How Does Your Garden Grow?

A blogging friend recently posed the question, "How Does Your Garden Grow?" in her family blog.  My answer:  greener and greener!

Most of the veggies and fruits are growing and thriving.  The strawberry patch yielded more berries than we knew what to do with.  Our tomato plants have little green tomatoes growing...and I'm craving some fried green tomatoes!

The zucchini plants are doing especially well as you can see from our first harvest of the summer!








We haven't been so fortunate with all of our crops, though.  Despite our fence, some little critters still snuck their way in and devoured our corn, pea and bean plants.  We've replanted all three and need to get some smaller meshed fencing to put around the bottom of our existing fence.  Only one of our watermelons and one of our pumpkins took.  You can see the one surviving corn stalk:

Luckily for me, my favorite recipe only requires zucchinis...and lots of them!  I brought the zucchinis into the house and shredded up the four biggest to get myself 12 cups of shredded zucchini...just enough for six loaves of zucchini bread...my favorite summer recipe.  Making, baking, and freezing zucchini bread has become a sacred summer ritual for me.

The recipe I use is delicious and can be altered in all kinds of fun ways.  For example, a cup of chocolate chips to the mix makes a yummy dessert.  If your sweet tooth craves something besides chocolate, try topping the bread with cream cheese icing.  Also, if you're out of zucchini, you can make substitutions with other shredded veggies from your garden or fridge such as summer squash, carrots, or pumpkin.  Finally, if your not the nutty type, feel free to hold the walnuts...the bread will still be quite delicious. 

Homemade Zucchini Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

4 cups shredded zucchini (with some of the liquid drained off)

3 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/4 cup vegetable oil

4 beaten eggs

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1 cup of chopped walnuts

Preparation:

1.  Grease the bottom of two bread pans.

2.  Blend ingredients, scraping the bowl often.

3.  Pour into pans.  Be careful not to fill the pans to the tops...the bread will expand as it bakes.

4.  Bake at 325°F for 1 hour and 10 minutes. 

5.  Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

So, how does your garden grow?

 

 

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