Not Zucchini Brownies

 

I showed you the cucumbers that took over in my garden before.  We couldn't keep up with them this year.  We just weren't in a cucumber mood and rarely would just eat them.  I love cucumber but I just wasn't into it this year.    I had so much and hated throwing it out every week.  Even  attempts at giving it away to neighbors failed.  I mean it's not like it was Zucchini or anything.    OR WAS IT?

Long ago my sister made me a cucumber cake for my birthday.  I'm sure if I lived with my sister I would be much better off health wise than I am by myself.   We played a game the other night, we both got the same question at separate times.  We simply had to answer which word(s) we felt right, for whatever reason.  The words?  Healthy or Junk Food.  Me? - Junk Food.  Her? - Healthy.  I can't help it, I want to eat healthy and try but I still like Junk Food.  And I feel quite junky lately or that I haven't been eating too well so I answered junk food.  Although in a sense I don't think anyone would look in my cupboard and find a lot of junk food, I don't have potato chips or packages of cookies etc.   But two helpings of fresh apple crisp seem junkier than not.

So on too the brownies.    I thought, of course! I could use the cucumber like zucchini and add it to the brownies.  It's got to be better than non vegetable added brownies right?  So I did.  I took a regular zucchini brownie recipe and substituted cucumber.  The cucumber was more watery so I didn't put quite as much in.   It tasted fine, almost too moist but the family didn't care.  It was chocolate cake after all.  And the kids all wanted seconds.  I have to feel almost Bill Cosby-ish about it.  'But it's got milk and eggs and. . . Cucumber!  Mom is great!  Gives them the chocolate cake!'   Wait, no it doesn't have milk or eggs,  and no, we did not eat it for breakfast.   

So here is the recipe I used but I'm leaving it as zucchini, just substitute if you feel like experimenting. Remember to de-seed the vegetable of choice before grating.  Now that I think about it I got this recipe from one of my other sisters.   

Zucchini Brownies

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil
1 teas. salt
1 1/2 teas. baking soda
2 teas. vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa
2 cups grated zucchini
2 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Mix the 'wet' ingredients first, then add the 'dry' ingredients.   Bake 375º for 25-30 minutes.   

I know, not very specific directions.  Sorry, when I jot down recipes I only include ingredients and baking degree.  Sometimes I remember to put a baking time.   Also I used extra cocoa.  at least 1/2 cup total. 

Next, I might tackle another cake my sister made me for a different birthday. 

Triple Layer Devil Dog Cake

This is one of my favorite cakes to make.  This time it was for my son's Birthday party.

 

He doesn't look too excited about it does he?  Actually I just caught him at a bad moment I guess.  This was his first Teenager party.  It was quite fun to have all his friends over.  Very good bunch of kids.  

He told me me he wanted a cake with a bunch of layers.  He mentioned Ice cream cake, but I didn't have the time to fuss nor the freezer space to store such a tall order.    His cake taste is improving.  We don't do parties every year at our house, but usually every other year.   For his last birthday party he was very into Cryptids.  His favorite being the Yeti.    And he wanted a Yeti cake complete with snow mountains.  This may not be your idea of the Abominable Snowman but I looked it up, let me tell you, the actual Yeti is reddish brown in color, not white.

Let's refresh our memories. 

I'm glad he picked a more grown up cake this year.  

The cake itself is just chocolate.  You can use whatever you like,  My favorite recipe takes quite a lot of time but for this I didn't have that time and used a doctored cake mix.  Gasp!  yup.  It was actually an old White Cake mix that I added cocoa, pudding, and sour cream too.  That was the mix that needed to be used because it was out of date.     The filling is a layer of Chocolate ganache and a Layer of Stabilized Whipped cream. So simple and yet sooo good.  Careful when cutting because it needs to be refrigerated (for the cream) which makes the ganache hard and thus hard to cut.  

Crop circles - On my Watermelon?

 Today I finally went out to pick some long overdue to be picked watermelons.    We haven't been able to keep up with all the canteloupe that all got ripe at the same time so the watermelons had to wait.  Pretty much anything left in the garden has just gone to seed or whatever.  Serrano's anyone?    

Anyway, this is what we found on a couple of the melons we brought in.   Perfect target circles.

 I couldn't get a good picture of this one, no matter what I tried.

My son droped this one on the way in the house.  

The only information I could find was from the Extension at Purdue:


"Target Cluster (watermelon)

This disorder is marked by very striking target-like patterns that occur on the watermelon rind surface. The target spots appear in distinct clusters and can be as large as 1 inch in diameter (Figure 81). The target rings have a corky texture and are slightly raised (1/16 inch) from the fruit surface. No decay was associated with symptomatic fruit. Several attempts at identifying pathogenic bacteria or viruses were not successful. Fruit with the target cluster apparently occur very infrequently. Incidence and distribution in affected fields suggest that it was not responsible for any economic consequences.
http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-44.html"


See?  Aliens.

While I'm at it, I picked one of the few purple carrots that actually grew this year. 

Finger Weaving Scarf.

My daughter made this fun scarf using the idea from finger weaving.  I decided we needed a loom to make a long thing easier and heaven forbid that I buy such a thing.  I drilled some holes in a piece of leftover wood and chopped a dowel.  Ok, my carpentry skills are lacking, I know.  But the thing did the job.  She was able to complete this scarf in a couple of hours and is making more.

To finger weave, simply wind the yarn around your fingers of your not dominate hand, front and back and then back to the first, then one more time forward and back so you see two threads on each finger.

Lift the bottom thread over the top thread and over your finger. Do this on all fingers.  Then repeat the winding thread over the fingers until you have two threads again and lift etc....

View from the table

It's been a while since I have tried (since I have no real skillz in the area) to take a nice picture out the side window by my table.  This was a very nice morning. What brought me to the window was the sounds of the Marching Band at the nearby high school wafting across the fields.  I went to the window to let in the sound of the drums and some fresh air.

If you could see down on the field just to the left of the photo you would also be able to see a herd of prong horn who are enjoying a nice breakfast of hay.  Or at least they like to lie in the cool hay.  When they do you almost can't see them, especially when it's tall.  I can't see them from my window because of the house behind mine, but when I drove by 20 min. later they were there.  It's been one of their favorite fields this summer.

Here are a few of the prong horns in a view looking back towards my neighborhood.   My neighbor happened to post some pictures the same day as I, so I borrowed one from her.