Zucchini Everything Breakfast Muffins

I thought I would have breakfast outside with the chickens this morning - everything was popping with colour after the rain last night. The girls were a bit too interested in what I was eating though - certainly it must be better than the scratch feed I was offering them!

 

These breakfast muffins have become a staple in our household, and the big zucchini I harvested from the garden on Tuesday was the perfect size for a double batch.

 

Zucchini Everything Muffins

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil (or applesauce, or combination - when I double, I do a cup of each)

2 cups sugar

2 cups grated zucchini

2 tsp vanilla

 

3 cups flour (unbleached, whole wheat, or a combination)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 generous tbsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup oats

 

1 cup chopped nuts, grains, etc.

1/2 - 1 cup chopped dried fruits

 

Cooking spray for muffin tins

 

**Note, you can use fresh zucchini, or you can also grate, measure, label and freeze your excess garden or farmer's market zucchini for use in these muffins when the snow flies.  I plan ahead! Drain off any excess liquid after thawing.  I freeze slightly more than stated, to make up for some loss.

 

Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, add oil, sugar, vanilla, and mix in the zucchini. Measure out the dry ingredients, and add to the bowl - the batter for these muffins is very wet, so you will have no problem incorporating it together, and might actually be worried that the mix needs more flour.  That's why I've added oats to the recipe, and the muffins come out nice and moist. If you don't have oats, you might want to add more flour instead.

 

For the nuts, grains and fruit, I use whatever I have handy.  This week, I used figs, dates, cranberries, and home-dried cherries. I threw in some chopped almonds and pecans, some flax seed, millet and amaranth....then topped things up with chocolate chips for the heck of it - and because everything tastes better with chocolate. 

 

Spray your muffin tins, spoon in the batter, and bake for 18-20 minutes at 350.

 

Because I always double my recipes, when baking 4 dozen at once, I find I need to set my timer for 10 minutes, and carefully swap top and bottom rack muffin tins to ensure even baking - but that might just be my oven. I set for another 8, then eyeball, or use a skewer to determine if the muffins need the full 20.  What we don't need for the next few morning goes into the freezer. Pop out a few muffins for breakfast, and microwave to heat through (about 80 seconds for 4).

Rabbit Learnin' And The Last Fall Planting

Yesterday I started to become a bit concerned about Notch, who seemed a bit congested on the weekend, and now whose eye seems to be very teary.... So I've done some research, wiped and irrigated his eye with water, and this afternoon will make a little compress and irrigation of saline and chamomile tea to soothe what I hope is a seasonal allergy or otherwise mildly irritated eye.  It could be an infected tear duct, and the irrigation and compress should improve the situation either way.

I'd prefer less aggressive treatment if it clears in a couple of days, but I may need to switch to Terramycin eye ointment if it doesn't improve. So, this afternoon, I will heat a cup of water, and add a chamomile tea bag and a tablespoon of sea salt, and head out to give the poor boy some relief once it has cooled somewhat. He seemed to appreciate the cool water. I'll do that again at bedtime, and keep to a twice-a-day schedule for the rest of the week.  He's not off of his food or water (though the apple slices and oat/barley treats are getting more attention than his alfalfa pellets or chard).

And now for gratuitous pics of some of his cute babies:

 

They're growing fast, and will be outside soon in one of our big cages, with plywood platforms to play on, lots of fresh air and maybe sunshine - this time of year can get a bit gloomy.

The salad bar is still providing plenty of greens for a huge salad every other night, and I think salads will go down as being the 'oh, good... more' food for Adrian this year. The pole beans are still holding out on us, along with most of our tomato plants.  If the predicted rain comes I may need to rig a cover for my kidney beans, which are almost dry enough to be pulled - it would be a huge disappointment for them to mold in contact with wet soil.

 



I went through the seed box and planted out a few last-minute crops in the bed vacated by the wheat crop.  I will be planting multiplier onions and shallots in the same space later, but didn't want to leave the soil barren until the end of September.  If the weather is with us, we may be harvesting: arugula, beets, kohlrabi, turnips, parsley, and red mustard. Time will tell!

Monday Update

We went into the hive yesterday, to see how the colony was doing with their new queen, and to forewarn us if there were any swarm cells starting to receive attention.  Adrian and I saw the queen at the same time, and he was just as excited as I had been, to finally have visual confirmation.  The brood pattern is a bit spotty, but there is new comb being drawn, and pollen and nectar gathering are in full swing now, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that this queen will have a good influence on the hive - the hum has seemed fairly content there over the past week.

The bunnies are furred out, and there have been a couple of nesting box escapes, where bunnies have decided to go exploring in the night, and realized that they couldn't quite get back in yet.  We give them a boost back into the warmth of the fur and straw and siblings, but soon they will be in and out of the boxes, harassing their mothers full-time.

Jodie is continuing to feather out, going through her gawky adolescence. She and her mother are still mostly confined while they are unsupervised, but soon they should be running with the girls outside full time.

The garden is producing herbs, salad greens, cucumbers, chard, kale, pea shoots, and handfuls of tomatoes every day.  The pole beans have been slow to get started, but the dry beans (kidney, borlotti and cranberry) are filling their pods and looking good.  The Alisa Craig sweet onions are drying on the picnic table, and coriander and parsley seed will soon be ready for harvest as well.  The hoophouse tomatoes all seem to be waiting for some sign to ripen, and though last year we had weeks of fresh tomato harvest, I'm worried that everything is going to ripen in a much shorter period this time around.  But then, I don't mind a load of fresh cherry tomatoes, and can dehydrate the overrun.

Growing Up Fast

Jodie the foster chick is three and a half weeks old, and the bunnies - at a week old - are soon to be opening their eyes.  Our two neighbourhood cats are very interested in the back yard right now, so I took a quick pick of Jodie this morning, then had to trick her back into the dog run when she took flight and ran off for a bit of freedom.  She has wings, and knows what to do with them!

Not too please with being confined.

 

Sakura's litter of seven kits are furred out in various shades from grey through brown and black.  Cute little ears and feet everywhere!

 

Close-up of a sleepy little bunny. 

 Chun Li's litter of three - a much darker, solid colouring.

Noticeably bigger, sleek, and full of milk - but just as sleepy.

 

We bred our two other does on the weekend - though one of our girls was not interested in the process, and I'm hoping that putting her back in with Notch the next day results in a pregnancy. We prefer to breed two girls at the same time, in case of problems with the mother, or litter size.  

Thrilled

An exciting verification today in the top bar beehive.  Last weekend, we found capped brood when we had begun to assume we had lost our queen - again. At the time, we were unable to verify the presence of brood at any other stage.  Had the queen laid successfully, then died?

Today, with some trepidation, I did a very quick hive inspection to see if there was any more progress, and found more brood, several stages of larvae, and the queen herself!  I put the three frames I had disturbed quickly back into position (it is overcast and a bit cool), put the cover back on, and let out a deep sigh of relief. Okay, there may have been a fist pump too.

I'll leave things alone for another week, then do a more thorough inspection with Adrian to figure out where things are going as we head into fall.  We will need to assess the honey situation, and decide if we will need to move some frames around, and if we will be needing to 'help' the hive with some sugar syrup to survive the winter; they have had so many upsets during the time when they should be setting in their stores.

I couldn't be happier to *not* be harvesting honey this year!

Quick Pics

Jodie is getting to the awkward teenage chick stage, where her legs seem a bit too long for her body, and she's becoming impatient with her wings, flapping them about as she runs in the yard - it seems like she's trying to get some lift.

She's spending some time out of the safety of the dog run, and the older girls have put her (and her mom) in their place with a few pecks, but the girls now seem to be comfortable with the new addition.  Unfortunately, a neighbourhood cat likes to hang out in the yard, and I think Jodie is a bit too much temptation to leave running about.  Catching her and Celine for their own safety when we won't be outside is getting harder each day. (Maybe that's good too?)

The bunnies are very active and squirmy right now, actually putting up quite a noisy fuss if we disturb them.

Part of my garden is allowed to go to seed, so that I can collect seed that I believe will not have been cross-pollinated, and grow the same plant again next year.  All of my lettuces have had an umbrella of small, yellow flowers - but this 'red dandelion' variety has just put up one main, large, blue flower stalk.  I pulled my other lettuce plants which had already largely bloomed (and set seed), and hopefully, the other few plants I left to go to seed will bloom in the next few days, so that the bees will pollinate them, and I can grow this lettuce again from my own collected seed - we're now enjoying salads from the third planting of this variety, it's slow to bolt, pretty, and tasty.

I took a picture of this specific Siletz tomato several weeks ago - today I harvested it, the first non-cherry tomato of the season - and it's the size of my hand.  After dinner snack when Adrian gets home!

We finally treated Spot with some ivermectin for his ear mites, as the mineral oil was not clearing the problem, and I couldn't watch him in discomfort any longer.  Hopefully, the irritation will clear up in the next few days.  All of the rabbit cages were cleaned today, and his outside quarters and normal cage were sprayed with a bleach solution to help reduce the risk of reinfection.

He still loves me.

And this is Notch.  We're going to let him settle in today, as he wasn't thrilled with the ride in his small transport cage (he's more than twice the size of Spot), and is getting adjusted to new surroundings.  I'll be working with him over the next few days to make him more comfortable, and will mate him to Sweetie and Rose tomorrow afternoon.  We're happy to welcome him here - a handsome, gentle boy, with lovely soft fur.

Rabbit Roll Call

We currently have one Florida White breeding male, a second Florida White male representing different lineage, and 4 breeding females.  This weekend, we will be welcoming Notch, a Champagne D'Argent buck from Horse Drawn Farms (already bred to Sakura) to come and join our backyard herd.

Spot, a Florida White, was born in October 20, 2011. Parents Peter and Darla.
Spike, our untried Florida White male, was born on April 3, 2013. Parents Peter and Sweetie.

Sweetie her half-brother Peter and half-sister Darla all came from an American breeder, to serve as the foundation for our initial rabbitry stock - all Florida Whites.

Rose, Chun Li, and Sakura (our Street Fighter girls) were born on April 28, 2012. Parents Peter and Sweetie. 

We wanted to try crossbreeding with a larger, calmer rabbit breed, to hopefully keep the build of the Florida White (a breed with good return of meat for feed consumed - but somewhat anxious), and get a slightly larger, more laid-back rabbit.  We will be watching with great interest to see how these kits develop.

From our July 13th breeding at Horse Drawn Farms, Notch and Sakura have produced a litter of 7 kits.

They have pink undersides, with blush noses and insides of ear, and are black everywhere else - from a quick inspection to make sure everyone was moving, and had a full tummy. They're not keen to be out of the nest.

Chun Li, bred to Horse Drawn Farm's buck Gypsy, had a litter of 3 kits, who are much darker in colouring, and much more full of milk this morning, because they don't have to share nearly as much!

 

Just look at a the chubby tummies!  Welcome all, this is the start to our new line of "Florida Silvers".

Rabbit Reposting

I was keeping notes in an online journal back when we started keeping rabbits, and wanted to copy a couple of important entries here for future reference:

Our first attempt at breeding Sweetie, our well-mannered, dainty queen of the rabbitry did not go well, and she gave birth on the cage floor. We eventually lost all of them after trying to revive the surviving kits under a heat lamp....

The bunnies didn't make it

September 12, 2011, 14:04

We left the nesting box with mom for two days - all readings suggested interfering as little as possible (especially since we'd already had to handle them). Taking everyone outside into the shade of the apple tree, we found the babies had all died in their nesting box. I'm not sure if it was simply too confusing for Sweetie, or if she rejected them because we'd handled them and brought them back to her. I don't think that she knew what to do - though she was lactating the morning after giving birth. I buried the little bodies in the comfrey patch, sad that their lives had been so cruel. It's a bit of an odd feeling, since we were growing them for food, after all - but I had expected to provide them with sunshine and fresh greens and an outside run before ending their short lives as quickly as possible. There seemed to be a bit more balance to the process with that scenario in mind. I will try breeding the two girls at the same time next week, so that Darla can be used as a foster mother if she seems to be more capable. I knew this venture wasn't going to be simple or easy, and I have never taken lightly the fact that I am responsible for the lives of my animals. I'm also very glad that I'm not urgently needing to be sustaining myself from my own labour. This loss makes me even more aware of how fragile the food chain really is, and how much we take for granted the easy availability of food in our commercial 24/7 society.

If only we knew then that Darla would be an unfit mother herself, and wound up killing all but one of her third and last litter before we culled her.  We bred them both soon after...

Livestock update and feed costing

September 28, 2011, 17:06

The girls are both halfway through their (assumed) pregnancies, and aside from being occasionally skittish or growly, are happily eating their greens and snatching their apple slices, both seemingly content with the world. Sweetie is notably less aggressive than during her last pregnancy. Everyone is getting outside time on the weekends at least - as now it is almost too dark by the time we arrive home from work for me to rush and collect greens for their evening enjoyment. For now - until the frost hits - the rabbits have a selection of roughly five or six types of greens a day (dandelion, comfrey, mint, lemon or lime balm, strawberry leaves, plantain, kale, celery leaf and sorrel...), but the selection is dwindling with the waning daylight and colder temperatures. There will be more reliance on apples, pears, carrots, (the dehydrator is running most days with local fruit), whole-grain bread (they *love* oats), apple tree twigs and hay in the colder months, and hardier greens. Having just purchased a new fancy dehydrator (3-7 days shipping), I will try to dehydrate some of the greens we're currently feeding to store for occasional winter food interest. I like to think this gives them a nice change-up in their day, something entertaining to do with their time, and is helping cut down on the amount of pellets they're eating as well. We aren't sure if they're using the mineral licks, or if the humidity is affecting them, since several have broken apart and most of them seem 'wet.' The rabbits are never near them in my line-of-sight.

This weekend we drove out to the Feed store in Abbotsford, and dropped two hundred dollars on animal feed. We grabbed two bales of Timothy hay ($26.00), now hanging from the ceiling in the carport (sorry rodents!), as well as:
- 3 20kg bags of "16% Rabbit Pellets" ($13.99 each)
- 1 bag of "25% Horse Creep Feed" ($18.99) to help with rabbit pregnancy and lactation, and as a fattening boost for kits once they're eating solid food. Currently introducing a small handfull daily to the girls' diet in preparation for their kindling.
- 1 40lb bag of "Step 2 Sweet Feed" ($15.49) for both rabbits and chickens - grains and molasses mix to help the animals generate internal heat in the colder weather
- 1 20kg "18% Free Range Crumble" ($11.99) to be mixed with
- 1 20kg "16% Organic Layer Mash" ($18.99) for the chickens, along with
- 1 20kg "Hen Scratch" ($11.79) to occupy the birds once we have them confined for the day in the hoophouse on a deep straw litter.
- finally, 1 40lb sack of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds ($24.97) as a treat for everyone
That was the litter where Darla gave birth to Spot, our sweet-tempered scratch-loving little buddy who is having some ear mite problems right now. He was the pick of the litters when we had our important first cull and became 'fully' experienced meat-rabbit raisers

The deed is done

January 11, 2012, 12:48

Eleven bunnies went to freezer camp this past weekend. We decided to keep back one friendly boy, now named 'Spot' by Adrian, who thinks it's an ironic moniker for an albino.... All went relatively well, and each bunny was dispatched as quickly as possible out of sight, smell and earshot of everyone else. Processing was repetitive and caused muscle issues, but the whole experience was rather affirming and fascinating. We are lucky people and are looking forward to new births this weekend with freshly scrubbed cages and fidgety mothers (Sweetie seems to have forgotten what the nesting box is about, and has eaten or trampled multiple loads of straw through the cage bottom).

It's difficult to put a price on the 'lappin' we've produced. The final tally of our eleven culled rabbits was: 37 pounds live weight, 21 pounds of carcass weight. We saved livers, and decided we weren't really thrilled with the taste, never having been fond of liver in the first place - but the livers, hearts and kidneys should be saved and fed to the chickens as a very good 'free' source of healthy protein. Those and other 'parts' could be saved for dog treats and food. Extra rabbit manure could be bagged and sold, worms could be raised in beds beneath rabbit cages for fishing, chicken feed, or for vermicomposting, or chickens can forage underneath the cages to clean up spilled food and aerate manure and bedding for garden mulch use and add a secondary use for space allocated to rabbit raising.

Keeping in mind that we were feeding 3 breeding adults from date-of-purchase and raising a secondary breeding male, 15 rabbits -to date- have eaten (roughly) $95.00 - worth of pellets, (bad stop-gap purchase of a small $25 bulk bag at a pet store took that over the top)
$10 sweet feed, oats and manna, (partial bags shared with the chickens)
$50 worth of alfalfa hay
$10 of carrot 'seconds'
$10 of local apples (dehydrated for rabbit treats)
Greens, herbs and branches from the garden and kitchen scraps

My head is spinning a bit here.....That's roughly $22 a month since this venture started in May; three months from birth to butcher for the two litters means all 15 rabbits ate $66.00 in those three growing months, at $4.40 averaged feed cost per rabbit. Our meat cost does not include the initial set-up and supplies ($1080.00 for breeding stock, cages and supplies that should last for ten years or more) or our labour, though much of it was enjoyable time petting and watching bunnies, and the dirty parts at least were exercise out in the sunshine, benefitting the garden (no need to buy manure this Spring at $50.00 on average application and from questionable sources). So, 21 pounds of rabbit meat averaged $2.30 a pound. Local grocery stores have Extra Lean 'Canadian' ground beef ("fluff style"?!? - granted, no bones) advertised on special for $3.49/lb, and chicken breast at $4.99/lb this week comparatively (again no bones). Whole Rabbit at local grocery stores runs $7.00/lb - but at that cost, we would never have consumed it on a regular basis.

If we're eating our own meat for $2.30 a pound, and locally available, comparable meat averages $4.25 a pound - *on sale - currently* we save $1.95 per pound on our grocery bill when we choose to eat meat. 

Bees and Bunnies

We went into the hive during a sunny break on Sunday, and were surprised when we found capped brood, but no other sign of a queen bee.  The hive has a reprieve until next weekend at least, when we will check again to see if there is any sign that the hive is queen-right and things are progressing well - we have our fingers and toes all crossed. This is proving quite the complicated beekeeping experience.

Work continued on the rabbitry, and we managed to get frames installed and covered, that will eventually each house two large hanging cages for our rabbits to have more space and fresh air. 

Sakura and Chun Li are both due to deliver today, and have built nests but have not yet begun to pull fur.  I'll be checking on them all day, but they'll likely wait until tonight to have their kits.

A Very Busy Day

At a week old, Jodie the chick is starting to get some wing feathers in, and is following her mother around the yard like an old pro, watching and learning. She can move surprisingly quickly, and hop into the garden beds, so she had a wonderful time exploring and digging - and eating what her mother found for her to try.

 

We were busy hauling lumber and working in the backyard, so we let the two of them out for a few hours with some supervision.  Nugget took a couple of nips at the little one, so she went back in to the chicken tractor to consider her actions.  Jodie observed Celine delighting in taking a 'dust' bath after being confined to the safety of the dog run on the grass all week, and joined in beside mom, wiggling herself into the bark mulch and sand.  We stood and watched - it was absolutely adorable.

Work was started on the outside rabbitry extension today, and later chores included examining the hoophouse plants for damage while chopping back the squash, cucumber and tomato plants in there to encourage the ripening of the already-existing fruits and veggies. It could be a raccoon (?)  The neighbour has had some of her ground-grown potatoes eaten, and that has to be a big disappointment. Could be the same opportunistic animal, as there are a lot of gardens in the neighbourhood, to tempt them, and we've run across both racoons and opossums in the yard.  I was able to harvest quite a few cucumbers, so I'll need to find that recipe for dill cucumber slices soon (the problem with having too many preserving books sometimes!)

Tomorrow we hope to finish the building project, and  I need to finish harvesting the potatoes we grew in buckets, and pot up some plant and herb divisions with the extra soil from that process.  Some of the divisions are moving out to the front yard, to help fill in our plantings. I also plan to harvest the Alisa Craig onions which I grew from seed, and to tidy up a few eyesores which have been on the to-do list for a while, but ignored because of the oppressive heat of summer.

A hive inspection tomorrow (it was overcast until late today) will tell us whether the colony is indeed doomed, and then we will need to think about harvesting most of the honey and wax before our weakened colony is robbed.  The girls are still working hard amongst the blossoms, and I want to find a balance between letting them cap their finished honey, and risking robbers finding the hive.

From The Back Yard

Our salad last night included the first real harvest of ripe tomatoes, 2 types of greens, edible flowers (nasturtium and borage) and two small 'pickling' cucumbers.

This little one is doing just fine this morning, and Celine is doing a great job as a mother hen.

Spuds, Cukes, and a Chick

Adrian harvested half of our potato harvest last night, while I ground up 8 pounds of cucumbers so that I could can dill relish.  I actually thought I would have enough cucumbers to make some dill slices on the side, but our harvest fridge (our second fridge in the basement, that holds bulk onions, potatoes, blueberries, eggs, milk, zucchini, etc. etc.) had seen fit to freeze some of the cucumbers at the back of the bowl.  I turned the temperature dial up this morning! I wound up actually substituting a bit of zucchini to round out the recipe.

The zucchini, cucumbers, onions and garlic I used in the recipe were all out of the garden (I used the onions that had sent up flower stalks, and damaged bulbs of garlic, since they won't hold in storage).  Fingers crossed that this relish tastes good, since I've had a few let-downs in that department over the past years with new recipes. Some *very* vinegary beet slices are still sitting in the pantry because I assume I'll find a way to use them, and can't bear to think of all those hours of work wasted. 

Since the kitchen was already a bit of a mess, and the food processor dirty, we also made salsa, tabbouleh and zucchini muffins - and then rewarded ourselves with a dinner of local corn after the pints of relish were processed on the stove outside.  You know the garden is in full swing when you're eating dinner by nine!

Celine and her little chick are doing well.  There were no more chicks hatched out, so I removed the remaining eggs on Sunday, to let Celine focus on mothering. I gave them a leftover cob of corn for their private breakfast, and watched Celine peck pieces off the cob and drop them for the chick to eat.  There was a little pasting on the chick's butt, so I quickly scooped it up - to the annoyance of Celine, and pulled off the dried poop - to the annoyance of the chick.

Supplies were purchased to expand the rabbitry with outdoor cages, and that will be our evening project this week.  Spot's ears are still giving him slight issues, so I have been swabbing them with oil to lubricate and to suffocate any mites that are in the ear canal, and leaving him outside during the day to get more sunshine and wind exposure.  The look he gave me this morning was somewhat reproachful. Chun Li and Sakura are both beginning to nest, which is a good sign that we will have kits in seven days. I'm very interested to see what our cross-breeding results are, and the moms seem to have become less agitated over the past few days.

Wins and Losses

You know how they say 'don't count your chickens before they're hatched?' I had a feeling that we weren't going to see a big outcome from the eggs that Celine has been sitting on.  We didn't have space to give her the privacy she wanted, and the other two girls have been pushing her aside because they *need* to lay in the same nesting box - not the one right beside her! I merely wanted to give her something to focus her attention on, since she seemed so darned determined to set.

She is still sitting on 5 eggs, which I doubt will hatch out for any number of reasons. This morning when I went to check on her and give her breakfast in bed, I could hear a muffled peeping.

 

Egg number six hatched into a tiny chick.

 

I had to move Celine aside - and she was not pleased - to get a good look at this little fluffball, and have now moved them to a small dog crate in a mobile dog run, lined top and bottom with chicken wire, topped in a tarp for protection from the elements and predators (and perhaps the other 2 chickens).  My neighbour laughed and waved me off when I apologized for my scrappy chicken/chick run, which she can see from her porch.  I moved the unhatched eggs into the 'nest' as well, and will let Celine have them for 2 more days before I remove them and let her focus on her foster chick.  Hopefully, her instincts will extend beyond keeping an egg warm, or I will have to take over as mother. Chicks can survive without food or water for three days after hatching (having eaten their way out of the shell), but I will hopefully see Celine encourage the little one to drink some water and eat the chick starter I have placed in the run with them.

 

While I was out in the yard, I donned my bee veil and gloves, and hesitantly opened the hive. 

 

No new brood, no sign of a queen.  I think we've lost the colony.  Still an amazing experience, and we're not giving up!

 

 

Rhubarb Blondies/Slacker Chickens Applesauce Rhubarb Blondies/Applesauce & Apple Cake

Adrian took some of the Rhubarb Blondies in to work today, and there has been a request for the recipe.  Knowing I will eventually lose my paper copy of this quick, easy, baked treat, I thought I should post it here:

*Disclaimer : this recipe was originally "Oregon Apple Cake" from somewhere on the Interwebs, but I have managed to lose the original source - and have altered the ingredients so much - needing to find a use for my lovely backyard rhubarb, and similarly available home made applesauce, that I consider it my own now.

Rhubarb Blondies
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs (or 1 egg and 1/2 cup of applesauce if your chickens are slackers)
2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour
2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp. cinnamon (or more, to taste - I generally eyeball it)

2 cups sliced fresh rhubarb (or chunks of apple. ***If you add more, the cake will be too wet)
*Optional - up to 1 cup of nuts

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla.  Beat. Add dry ingredients (the original required sifted flour, but I'm lazy and it's not necessary - just try and incorporate all of the flour). The mixture will seem dry and lumpy at this point, but will moisten a bit as you stir in the fruit (you may need to use clean hands to fold in the fruit if you've doubled the recipe and don't have a huge bowl), and will smooth out in the pan as you bake.

Makes 1 9x13 pan, at 350F for 45 minutes.  I always double and share - the oven's on and the bowls are dirty anyway.

And now, a picture of a bumblebee working hard to collect pollen in the garden...such a hard worker!

The Zucchini Dilemma

Two days ago, a neighbour rang my doorbell, and offered me three giant zucchini.  I didn't want to be rude, seeing as how I also have a garden and am bringing in zucchini of various stripes myself (some heirloom green '8-Ball' squash,  white and yellow patty pans, and those green and yellow 'standard' shapes that grocery-store-shopping-people normally picture when they hear the word), but I also didn't really want to cook up zucchini that was well past its ideal stage of growth.

Since I'm also pretty frugal, and can't bear to see produce go to waste (that's why I have two pans of Rhubarb Blondies in the oven right now - well, that, and I can justify eating them for breakfasts :)

Now, we regularly make zucchini breakfast muffins here, so the smaller two squash were shoved in the fridge to be dealt with on the weekend..... and the large one I cored (for the chickens), and used as the main ingredient in a Chocolate Zuchinni Cake - something I've had at the back of my mind for a couple of gardening seasons, but never got around to experimenting with. The result was quite dense and moist - impressive, though it should be since it includes oil, butter, *and* sour cream! It's also not so sweet that it tastes like every other chocolate cake out there. I didn't put icing on the top, but added extra chocolate chips sprinkled on as it was cooling - they aren't necessary, and I likely won't use them next time.  There *will* be a next time.

Chocolate Zuchinni Cake
     Adapted from King Arthur Flour,
     For 1 9x13 pan - I doubled and shared

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I would normally substitute homemade applesauce, but I was in a rush)
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chocolate chips (or a smidge more)

Preheat oven to 325F, and spray pan with baking spray.  Cream together butter, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs. Add soda, powder and salt to measured flour, stir together. Alternately blend in the sour cream and flour mixture to the bowl, adding in the cocoa at the end, and then folding in the zucchini and chocolate chips. Spoon into your pan, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a bamboo skewer comes out clean (I found this needed the extra five minutes in my oven).