101 Calorie Springrolls with a side of 3908 Calorie Fried Zucchini :)

I figured the goodness of the springrolls would certainly outweigh or equal out the badness of the fried zucchini. Yes? No? Too bad.. both were equally delicious :D We're on vacation this week! WOO HOO! We've done absolutely NOTHING! Not so woo hoo. We've had plans.. and then things have popped up totally destroying our plans.. we ended up doggie babysitting for 2 days, killing our plans to head out to some fresh air markets we've never been to. The weather has not cooperated, squashing our desire to get out on the lake.. BUT there has been no work so therefore, we are happy campers. heee! One thing we discussed at the beginning of our vacation was that we had been straying from our Cooking Light recipe list the past couple weeks and that we wanted to get back on schedule again. So I've picked 5 recipes for our dining pleasure this week and being Wednesday, we finally tried the first one. Gah. Okay so being on vacation kinda takes away the desire to prepare dinner every night. Who knew? Anyhoo, we did try one tonight and it was another winner from Cooking Light. Please try to contain your jealousy over my hot pink styrofoam plates :P Fresh Spring Rolls with Dipping Sauce was easy to prepare, I got to work with rice paper spring roll wrappers - something I've never done before, and they were incredibly good. Add to it, only 101 calories, 0.8 grams of fat and 16.8 grams of carbs for TWO rolls PLUS 2 teaspoons of the dipping sauce and I'd say this recipe is a keeper for sure! Following the measurements exactly, this recipe does not make 6 spring rolls as stated. I have no idea how they came up with that number, because I got 12 HUGE spring rolls and still threw the left over ingredients into a salad. Not to mention, they called it "6 appetizer servings" - at the size they ended up being, using 3 strips of this and that and 4 slices of halved shrimp, they turned out to be as big as your average eggroll from many Asian restaurants. I could not even finish ONE of them. Hubbs had 2. We had 9 left over. Thank goodness we had some unexpected company show up.. they took the 9 home with them. :) Crispedy carrots, cukes, bell peppers and bean sprouts.. I added a couple strips of spring onion as well.. decided against the lettuce and went with a small handful of baby spinach instead and 2 (size 26-31) shrimp sliced in half were piled into the middle of the spring roll wrapper that had been softened in warm water - then wrapped around the contents snugly. The dipping sauce was super easy as well.. a matter of juicing a lime and whisking in a few other ingredients. Once I got the hang of dealing with the sticky rice paper, the rolling went quickly and I had a dozen spring rolls in less than 30 minutes. Delish! As a side dish.. heh heh.. we took advantage of the first harvest of zucchini from our garden. Most gals living a lifestyle change, would steam or grill the zucchini. Thank GAWD I'm not most gals. Oh hells no. I dredged each zuke coin into an egg, then flour, salt and pepper.. then I dropped those beauties into a skillet containing sizzling hot canola oil and fried 'em up to golden brown perfection! teee! C'mon.. you can't fault me for that can you? I know Hubbs didn't.. if we weren't already an old married couple, I'd bet my last dollar that he would have proposed tonight by the look on his face when he ate the first fried slice of zucchini heaven. :) I've got 4 more recipes to go.. with 3 days left (can't count Saturday- we're headed out to my hometown for a slumber party at my soul sistah's house - I will not be held accountable for anything that passes these lips that night as I can guarantee after 3/4 of a bottle of vodka it will be a free for all) ***crickets*** Wait. That didn't sound right. Uhmm.. 'kay never mind. Anyhoo.. 4 recipes left - ya'll might see another post here again this month before the Daring Baker challenge. I KNOW! I'll be shocked too! heheee xoxo

SHF No. 33 - Tropical Paradise

To be honest, when I saw that my fellow Daring Baker and sweet friend, Mary of Alpineberry was hosting this month's Sugar High Friday with the theme of Tropical Paradise, I was kinda bummed. I'm not so much a tropical kinda gal. Show me a dessert menu that has all but one tropical flavored dessert and I can almost 100% guarantee you that I will pick whatever that one lonely non-tropical treat may be. This doesn't really make good sense as I adore tropical fruits and to a gal from Ohio, The Armpit of the Midwest, that means mangos, papaya, pineapple and coconut. I love them all.. and I'd probably love those fruits deemed tropical that I've never had or heard of. So go figger, eh? But I really wanted to show support to Mary so I went in search of a tropical-like dessert. What I came up with might not SCREAM tropical, but for me - it was a walk on the wild tropical side. Staring at my fridge, which is jam packed with HUGE zucchini from our garden, I needed to use some up as the next round was ready to be picked. Of course, my first thought was zucchini bread because you can use up a lot of zucchini that way. But zucchini bread isn't exactly a tropical statement, now is it? Yeah, not so much. But.. whatsay you add a lil coconut to the mix? Or hell.. be adventurous and add a LOT of coconut to the mix! Still probably not a dessert I'd see on any given menu in say, Hawaii, but for Ohio - holy hell, we're visiting white beaches, palm trees and sipping a fruity beverage complete with lil paper umbrella via my kitchen! Wooo! (Pathetic, I know) What I simply adore about this bread is that I screwed with the ingredients and it still came out as THE BEST zucchini bread I've ever had. Who knew coconut could jazz up your run of the mill zucchini bread? I originally found this recipe on allrecipes.com and after reading the first 15 or so reviews, I figured I'd give it a shot. Well as we all know, I'm trying desperately to drop a few 1000 pounds. Okay so mebbe not so "desperately", but I'm really trying to change the way I eat and the way I think about food. So when looking at this recipe I see the ingredients call for 1 c. sugar and 1/2 c. veg oil. I decided to try to lighten that up. I cut the sugar down to 1/4 c. and added 1/2 c. of Equal. I cut the oil down to 1/4 c. and add 1/4 c. of pearsauce. Yes, pearsauce. It's like applesauce only it's made with sausage. HAHAHAHAHAAAA!! No, really it's made with pears. Duh. Fanfarkintabulous, kids! I also increased the coconut to 3/4 c. and replaced the currants with a mix of raisins, golden raisins, dried cranberries and blueberries (from Trader Joes *swoon*). This loaf of moist and fruity deliciousness is just tropically enough for me to submit it to this month's Sugar High Friday. Thanks for hosting Mary! And I hope your back feels MUCH MUCH BETTER!! Coconut Zucchini Loaf Courtesy of Carol and All Recipes Makes 1 loaf 1 egg 1/2 c. vegetable oil (1/4 c. canola oil + 1/4 c. pear (or apple) sauce) 1 c. white sugar (1/4 c. sugar 1/2 c. Equal) 1 c. grated zucchini (2 c. grated zucchini (skins on)) 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg 1/2 c. flaked coconut (3/4 c. coconut) 1/2 c. chopped walnuts (I omitted them) 1/2 c. currants (3/4 c. raisin, golden raisin, dried cranberry & blueberry mix) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9" x 5" x 3" inch loaf pan. In small pan boil one cup water. Add currants or raisins, and boil for two minutes. Drain. In mixing bowl beat egg, oil, and sugar. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. In another bowl, measure flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, coconut, walnuts, and currants or raisins. Stir to combine thoroughly. Pour all at once over batter in mixing bowl. Stir to moisten. Turn into greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn out on rack. Cool and wrap. My Notes: At 40 min. my bread was getting pretty brown, so I capped the loaf pan with aluminum foil. At 50 minutes this bread was done, so check often after 40 min. I made another batch and got 12 muffins from it. I baked the muffins for 18 - 20 min. at same temp. Keep an eye out if you are a zucchini bread fan.. because my garden is chock full of zucchini with no signs of stopping any time soon, I'll be experimenting with different flavors of bread to try and use most of it up. :) xoxo

Part II of the Fixin's

We don't make anything spectacular or fancy for our side dishes. I pretty much make everything my mother has made since I was a child - and I'm pretty sure she made everything her mom made for her. And pretty much means, I make everything the same except for that elusive sweet potato recipe I keep looking for and the stuffing. The recipe I'm going to share below is something you'd find Sandy Lee getting her panties in a bunch over, I'm almost embarrassed to say. Although this is NOT a Semi-Homemade recipe, but a recipe I was given from a friend many years before the fine people at Food TV even entertained the thought of giving Sandra Lee her own show. Made with a box stuffing mix (gasp!), zucchini, onions, cream of chicken soup and other decidedly artery clogging ingredients, this is the easiest and most delicious stuffing I've ever had in my life. So delicious, in fact, that my MOM requests it every year and won't even think about making her own stuffing FROM SCRATCH that she prepared all those years prior. TRUST ME when I urge you to try this easy stuffing the next time you serve chicken or chops. You will be amazed at the flavor of this recipe. Easy Stuffing 1 box of chicken flavored dry stuffing mix (I use Stouffer's Stove Top) 2 medium zucchini, sliced and then quartered 1 med. vidalia onion, chopped 1 small carton of button or crimini mushrooms, either sliced or quartered 1 stick of butter + 2 TBS., room temperature 1 can of cream of chicken soup 8 oz. sour cream 1 sm. can of French's French Fried Onions Preheat oven to 350º F. Lightly grease an 8" x 8" Pyrex baking dish (I had to use a 9" x 13" metal baking pan on Thanksgiving because someone had already filled my glass 8" x 8" with the buffalo chicken dip by mistake *oops* - but if it's all you've got, cut the baking time down to 20-25 minutes) and set aside. In a large skillet, over medium-high heat, melt the 2 TBS. of butter and then add the quartered zucchini and onions. Saute for about 5-7 minutes until the onions are beginning to brown. Add the mushrooms and saute another 5-10 minutes. In a large bowl, combine the cream of chicken soup and sour cream, then add the dry stuffing mix and the butter, mix well. Once vegetables are lightly browned, dump them in with the stuffing mixture and stir well. Transfer to the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the french fried onions over top. Cover with foil and bake 25 minutes, remove foil and bake an additional 5 minutes or until the french fried onions are goldeny brown. The rest of our sides are pretty much the same as everyone else has - the staples, if you will. Smashed potatoes, corn, brussels sprouts, green beans, corn bread, rolls, waldorf salad, cole slaw and cranberry sauce (not the canned jelly kind - ewww). Dessert is an apple pie and Paula Deen's Gooey Butter Pumpkin cake. Which I will share in the next post. And then? I'd like to forget about Thanksgiving and start thinking about Christmas presents.. ugh. hahaa!

Meeta's Monthly Mingle No. 4

I was getting a little worried about this month's Monthly Mingle.. as coming up with something that included zucchini and sage was posing a problem for me. I could think of a zillion zucchini recipes, but I don't use sage that often in my cooking. I did not want to disappoint the very lovely Meeta so I really needed to come up with something! After a lot of recipe research in cookbooks and online, nothing really sounded very inspiring. Bummer. BUT! When I decided to cook a big meal for Hubbs and I yesterday afternoon, I decided that instead of serving potatoes with the roast, I'd like some creamy risotto. As you know, risotto is very versatile and many different ingredients work well in it. I wondered how zucchini and sage with maybe a little hit of mild onion would taste in a basic risotto recipe? Ha! It was fabulous! And now, I've created a risotto recipe that I will use again and again - I lurve when that happens! So if you aren't familiar.. this month's Monthly Mingle is called "Take Two". Meeta gave us all the challenge of coming up with a dish that included zucchini and sage. Here is my submission, I hope you try it and I hope you check out all the rest of the creative dishes when she posts the roundup this coming weekend. There is still time to get in your creative sage and zucchini dish as well! The deadline is Oct. 12 - so get cookin' kids! :D Lisa's Sage, Zucchini and Green Onion Risotto 2 small to medium zucchini, cut into coins and then quartered 3-4 green onions, sliced thin 1 TBS. fresh, chopped sage 1 TBS. butter 1 1/4 c. Arborio rice 3 - 3 1/2 c. chicken stock 1 generous pinch of sea salt Ground black pepper, to taste In a large skillet, melt the butter and then saute the zucchini and onions (reserve about 1 TBS. of the sliced onions) until translucent. Add the rice and saute until it just begins to brown. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/2 c. of the stock and stir rice until it soaks up most of the stock - then continue on in this fashion, 1/2 c. of stock at a time, until you've used all the stock - this should take between 20 and 30 minutes and the rice should be very creamy. Add the fresh sage with the last 1/2 c. of stock. Once the rice has absorbed the last of the stock, sprinkle the reserved onions on top and serve. *Note: When I make risotto, I normally add a good handful of Parmigiano or Pecorino. I did not do that this time as I wanted the other flavors to shine through, but I can't imagine it not being just as delicious with the addition of the cheese if you so desire. :D