Not your normal Toilet Roll Art

In my house it is always the "Mystery of the Missing Toilet Rolls" What happens to toilet rolls? There is a constant lack of them in my home......binocs, spyers (telescopes), art?? Yep, art.




My kids discovered that if you wet them you could unroll the cardboard. So they did. Then they discovered that if you laid them out flat they'd dry and stay that way. I love it!


Next, some folding, placement fun and gluing and painting, and VOILA! A totally mummyfree art project!! So cool!



















Sawyer, makes these as gifts on a regular basis. He spends a LOT of time figuring out the new shape and then carefully gluing and painting them.
PS Wait until you see the one that appeared today - a huuuuuge airplane shape....it's still drying and being glued.....

Zuke Borscht and Stirfry

I added them to my homemade Borscht today, zuchini eggplant stirfry (with onions and garlic from the garden - honey, soya and fish sauce). We had a true international dinner. Russion Borscht, cambodian stirfry and leftover italian zuke lasagne. A pretty picture :)

Zuke Lasagne

It's out of the oven, it's hot, it smells devine....did I follow a recipe? No...did I have something to guide me!? Yep! HERE Who gave me the idea? Kate, our new WOOF from Australia. She loves the idea of 30 days of Zuchini and has been helping with the baking and recipe generation!! (OK OK She made the cookies!) I'll take a photo when we start eating.....basically I made spaghetti sauce yesterday (with our tomatoes, minced moose and of course grated zukes) and today used the sauce in the lasagne. I layered tomato sauce, oven grilled zuke slices (salt pepper and olive oil brushed sliced zukes sliced on the funky doodle slicer my mum started buying years ago after a shopping mall demonstration - it's like a handheld food processor and I use it every day!) mozzarella, various odds and ends from my fridge and stuck it in the oven! I went out to the garden - harvested greens for a salad and now wait for 20 mins until we can dig into the lasagne!!! My mouth is watering....

Such a neat day. The kids had an "edible picnic" they picked a variety of stuff from the garden and then chowed down. The are loving the raw corn right now!

cheery summer flowers

The sunflowers carefully transplanted one by one by my boys this spring are now blooming in full glory! So beautiful and such a wonderful border to my garden! (strawberry plants behind!)

Zuke Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Barbara Kingsolver is more than a writer of such books as The Poisonwood Bible, she's a cook and local foodie with a neat book out called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Her year of self sufficiency and eating locally....The website includes this yummy recipe in a printable pdf page - and they are delish!

350 for 15 mins

1 egg

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

1 T vanilla

1/2 cup butter

combine

2 cups flour ( we use whole wheat; she used 1 cup of white 1 cup of whole wheat)

1/2 tsp Baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

combine

combine in large bowl with 1 cup shredded zuke (we used yellow) and 12 oz of chocolate chips.

Drop on cookie sheet with spoon and flatten.

They are YUMMERS!!! We made them with yellow zuchini - When Sawyer pulled a piece of the zuke out of the cookie he asked "Is this dandelion??" I had to laugh, remembering the dandelion donuts I made this spring!

Zuchini Bread - Recipe 2

Well I found a recipe HERE and here it is:

Ingredients:
4 cups grated zukes
5 eggs
1 cup fat
2 cups sugar
4 cups flour
3 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt (I don't add if my butter has salt)
1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup chopped walnuts is optional

I wish I'd added raisons.....

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

1. Grate the zucchini, and measure out four cups ( I used yellow zukes and 4+ cups -ACK so much zuchini so little time!). Add to large mixing bowl.


2. Add eggs, fat, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, vanilla and sugar. Stir together well.


3. Add flour to the mixture, a bit at a time. Stir until all ingredients are mixed. The mixture should resemble thick pancake batter. Add nuts, if desired.


4. Lightly grease and flour your bread pans, or spray them with nonstick cooking spray. ( I used a mini loaf tin and a corning ware smaller sized casserole pan)


5. Carefully spoon the mixture into bread pans, stopping when the mixture is about 3/4 of the way to the top. (ME careful??)


6. Bake for 35 minutes, or until a golden brown. Take out loaves, and let them cool five minutes before removing the bread from the pans to finish cooling on a wire rack. (They got eaten before they were cool and got two thumbs up from the family!)

Couldn't resist adding an updated photo of my boys- Sawyer is 6!!!!

30 Days of Zuchini

I'm going to try and make a different zuchini recipe every day. I am completely overwhelmed with zukes here......

Parmesan Zukes in the Oven

quarter zukes lengthwise
brush with olive oil
sprinkle with pepper and garlic powder
grill at 350
after they are softened sprinkle grated parmesan on top
(we had zuke quarters touching so we didn`t `lose` any parmesan)
put back in oven to brown cheese
serve -
big hit at a bbq we had here!

Check out my article HERE