For a long time, we have not had a kitchen curtain. It was not a priority because eventually, our kitchen will be totally different. But I got sick of the lack of privacy. And I found some discontinued fabric at Calico Corners for $7.00. So I commissioned my mother to make this cute cafe curtain. And I am grateful.
Posted in Home
We had an abundance of squash this weekend from our garden. I made squash chips (really good), soup with squash, and then this zucchini bread. And I think it might be my favorite zucchini bread out there. It is not too sweet, other than the glaze, but is nice and zesty from the lemon.
I modified a recipe from here. The only change I made was to substitute half of the white flour for wheat. It made the bread a little dense, but not too much.
I made a few extra to give away. I love wrapping things how I think a baker would do so. Parchment paper and baker’s twine. Fun.
(makes one 9×5″ loaf)
Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Grease and flour a 9×5″ loaf pan; set aside. I used the convection oven and it worked great.
In large bowl, blend flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In medium bowl, beat 2 eggs well, then add canola oil and sugar, and blend well. Then add the buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest and blend everything well. Fold in zucchini and stir until evenly distributed in mixture.
Add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl and blend everything together, but don’t overmix.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Lemon Glaze
In small bowl, mix powdered sugar and lemon juice until well blended. Spoon glaze over warm loaf. Let glaze set, then serve.
In other news, the city might take a few more weeks on the water pipe, and I am still stuck with an iPhone rather than a real camera. The charger is taking his time coming from China.
Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized
I keep a running list of favorites. And these are a few of the latest….
I have admired this bag for a long time. I could buy it here, but can’t justify the cost right now.
I have been feeling the need to eat more vegetables, and so I subscribed to a vegetable service that delivers to a community drop off location on my street. Each week I get a bag of veggies like the above. And then I have to work hard to eat them all. Which means I eat more veggies than anything else. I am a huge fan of Johnson’s Backyard Garden.
Tasty Kitchen’s Pepitas Shrimp Skewers are yummo. Perfect for summer.
The Webster Miami “The Shops at Target” line is super fun. I bought this dress and wore it to church with a skinny belt. Super comfortable and cheap.
These red Tom’s are perfect when my toes don’t look cute.
But when I can have cute toes, I have been liking this color…
Essie’s Mink Muffs doesn’t sound summery, but it works for me!
It sure is fun to make new discoveries. What are you new favorites?
Posted in Things I like, Uncategorized
My camera battery is dead and we can’t find the charger. I have a new one ordered, but it is coming from China. I am too cheap to pay for one from this country—the difference was about $30 for one here, or $0.99 (plus about $2 in shipping) for one from China, but it comes on the slow boat. So I have not been taking pictures, and thus have not been blogging much. Because who really likes blogs without pictures? Not me.
The yard is still a mud pit, but it is drying. At the end of last week, we had a storm come through that dropped a record amount of rain in a very short time. Much of our top soil that was waiting for grass seed was washed away, but we are grateful that the seed had not yet been spread. I think we would have had to start again. We are still waiting for the city to install a new water pipe, before we can get grass seed. Scott called the city yesterday for an update. The city said it had not yet been scheduled. Arrrgh. Perhaps this week. The guy that installed the sprinkler system and spread the top soil is absolutely wonderful. He is patiently waiting for the city and says he will add top soil and spread it. Nice guy.
In the meantime, Scott is working on another—not very photogenic—project. He is wiring our house for Christmas lights and lanterns. When I started thinking about hanging Christmas lights last Christmas, Scott asked, “well how are you going to power them?” I had not thought much about it, but don’t most people just used an extension cord hanging out a window or something? That was NOT okay with Scott. He asked me to give him a year. And he started thinking about how to get power to the trees. So when the trenches for the sprinkler system were dug, we also laid wire for electrical outlets that lead to the trees. So we
have three trees that are powered with a plug. The plan is to wire the trees with a few hanging lanterns, similar to the below picture. We have admired the hanging lanterns at a house in East Austin for many years.
I can’t find lanterns like this anywhere. So what did I do? I knocked on the guy’s door but nobody answered. So I looked up his address through the tax office and got his name. And then I wrote him the below note. I sure hope he responds.
Here’s to hoping. If he doesn’t, then I have found a few other options, but they aren’t as cool.
Scott spent this weekend wiring the house wires so that we can turn the lanterns (and the Christmas lights) on with a flip of a switch from the inside of our house. Brilliant. He says it is because he is lazy, but he didn’t seem lazy this weekend.
Posted in Things I like, Uncategorized
