Kids, Lakes, Loons and Pines

Zucchini Chocolate Cake Recipe

Today I am sharing one of my favorite childhood recipes - Zucchini Chocolate Cake!

Let's just pretend it's healthy.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 c. oil  vegetable oil

1 3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs  

2 cups shredded zucchini

4 T. cocoa

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. baking powder

2 1/2 cups flour

approx 1/4 cup chocolate chips & 3 T. brown sugar for topping

------------------------------

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, baking powder, & baking soda in a small bow.

In a large bowl mix butter, sugar, & eggs.

Add dry ingredients to the butter, sugar and egg mixture, add grated zucchini and mix well.

Prepare a 9 x 13 baking pan.

Spread mixture evenly in pan and sprinkle chocolate chips and brown sugar on top.

Bake for 30 minutes and enjoy!

pickled out.

It has been pretty cool in Northeast Minnesota lately, a good week to start setting up my kindergarten classroom - also, good pickling weather.  I must admit, I am just about pickled-out.  About every three days I am able to pick about 30 pickling cucumbers and I have been making refrigerator pickles, canned sweet pickles, and batches of dills for a couple of weeks now.  I just might be done making pickles for the summer, we will see how much time, motivation, and energy I will be giving to garden cucumbers in the upcoming days.  

Sometimes I just throw in the towel, pull out all the cucumber (or bean, or pea) plants - and,

turn them into eggs,

which, is just a different way to say that I am feeding the plants to the chickens.  Time will tell.

Yesterday was also a good day for beets, the few I harvested,  I made into beet chips- which is a new-to-me recipe this year, that was the perfect mid-day snack for our crew.

How are you feeling about your garden harvest these days?

 

::in the pantry::

Today I am doing a little pantry show and tell.  My hubby just completed a little remodel in our closet under our stairway, which is now officially our pantry! 

This space, in our original house plans was going to be a stairway down to our basement.  Cutting some some major costs, we did not end up digging.  So we ended up with some closet space, which in reality has been a hiding place for junk for nine years.

In the last couple of days, James installed some thick insulating foam (to deter the in-floor heat), topped it with a wooden floor, and designed and constructed some shelving to make this space more functional.

I imagine this will also help us remember what we have in the pantry a little better.  I now have a shelf for jams and jellies and space to organize canned fruit and pickles.  I also have space for my newest creations: condiments!  I am excited to add ketchup and peach barbecue sauce to my pantry shelves this year.

So there is my pantry brag - What's lining your pantry shelves?

 

::peach love:: (and recipes)

It is nap time for my little one.  I am sitting here in a very warm house on a beautiful August day, taking a few moments to sit after a full morning on my feet.

I spent the morning putting up almost two full cases of peaches, something I do each summer, when they are delivered and distributed around town as part of a community fundraiser.

Today, I worked both alone, and in company of my children, each of them taking breaks from a morning of play upon their own interest to be a part of my experience.

After blanching and peeling the peaches I made using peppers from the garden and adapting a recipe for "Summer Salsa" I found in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

I tried a new recipe from Marissa McClellen's new book Preserving by the Pint for Peach Barbecue Sauce that I am sure we will enjoy.
I also froze and canned sliced peaches to enjoy over the winter,with some help from some little hands.

It was a full morning, with lots to show for the effort I put in, and a perfect excuse to go for an afternoon swim to enjoy the rest of this beautiful August day.

Collage Jewelry from Arttero Eco Art Kits (plus a giveaway!)

My daughter and I recently spent some time together making collage jewelry from an Artterro Eco Art Kit.

The kit was absolutely WONDERFUL!

When it came in the mail, we could not wait to open it up.  The materials are beautiful and very fun to work with.

In the collage jewelry kit we found a wooden bangle bracelet, beads & pendants, glass beads, seed beads, tissue papers, cotton cord, jewelry pieces, brushes, glaze and instructions.  

We were invited to imagine, explore and compose projects inspired by the materials and techniques described in the kit.

Together we used decoupage techniques to decorate the wooden bracelet and beads.

We added some words that we cut out from magazines to embellish our designs.

When the glaze dried, we assembled our jewelry.  We ended up making two pairs of earrings, two zipper pulls, one bangle bracelet, and two pendant necklaces from the kit-and we still have some tissue, beads, and glaze leftover for additional projects!

I love how process-oriented and open-ended the kit was, absolutely perfect for a creative nine year old child and her mama.  I am also inspired by the creators and ideas that formed Artterro.

I definitely recommend this kit and I am very excited to partner with Artterro to giveaway an Artterro Collage Jewelry Kit!

Arttero is also giving all Kids and Eggs readers a 20% discount any order at artterro.com by entering the code KE20 at checkout.

Good Luck! 

For a chance to win please use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

*Note - We recieved the kit for free and opinions expressed in this post are my own.

 

In the kitchen...

Some recent progress in the kitchen, mango salsa and garden dill pickles.
What are you putting up these days?

Refrigerator Sweet Pickles

It's cucumber season in Northern Minnesota, and for me that means my kitchen will have a faint smell of vinegar for the next couple of weeks. 

With our large family and growing appetites, I am getting less concerned about the quantity of jars lining my shelves.  I am totally ok if my children want to raid the garden to eat fresh vegetables off the vine, or if they ask me, "Can we please make cucumber popsicles?" 

So, it does seem that my harvest is a little less, but what I am collecting I am working to preserve.   The first pickles I made this year were inspired by one of James' grandma's recipes that I pulled from my recipe box.

Grandma Dorothy's Refrigerator Sweet Pickles

Ingredients:

16 cups sliced, unpeeled cucumbers

1 1/2 cups sliced white onions

1/3 cup pickling salt (will be rinsed off)

2 trays of ice cubes

2 cups of sugar

1 t. garlic powder

3 cups apple cider vinegar

2 t. tumeric

2 T. mustard seed

2 t. celery seed.

Directions:

Place cucumbers and onions in a big bowl.  Sprinkle with salt and top with ice cubes.  Let stand for 3 hours at room temperature.

(I had lots of help with the process.)

Rinse salt off cucumbers and onions and drain well, place in heat proof bowl or jar.

Bring sugar, garlic powder, vinegar, tumeric, mustard seed, and celery seed to a boil in large pan.   

Simmer uncovered 8 minutes.

Pour brine over cucumbers and pack in jars.

Refrigerate covered for 3 days before eating.  They can keep refrigerated for up to two months, but they are not likely to last that long.

If you give it a try, let me know how yours turn out in the comment section below.

10 Fun and Easy Homemade Popsicle Recipes

 

It's summer!  It's August!  Let's make popsicles!

That is just what we did today.  We made the process simple by using ingredients and materials that we found in the freezer, pantry, fridge, or garden.

For the recipes we blended the ingredients using a small food processer, and since we do not have a popsicle mold we just used paper cups and plastic spoons.

The popsicles took shape nicely and tasted great!  

Today we tried the recipes for the Blueberry Lemon, Lemonade Cucumber Spa Pop, and Blueberry Yogurt Pops.

They did not last long! I am sure we will be making more!

Here are links to 10 fun and easy popsicle recipes that are perfect for summer:

1. Watermelon Chocolate-Chip Popsicles 
2. Fresh Strawberry Popsicles  
3. Blueberry Lemon
4. Blueberry Yogurt Pops
5. Lemonade Cucumber Spa Pop
6. Lemon Lime Basil
7. Raspberry Creamsicles
8. Pure Raspberry Pops
9. Fresh Peach Popsicles
10. Iced Tea Fruit Pops

 

hello august

Sharing a quote of inspiration and a photo from this week.

I would love it if you would share one of your favorite quotes in the comment section below.

Happy Friday Friends!