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Tag Archive for zucchini

The Colors from My Summer Garden

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Renee Spindle

This afternoon I have been working on getting the summer photos organized. There are just a few that I want to share with all of you from my garden. Especially since the summer gardening season is winding down for many of us “green thumbs”.

First up – the lovely jalapenos. Mild and yummy just for me, since I’m a huge “spice weenie”. I don’t like the heat, just the jalapeno flavor. I’ve harvested close to 8 dozen of these beauties. Can’t wait to share my daughter’s roasted salsa recipe with you.

Next up – the mini pumpkins. This is a Burpee variety of pumpkin, called Small Sugar. They can probably be used for pumpkin baking, but for my purposes they will most likely just be decorating the house for fall.

Then there are the sunflowers. Evan and I had planted the huge, big sunflowers, and right after they bloomed they got attacked by this ugly fungus and I ended up chopping them down. But they were gorgeous for a little while.

There were also had the small sunflowers, which made a great backdrop in the garden. I had cut some of these and brought them in the house too. But, they still had so much pollen dropping I only did that once. They were a little messy, but very sunflower pretty.

Then there was this little sunflower, and I think he was saying, “Do I have to wake up today?” Kind of funny.

Last flower of the day is the lovely zucchini blossom. I took a lot of pictures of these blooming, because the flowers are huge. This is one of my favorites. I’m still harvesting a few zucchini, and making all kinds of baked goodies from them.

Now I am in the process of planting for a winter crop of cucumbers, sweet corn, spinach and lettuce. This is the first year I have attempted plantings after the summer harvest. We are fortunate here in California to have a second growing season, and this year I will be taking advantage of it.

How did your garden grow this summer? What is your favorite fruit or veggie from your summer garden?

2 comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Gardening

Zucchini Pancakes

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Renee Spindle

The zucchini harvest here at the Spindle Ranch is going gangbusters. I had been perusing the allrecipes.com website and came across this recipe for a pancake with a twist. This was a great breakfast pancake as it has the zucchini, onion, and my favorite, cheddar cheese. You could add any variation that you please with this recipe. Maybe add some green onion, or finely chopped jalapenos, or green peppers. Travel Man suggested this would be a great pancake to eat with a couple of fried eggs on the side.

With your next harvest of zucchini try out this scrumptious recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated onion
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup biscuit baking mix (such as Bisquick®)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil, as needed

Directions

Mix zucchini, cheddar cheese, and onion together in a bowl.
Stir eggs and biscuit mix into zucchini mixture until well combined.
Heat vegetable oil on the griddle or large skillet over medium heat.
Scoop about 1/4 cup batter onto heated griddle.
Cook until pancakes are browned, 3 to 4 minutes per side.
Repeat with remaining batter.

I did not take pictures when I made these, so my post is a little barren. But I wanted to share this recipe with you, because it’s almost like an omelette and biscuit on your plate at the same time. An easy, simple weekend breakfast kind of pancake. Enjoy!

One comment Posted in Around the House, Family, Food, Recipes

Have you Made your Zucchini Muffins?

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Renee Spindle

www.reneesrevelings.com

If you have a garden, and you’re growing some zucchini, you need this recipe. These muffins are so moist and yummy, I love baking them for breakfast. And they freeze well, and taste oh so good with a morning latte. If you want a fresh muffin hurry on over, these generally don’t last too long at my house.

Ingredients

3 cups grated fresh zucchini
2/3 cup melted unsalted butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
Pinch salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup walnuts (optional)
1 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional)

The How To’s

And by the way you don’t need a mixer for this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl combine the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir these dry ingredients into the zucchini mixture. Stir in walnuts, raisins or cranberries if you’re adding them.

www.reneesrevelings.com

Coat each muffin cup in your muffin pan with a little butter or vegetable oil spray. Use your favorite cookie scoop or a small spoon distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups, filling the cups up completely. You’ll notice I had enough batter left over to make a mini zucchini loaf.

www.reneesrevelings.com

Bake on the middle rack until muffins are golden brown, and the top of the muffins bounce back when you press on them, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick or a thin bamboo skewer to make sure the center of the muffins are done.

www.reneesreveliongs.com

Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin let cool another 20 minutes.
While you’re waiting for the muffins to cool go and make yourself a coffee or a latte to wash them down with!

It’s so incredible to me that the zucchini comes from the garden plant with the biggest leaves, and can end up as a yummy and delicious treat. Stay tuned for my next zucchini recipe. I made some wonderful breakfast pancakes that did not require any syrup. What’s your favorite recipe that requires your zucchini from the garden?

This recipe was found at simplyrecipes.com

4 comments Posted in Food, Recipes

The Garden Leaves are Everywhere.

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Renee Spindle

This year in my garden I have zucchini plants, pumpkins, butternut squash, watermelon, and sunflowers. All of these plants have amazing leaves. I’ve been a little mesmerized by the different shapes and sizes of the leaves from each plant. And I don’t know that I ever realized or paid much attention to the distinctive leaves of each plant.

Zucchini leaves are huge. All of the leaves protect the blossoms in one way or another. The zucchini leaves are by far the largest of them all. And isn’t it amazing how the leaves protect the plants, and camoflauge them? I was picking some zucchini tonight, looked at the same plant twice before I realized there was a really good-sized zucchini laying right on the ground, in plain sight.

Pumpkin leaves are next. I was also trying to get pictures of the little blossoms. They spread out in long trails, so make sure you have lots of room to plant and let them grow. Pumpkins are in the foreground. The leaves in the background are a patch of sunflowers.

The watermelon leaves have a shape and size all their own. Very curvy and a little lighter green than the squash family of plants. These leaves trail out into the garden too. sometimes those trailers have to be redirected so they don’t get tangled up in a fence or a tree. And look at my little baby watermelon, so cute. This picture was taken about a month ago. The melon is about 3 or 4 pounds now. This is the first time I’ve ever grown watermelons. I’ll let you know how they turn out soon.

Then there’s the butternut leaves. Very similar to the pumpkins in shape and size. These leaves trail all over the place. I have a big area designated just for the bountiful butternuts!

The sunflowers were planted just for Evan. Actually he planted these seeds himself, and has been watching their progress over the summer. Evan’s method of planting the sunflower seeds was just pushing them into the mud in this little patch we designated for them.

It is still so amazing to me that one little garden can produce so much greenery. I’ve just been fascinated by all of the leaves and greenery. The way the squash family of plants, in particular, have a natural way of camoflauging, or become an umbrella to the vegetables underneath is a wonder all its own.

Did you have you garden this summer? Do you have a green thumb? If you only planted one thing in your garden my vote would be for a zucchini plant, For me they have the most amazing leaves of all. Happy gardening everyone.

No comments Posted in Gardening

We Made Garden Markers

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Renee Spindle

The gardening season is in full swing and I have a few projects that I’ve been meaning to share with all of you. We are already harvesting our zucchini, and had our first grilled zucchini last week. Oh yum. And by the way how is it possibly the 6th of August already? Didn’t we just celebrate the 4th of July?

I had been wanting to make plant markers for the garden so it would be easy for Evan to know what all of the plants are, and just because I thought it would be cute. Plus I had seen a lot of ideas for the markers on Martha Stewart‘s crafting page, so I was inspired. And as a bonus to the budget, I wanted to spend as little money as possible on this project.

There were these dilapidated stakes from a short border fence we had taken apart at one time or another. Great these will be my new garden markers. Next I went into the garage and perused my leftover paint shelf. There was this great green color just calling my name. I call it my lime sherbet paint.

So off Evan and I went to paint the sticks. This was of course during one of our “Camp Grandma” days. Evan loves to paint so I knew he would be a good helper for this project. We painted one side of the sticks, let them dry, turned them over and then painted the second side. This took up most of our morning, and then we went for a swim. I left the sticks to dry overnight, so we could put the lettering on for the plant names.

The next week at Camp Grandma we painted the plant names on the sticks. I bought some paint pens (the only thing I had to buy!), as I knew this would make it easier for Evan to help me. I was really glad I got them because he had a lot of fun being creative with his lettering.

These are my favorites of everything we painted. I love how Evan got the patriotic theme going. And he did make one marker that says, “Evan is cool”.

Here’s the rest of the finished markers, and how they look in the garden.

This was a great, inexpensive project. It was fun collecting all of the supplies from “stuff” on the shelves around the garage and in the garden shed. Evan and I had a lot of fun together, and the markers look so great in the garden. A great summertime project. Of course Evan had more fun making mud pies. More on that adventure later. Happy Monday everyone!