Doncha Love Summer?

That's right, it's the time of year where I forget to blog because we're having so much fun with summer!  The boys and I just got back - they went to Grandma's, I went to Vegas for SOE's Fan Faire - and I thought I should at least put up some pictures!

Lunch at the Alaska Veteran's Memorial.

Lunch at the Alaska Veteran's Memorial.

My co-worker Ann and I at Fan Faire, showing our ZAM's.

Creamer's Field.  I'm still taking pictures at the same spot while I walk, though I'm not walking as much as I should.

The boys in the DCUO Capes from Fan Faire.

Our garden in panorama. Everything looks great except the greens!

Zucchini!

Our garden is producing like mad! We're starting to take bits home for daily use (and have been eating lettuce for a month) , but when the zucchinis were ready more drastic measures were called for. These are considered medium and medium-large for Alaskan gardens.


Yeah, gotta do something with those. That's a lot of zucchini bread!

Rather than try and make the boys eat zucchini for a week (they're not fond of it), I decided to freeze it. Frozen cubed zucchini works really well in anything cooked - spaghetti sauce, soups, stir fry, that kind of thing. So I started chopping. I did a little shredded too, but not a lot because blanching it shredded is a nasty mess.

Add far as food safety is concerned, you can't just toss zucchini in the freezer. The USDA has guidelines for food preservation, tested for bacteria and stuff. They no longer allow you to can zucchini or summer squash. According to my favorite canning site:

Recommendations for canning summer squashes, including zucchini, that appeared in former editions of USDA guides have been withdrawn due to uncertainty about the determination of processing times. Squashes are low-acid vegetables and require pressure canning for a known period of time that will destroy the bacteria that cause botulism. Documentation for the previous processing times cannot be found, and reports that are available do not support the old process.

Good enough for me, we freeze it (freezing takes less storage space, too). The USDA says to blanch it first. Blanching is just cooking the vegetable long enough to kill the bacteria. Too long and you get mushy veggies. not long enough, your food is unsafe. Be sure to use the USDA times and plunge the veggies immediately into icy water to stop the cooking.

They also say to leave a half-inch headspace in your freezer containers. Headspace is the space left at the top of a food preservation container. I finally thought to ask "why is the headspace measurement so important?", especially since I had to make sure it was right when I put my jam in the Fair.

Headspace, it says here, is necessary for the correct vacuum and sealing of your containers. Too little and the product can expand and the top won't seal. Too much and the air won't be driven out of the jar, leaving room for bacteria and discoloration. Since the Foodsaver sucks all the air out, that's not a problem here.

So I chopped and blanched and packed and marked and froze. The whole thing took me about an hour including getting everything set up. The results were 22 cups of chopped and shredded zucchini! I froze them in two cup packages, 'cause that's a nice size for most soups and such and coincidentally, the amount of shredded zucchini my zucchini bread recipes use. For shreds, be sure to measure before you blanch. When you thaw it to bake with it, just drain off any excess liquid before you use it and trust that was really two cups.


And this is just the beggining. We put only one zucchini plant in the garden, because the year we had three we had more zucchini than we could reasonably eat. This plant is far from done yet, there's a half-dozen more zucchinis growing, and more flowers!

Eat Your Veggies

If you're like me you still have lots of veggies in your freezer from your garden.

Well, okay, not everyone is lucky enough to have a garden. But I've still got zucchini and pumpkin in the freezer. The zucchini I shredded and blanched, so it's all ready to go in bread, and the pumpkin I cooked and pulped.

I made pumpkin cranberry muffins last week, and I had a cup of pumpkin pulp that needed to get used up. Go go Google - I found a pumpkin waffle recipe on a blog of someone else who did a lot of pumpkin this year!

This waffle batter was thinner than I'm used to and made a "floppy" waffle instead of a firm, crisp one. Next time I might reduce the liquid a bit. More oil would also make them more crisp. But the result was a lovely flavored waffle with sneaky vegetables! Oh, be warned, this makes a HUGE batch.

Pumpkin Waffles

2½ cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs, separated
2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

Vegetable oil for brushing waffle iron or cooking spray

Accompaniment: warm pure maple syrup

Preheat oven to 250°F and preheat waffle iron.

Sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices.

Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl with buttermilk, pumpkin, and butter until smooth. Whisk in dry ingredients just until smooth.

In a mixing bowl with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks (as in, far soften than the over-beaten whites you’ll see in my picture above). Folk them gently into the waffle batter, until just combined.

Brush waffle iron lightly with oil and spoon batter (about 2 cups for four 4-inch Belgian waffles) into waffle iron, spreading quickly. Cook according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Transfer waffles to rack in oven to keep warm and crisp. Make more waffles in same manner.

I had taken out some zucchini, because Nana sent me these funky, pyramid-shaped silicone cupcake pans for Christmas and I thought they'd be perfect for my Chocolate Zucchini Bread recipe, which I'll re-post here as I've made some healthier modifications to the recipe. The silicone muffin pans had to cook almost a half-hour, instead of the 18 or so minutes I'm used to, but I don't know if that's from the silicone or the shape of the pans. Regardless, my kids got "chocolate cupcakes". Again with sneaky vegetables!!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups zucchini (grated)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups flour
1 cup nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, combine sugars, oil and eggs. Add dry ingredients, zucchini and nuts until all are moistened. Grease and flour bread pans. Bake in standard cupcakes tins about 18 minutes, mini bread pans for about 35 minutes. For large bread pans, bake about an hour. Use a cake tester to test for doneness.

Next project: I have a bunch of carrots going limp in the vege drawer. Kiddo told me he likes carrots in his school lunch, but never seems to eat them! I'm thinking of something more like a breakfast cookie than an muffin, we'll see what comes up!

Berry season!

It's being such a busy summer, as usual. Besides the usual flurry of summer activities focused on getting us out of the house while it's beautiful out, we're getting ready to go to the SOE Fan Faire in August (I may have mentioned it...). So I'm behind on blogs. I still haven't managed to blog about the garden, which is doing phenomenally well due to a lot of rain this summer. The peas are 5 feet tall, the potato plants are easily 3.5 to 4 feet tall, there's more tomatoes on the Early Girls I planted than I can count, and I have a cherry tomato plant that apparently is a small tree and should have been planted alone. We've harvested our second zucchini, we're already through the first crop of lettuce, and I've planted the second run of green onions.

I will get more details out later, I swear! 'Cause today I'm excited about raspberries.



Grandpa has wild roses and raspberries bordering his yard. He thinned out the deadwood this year and we have new young raspberry bushes coming up everywhere and the rose hips are really thick. He called last week and said "I'm canning the first raspberries!" meaning he's eaten the first ripe ones.

The subdivision Grandpa lives in hasn't been entirely paved over, which is normal here in our neck of Alaska. There's an ally between most blocks that doesn't see a lot of traffic. So Tuesday I went over with a bucket and went scouting. The one area Grandpa recommended wasn't showing a lot of fruit, but I found two other healthy patches and came back with about a quart of berries. Judging from the amount of unripe fruit I saw I thought I'd try back every 3-4 days.

Yesterday Grandpa calls again and says it's definitely time!

So we head over, and Hubby takes one the kids in Grandpas yard while I head out with the bucket.

Now, a few words about picking raspberries in Interior Alaska. Long sleeves are smart, as they have stickers. You're gonna get eaten up by bugs. You'll be picking stickers out of your clothes forever. Because they berries tend to grow in underbrush and like to hang out with rose bushes, which have REALLY nasty thorns.

The fruit grows under the leaves, and if they are crowded they'll grow almost low-bush style, along the ground. If you see one pretty red fruit winking at you, lift the branch up so you can see the underside, I'll guarantee there are more. I used my bucket to hold down brush and grass and ferns that were int he way. You'll get wet if there's been any rain at all, because the underbrush holds the moisture.

The patches I found were so laden with fruit that was so ripe I was losing berries just berries just moving the branches to get underneath them. The berry size varied from teeny where the plats were packed together to ones bigger than what I've seen in the supermarket. All of them were beautiful.

I found a third patch I hadn't scouted as I was headed back with my bucket over half full (it's a big bucket). These were the biggest and best berries I 'd seen yet. I picked and picked and picked and never got close to getting them all. My gaming friends will understand when I say I had one-more-node syndrome, and bad. Eventually I looked at my phone for the time and discovered I'd been out way longer than I planned. I reluctantly walked back to Grandpas house and tried to keep the kids out of the bucket.

Last year I didn't roam as far (and it wasn't as wet a summer) and I ended up buying one pint of berries to make jam. That's not going to be an issue this year. At a rough estimate I have three quarts of berries, and that's more bulk than a grocery store dry quart, because the berries fall apart and compress better after cleaning and washing.

That bag behind them is a gallon bag; the fruit on the trays I just washed about a half an hour ago and is drying to be frozen.

I want to go back tomorrow; that last patch isn't anywhere near picked over and those berries are just ripe.

In the meantime I'm freezing the berries. This isn't hard, you wash them , let them dry a bit on paper towels, and throw them in a Zip-Lock, getting as much air out as possible. It means I don't have to run right home and squeeze making jam into this hectic schedule we've got.

But jam is definitely in our future!

Random Musings

Here's some idle thoughts that have wandered through my mind lately. Enjoy!

Caesar Salad Dressing has anchovies in it.

Do you know most lotions have alcohol in them? For dry skin, use a thick cream, not a lotion.

A pat of butter in your jam while cooking will reduce foam.

You can rip your fabric softener sheets in thirds and never notice the difference in your laundry. Unless you're into smelling like Fresh Spring Breezes.

Basil and tomatoes grow well together. Plant all your Italian-style herbs between your tomato plants.

Tomatoes also grow extremely well upside down. You could plant tomatoes on the bottom and your herbs on top!

There's a joint pain relief product called Blue-Emu. It's made with Emu oil. From real Emus. Many Really Famous Women have sworn by it for stretch marks (I prefer cocoa butter).

Why is it all the books I really want are either out of print, not yet released, or only available in a $40 hardback?

Retaining water? The very best thing you can do is drink more water. No, really! Your kidneys are like an old water pump, they need water to process the liquids you are retaining.

Not a Gimmick: Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner. We have an old fiberglass shower/tub that's really hard to keep clean. This thing works.

Cheap Rainy Day Kid Fun: Save empty grocery containers, like cereal boxes, egg cartons, milk cartons (clean them of course!) and let your kids play kitchen, cook, or baker. Boxes make good blocks, too.

An adult triceretops horn is longer than the average two year old is tall.

Spring!!!

Well, not quite.

Up here it staying above freezing at night and we're seeing temperatures in the 40's during the day. There's some fugly leftover snow piles around, but the Borough has gotten the street sweepers out to start getting the gravel up. I've taken off my snow tires because the roads are completely dry.

But it's not summer yet, oh no. Technically it's Breakup, which is what we have instead of spring. We don't get the gradual changing of seasons. One day we go from flat, claustrophobic winter clouds to fluffy summer ones; one day it precipitates water (I hesitate to call it rain) instead of snow; in a couple week we'll go from dreary, brown leafless trees to full-blown summer greenery over a weekend.

But until then there's still the risk of frost, sub-zero temperatures, and even snow.

State law requires that you take the studded tires off your vehicle May 1 ($5 a stud if they catch you - at an average of 36 studs per tire that can be spendy), but you still can't call it summer. Why? Killer frosts.

Up here you don't dare plant your garden until after Memorial Day weekend. As a matter of fact, that's the prime planting weekend, and anyone who plays with dirt will be working around the clock to get those plants in the ground. And your garden still might not be safe; last year we had a killer frost two days after Memorial Day and I lost all my tomato plants.

I started my own seeds this year. I figured I lost $20 worth of of plants to a killer frost last year, so I could spend that much trying to start my own. Up on Hubby's dresser under an almost antique plant light that's been floating around here forever are about 10 tomato and 10 Forget-Me-Not seedlings. Little bitty guys! I look at them every day, trying to decide when I can put them in pots. You're really supposed to wait until they have four leaves, but I'm just so eager for spring to be here!

But even if they sprouted those other leaves today it'd still be five weeks before I can put them in the ground.

I'm really looking forward to my garden this year. Grandpa divided the huge garden box we used last year into quarters; the theory is that if we can get to more of the surface we can plant more. And I learned that I can plant things much slower than last year, so I'm going to pack them in.

I have more seeds that don't need to be started near as early as my tomatoes and flowers: sweet peas, romaine lettuce, and I'm thinking about some broccoli. I've started some herbs, oregano, basil, and parsley, which grow well int he shade and can be tucked between the tomato plants.

But I want to do it NOW!

I'll just have to content myself with wearing short sleeves and open-toed shoes and enjoy wantching baby crawl around on last year's grass in Grandpa's yard.

What I Live For

Today, rather than serious discussion and links, I thought I'd be a little self-indulgent and show pictures of my family :) Not represented are family who don't live in my town. (Hi Nana! Hi Auntie! Hi everyone else!)

This is Baby, at about 6 months.

This is Kiddo, about 2 weeks ago, age 3 1/2. I wish I had gotten this pic in higher resolution, I'd love to blow it up.

Hubby and Grandpa making moose into steaks.

Okay, I don't live for my garden, but this was my first ever real garden and I'm awful proud.

Thanks for indulging me!