

Blueberry Bread

I love fruit breads!  Who am I kidding?  I love all kinds of breads.  I found this recipe and had to try it.  I can't wait to make it again, it was easy and had amazing flavor with fresh blueberries.

What you'll need:
   1 c sugar
   1/2 c salted butter
   2 eggs
   1c milk
   2 c flour
   2 tsp baking powder
   2 c blueberries

What you'll need to do:
1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease 9 inch loaf pan
2. Cream together butter and sugar
3. Add the eggs and milk beating well
4. Add the dry ingredients and beat until well combined
5. Add blueberries and mix by hand gently with a spatula being careful not to crush the berries.
6. Pour batter into your loaf pan and bake for 60-75 minutes.
7. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to finish cooling.

Thanks to Frugal Mom Eh! for this great recipe.  Click here to go to the original recipe.

Happy baking!

Incomplete

As a student, the word "incomplete" written at the top of your assignment was something you didn't want to see.  Just a heads up...I'm going to rant about a couple of things in this post.

Those of you who are on Pinterest: I don't know your method of pinning, but here's what I do.  I'm not saying my method is the best, but I don't want to pin something and then go back later and open the pin to find it only leads to a broken link or just the homepage of the website where I then have to go searching for the exact thing I was looking for OR a completely random site.

When I am scrolling through all the greatness of Pinterest and I come across a pin I'm interested in, I click on it and make sure that it leads me to where I ultimately want to go.
 - If it's a broken link, I don't pin that one - I then go and search for that item in the Pinterest search bar and open the pins until I find a link that works and is correct.
 - If I click on the pin and it takes me to the homepage of the website - I find the search bar on that page and search for the item I was looking for (this mostly happens with food blogs) and then I create the pin myself using the correct page and photo of the item.
 - If I click on the pin and it leads me to that random site that has nothing to do with the cupcake recipe I was looking for....I go back to the Pinterest search bar and try to find another pin that has the correct link.  Sometimes this doesn't even work BECAUSE...there are a lot of people not checking the pins before they pin them!

If it's something I really want to save for future use, I use Google to find what I'm looking for and create my own pin for the item.  And there are those times when you go to look at the recipe from the pin and you click on the picture and all it does is open another browser window and show you an enlarge version of the picture you already clicked with no other information...please tell me this happens to other people?!  (This is really the most frustrating with DIY projects and recipes.)  SO...as a plea to all my fellow pinners - please check your pins!

Ok, first rant down.  Second rant begins now:  to those of you out there that are posting recipes online - be sure you include all of the directions/ingredients!  Yes, mistakes happen and things get over looked, but go back in a couple of days and re-read your recipe to make sure you haven't forgotten anything.

My example of this: Bo-Berry Biscuits

I found and saved this recipe awhile back and then was reminded of it this week when my best friend from high school pinned it and it showed up in my Pinterest feed.  I love blueberries and especially in breakfast treats and wanted to treat myself a little on my day off, so I picked up some fresh blueberries on my way home last night.  I didn't want to use dried like the recipe also suggests because I wanted the juicy berries to be throughout these biscuits.  If you love blueberry muffins you know what I mean...that bite when you are reminded of blueberry greatness.  So fresh berries and they a little pricey, so I was hoping even more that this recipe turned out amazing to know that money was well spent on these berries.

I read through the recipe before I started and guess what - it was incomplete!  No where in the recipe did it say where I needed to add the berries.  Now, I've been doing things in the kitchen since I little, just sitting on the counter watching, so I could felt confident that I could solve this dilemma.  (On a side note - the person who copied this recipe for posting did include the link to the site where they found the recipe.  This wasn't something I noticed on my phone when using it to pull up the recipe.)

Well after adding the berries at the end and trying to make it work as best as I could, I ended up not actually making them into biscuits.  I was so frustrated that the recipe left out when to add them!  Yes, I realize that it is something so minor to get upset about, but tell me you haven't started a recipe and then realized it wasn't complete.

Anyway, instead of trying to roll out the mess of ball of dough I had created (my fresh berries were being destroyed trying to incorporate them in the dough), I put it in an 8x8 glass baking dish and baked it that way.  I'm not sure how long it was in the oven, but I checked on it a couple of times and then checked it with a toothpick.  It was probably in there 15-20 minutes (it was much thicker in the baking dish than the intended biscuits would have been).

Rant #2 complete.

Even with an incomplete recipe to work with, the end result is pretty amazing.  And yes, I did enjoy some of it for my breakfast this morning.

Click here for the correct link to the recipe for these Bo-Berry Biscuits.

Happy baking!