Archive | June, 2012

Zucchini Bread

28 Jun

Well I have certainly been a bad blogger recently! It’s been almost a month since I last did a post… tsk tsk!! As I’m sure it is with most bloggers who accidentally find themselves blog post free in almost a month, it hasn’t been for lack of things to blog about, but rather a huge lack of time.

Anyways, here is a little bit more about the mini chocolate zucchini bread loaves I made for the picnic with the BFC girls last month…

This is a recipe that my family has been enjoying for many years. We normally make it in two standard loaf pans, but I thought it would be fun to try out the new ‘mini loaf’ pan I recently bought.

I wrapped the little loaves in wax paper and then a thick strip of craft paper, before finishing it off with a kitchen string bow. I love the cute, crafty and homemade look of packaging the little loaves this way. They would make great party or shower favours! 

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

-  3 eggs
-  2 cups sugar
-  1 cup oil
-  1 tsp vanilla
-  2 cups grated zucchini
-  2 rounded tablespoons cocoa powder
-  3 cups flour
-  1 tsp cinnamon
-  1.5 tsp baking powder
-  1 tsp baking soda
-  semi sweet chocolate chips (I just keep adding them until it feels right…)
-  optional: 1 cup almonds (whole, sliced, chopped… however you like)
 

Beat eggs; add oil and sugar and beat well. Add vanilla, zucchini, and chocolate powder; beat well.

Mix dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and then slowly add to the wet mixture.

Add in chocolate chips and nuts if you so desire. Mix well.

Bake in two greased standard loaf pans, or mini loaf pans at 350 F.

The recipe book says to bake for 40-60 mins depending on the size of the loaves. However, I found that the size of mini loaf pans can really vary, the ones I bought made about 16 little loaves and only required about 20 mins in the oven.

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Oh and in keeping with the nostalgia kick I also mentioned before… here is a picture of me at age 5 or 6 making ‘Z bread’* as it is affectionately known in my family.

*Side note: it’s a lot catchier if you’re Canadian and say ‘zed’ not ‘zee’ 

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picnic with the BFC girls

2 Jun

I am so very fortunate to work with a wonderful group of girls at Barefoot Contessa and even more fortunate that we have lots of fun parties together!

We all got together for a picnic last weekend to say goodbye to Julia and Evelyn who have left the BFC family for new fun adventures. We decided two days beforehand that we wanted to make it look pretty and decorate (well me and Piper did anyways, and then made the rest of the girls go along with it haha). 

Anyways, like I said, the Barefoot girls are pretty great and all contributed to ensuring that the evening was not only pretty, but full of yummy eats and lots of laughs. Here are a few pictures I managed to capture before digging in to the food and helping myself to a few glasses of wine. 

We decided that ‘the colours’ would be pale yellow and white. I found some scraps of white and yellow floral fabric which we turned in to make-shift garland (or bunting? banner?) with kitchen string. The ‘table cloth’ was actually a twin bed skirt that I found at a thrift store (and washed thoroughly!) and Kim (our lovely hostess) provided a pale yellow table runner. Piper brought some big mason jars to use as vases for the flowers which came courtesy of the buttercup patch in Kim’s backyard.

We also used some mini mason jars as glasses. As you can see above, I wrapped them with craft paper (double sided tape helped with this) and used some of the remaining fabric to make little bows. Pretty cute no?

Even the potato and macaroni salad were made pretty with mini bunting!

(You can also see some of the mini zucchini bread loaves I made in the picture above – a blog post on those will be coming soon!)

Ooh and not only did Kim host, she also made a super yummy dessert – a Scottish specialty called Cranachan. It’s basically whip cream, raspberries, toasted oats, honey and whiskey. Delicious!

Here are a few more pictures of the entire spread…

Thanks again to all the wonderful BFC ladies for making it a fabulous night! 

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