Summer Zucchini Recipes

**from allrecipes.com**


Oh gosh, our garden is producing zucchini out of control! I love them but I had to find new ways of preparing them so that Ricky and I didn't get totally sick of them. I highly recommend the zucchini cake recipe. It was light, delicious and a great way to have veggies in dessert!

3. Zucchini Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 13x9 inch baking pan.
2. Combine eggs, oil, sugar, grated zucchini, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Stir in the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon and mix until just combined. Stir in the chopped nuts. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F(175 degrees C) for 45 minutes.

**Compliments of Allrecipes.com

4. Zucchini Scramble (a twist on my grandmother's recipe)

Ingredients:

1 cup sliced zucchini
1/2 cup sliced onions
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
coarse ground black pepper and kosher salt to taste
2 eggs
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup feta cheese

Boil zucchini in a large pot until tender. Drain water and season with garlic and onion powders. Add onions. Sautee onions and zucchini together for about three minutes. Crack eggs and scramble in a separate bowl. Add eggs to vegetable mixture and scramble together until eggs are almost done. Add 1/4 of feta cheese and season with salt and pepper. Great for brunch!:)

Summer Recipes Series, Continued

2. Lemon Cake Bon Bons with White Chocolate and Candied Grapefruit Zest

Ingredients:
**NOTE: THIS RECIPE TAKES 24 HOURS**
one box white cake mix (or you can bake a cake from scratch)
16 ounces lemon icing (again you can make it yourself or buy it pre-made)
one large grapefruit
one cup white granulated sugar, divided
wax paper
2 packages of white chocolate candy coating

DAY ONE:
Prepare your cake as directed. Let it cool for about 2 hours. Break up the cake with your hands or a food processor until only soft crumbs remain. Mix lemon icing with cake crumbs until smooth. Refrigerate mixture of cake and icing from one hour. Scoop out cake mixture and roll into one inch balls. Place wax paper on a cookie sheet and place each formed ball on the wax paper. Freeze cake balls overnight.

Zest your grapefruit and collect zest in a small pot. Fill pot with cool water and let it set overnight at room temperature.

DAY TWO:

Boil water with lemon zest for 5-7 minutes. Pour off water, add new water and repeat boiling two more times. After the final boiling, add fresh cool water and 3 tbsp of sugar. Boil for 5-7 minutes until sugar dissolves. Drain water from zest and place zest on wax paper. Sprinkle 1-2 additional tbsp of sugar over the zest and let dry for an hour.

Remove the cake balls from the freezer. Melt the white chocolate coating as directed on the package. Using a toothpick or small dowel rod, dip each cake ball in the chocolate and place it back on the wax paper. Top each bon bon with the candied grapefruit before the chocolate cools. Place completed bon bons back in the freezer for one hour prior to serving.

Summer Recipe Series

Despite the intense San Antonio heat (it's 104 degrees today) I have taken to the kitchen and worked on some great recipes for summer. Some are new takes on old classics and some are personal creations. If you like cooking as much as I do, you're sure to enjoy these tasty treats from your own kitchen.

My goal is to post one new recipe per week. I actually made two new things this week so here we go...

1. Strawberry Spinach Salad with Balsamic Honey Chicken:

I've had this a few times but I finally perfected it to my taste!

You need:
2 large chicken breasts
2 tbsp garlic powder
fresh ground pepper and salt to taste
2 tbsp onion powder
1 cup balsamic vinegar
4 tbsps of honey
fresh spinach (I used spinach and arugula)
1/2 cup diced red onion
1 cup diced cucumber
1/2 cup (candied or plain) walnuts
1/4 cup olive oil (or less depending on your preference)
6 sliced strawberries
1/2 cup feta cheese

Season the chicken with the aforementioned spices. Soak for five minutes in balsamic vinegar. Place the chicken breasts in a skillet with 1 tbsp olive oil. Baste the non-cooking side with honey. Cook chicken and baste the opposite side when you turn it over. Let chicken cool and then dice into bite sized pieces.

Combine spinach/arugula, strawberries, onion, cucumber, feta cheese and walnuts. Top with chicken.

To make the dressing: combine 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, 2 tbsp of honey and oilve oil. Whisk and pour on salad immediately.

*Image borrowed from: http://i2.yummly.com/Spring-Strawberry-Spinach-Salad-Allrecipes.l.png

Spring Updates

The Williams Family has been busy, as usual. April has been a crazy month and it looks like the next few months will be just as busy! Ricky and I both signed up to auxiliary pioneer this month, meaning that we would each devote 30 hours this month to the volunteer ministry. 30 hours doesn't sound like a lot but I can definitely feel them in my level of exhaustion at the end of the month! For the first weekend in April, Ricky and I splurged and went to see UK play UConn at the final four in Houston. Despite the Cats loss, it was a great time! Also during that trip, we met up with my cousin Malcolm (whom I hadn't seen in about 10 years!) and his wife and son. The next weekend April 7-11th, I went home to Evansville to visit the family. My aunts and cousins from Cincinnati even came down to visit. Erin and I got all of our favorite foods--Los Bravos, Donut Bank, Turoni's, Skyline Chili. Mmm...it was almost too much to handle.

For pictures click here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.573345409545.2074881.50401332&l=e4fd492a72

I returned home from Indiana to find our house semi flooded from our washer. Ricky diligently took it apart only to find out a hose was clogged within the machine from muddy pants he washed after gardening. Speaking of gardening, I have been working on our front flower bed for almost a month. The previous owners planted only perennial "monkey grass", some un-identified bushes and a Texas Mountain Laurel tree (the only good part of the flower bed). All the monkey grass is gone and I've planted: a gardenia bush, canna lillies, calla lilies, begonias, marigolds, knockout roses, mini-roses, and colocasia (red). I also got a talavera pottery bird bath. The flower bed looks MUCH better and I'll post pictures as soon as I get it fully mulched. Now if only we could get some rain so that I could stop watering. This weekend I'm starting a veggie garden in the back yard so hopefully it goes well!

Ricky and I also experienced a San Antonio tradition last weekend--tubing or "toobing" on the Comal River thanks to our friend Jason. We picked up inflatable tubes from a local sporting goods store and heading up to New Braunfels for a day of (free) tubing. We loved it! If you can't find us this summer, we'll be floating down the river.

We are preparing the circuit assembly next weekend, my Texas Dental Association meetings next week and of course, Nathan and Emily's visit in June. We'll keep you posted.