Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

This recipe from Gina's Skinny Recipes for Low Fat Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread is a wonderful one. I thought about not posting it since my photo isn't the greatest but it is healthy, low fat & delicious so needed to share :)

Low Fat Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
from Gina's Skinny Recipes at skinnytaste.com

* 1 cup all purpose flour
* 1 cup white whole wheat flour
* 1/2 cup brown sugar (not packed)
* 1-1/8 tsp baking soda
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup chocolate chips
* 1 large egg, beaten
* 2 tbsp melted butter
* 1 cup apple sauce
* 1-1/2 cups shredded zucchini (not packed)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Mix well.
Add chocolate chips and gently mix to combine. In a medium bowl, mix egg, vanilla, melted butter, apple sauce and zucchini. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just blended. Pour
batter into a large 9x5 inch loaf pan. Bake at 325° for 45-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for about 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and let it cool before slicing.

My notes: I added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the batter because my old recipe (which used a cup of oil!) had that and we like the taste of cinnamon & chocolate. The whole wheat flour I use is Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour which I find in the health food section of my grocery store. It comes in 5 lb bags and the WW pastry flour is much finer ground than the WW flour found in the baking aisle. I use it by substituting it for 1/2 of the white flour in most recipes as part of our quest to become more healthy.

Marsha - Thumbs UP
Jeff - Thumbs UP

ice cream social time...

It's July so once again that means it is time for my friend, Suzy of Kitchen Bouquet's ice cream social. Head over to her post HERE to see almost 30 versions of ice cream from the participants as well as some ice cream history and beautiful ice cream sandwiches from Suzy. It's very hot here in MN with heat advisories so ice cream was a perfect treat to make this weekend.
I chose to make rocky road ice cream which is one of my very favorite flavors and I have made this eggless version from allrecipes.com before and we both really liked it. (sorry no photos that time)

This weekend I decided to do the custard base version and chose a recipe from Fine Cooking. I made a few modifications to the original recipe based on what I had on hand and my attempt at a shortcut that wasn't very successful.
Rocky Road Ice Cream
by David Lebovitz as copied from finecooking.com
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Table salt
5 large egg yolks
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate (at least 60% cacao), chopped and melted
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
1/3 cup mini marshmallows
1/3 cup toasted chopped pecans
1/3 cup bite-size chocolate chunks

In a medium saucepan, mix 1 cup of the cream with the milk, sugar, and a pinch of salt. Warm the cream mixture over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and tiny bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan, 3 to 4 minutes.

Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with several inches of ice water. Set a smaller metal bowl (one that holds at least 1-1/2 quarts) in the ice water. Pour the remaining cup of cream into the inner bowl (this helps the custard cool quicker when you pour it in later). Set a fine strainer on top. Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl.

In a steady stream, pour half of the warm cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from curdling.

Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heatproof rubber spatula until the custard thickens slightly (it should be thick enough to coat the spatula and hold a line drawn through it with a finger), 4 to 8 minutes. An instant-read thermometer should read 175° to 180°F at this point. Don’t let the sauce overheat or boil, or it will curdle.

Immediately strain the custard into the cold cream in the ice bath. Stir in the melted chocolate and cocoa powder. Cool the custard to below 70°F by stirring it over the ice bath.

Refrigerate the custard until completely chilled, at least 4 hours. Then freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Fold the marshmallows, pecans, and chocolate chunks into the just-churned ice cream, transfer to an air-tight container, and freeze for at least 4 hours or up to 2 weeks.

My Notes: I didn't have whole milk so I used the regular skim milk we always have on hand. Figured it had enough fat it in with all the cream & egg yolks anyway. Secondly, I made the custard at 9 pm at night and wasn't in the mood to go through all the steps with having an ice bath, I also thought "why can't I melt my chopped chocolate in the warm custard?" but obviously this was a big mistake. The chocolate melted for the most part but there were small bits (like coffee grounds) throughout the ice cream. While this didn't make the ice cream the best looking it didn't affect the taste. I also substituted marshmallow cream for the miniature marshmallows because that is how we prefer it (I also use the same substitution in the allrecipes version). While this ice cream was delicious as the person making it, I prefer the simple allrecipes version.

Marsha - Thumbs UP
Jeff - Thumbs UP

Simple holiday dessert...

We spent lots of time with family & friends this weekend so another dessert I made to bring to a BBQ is red/white/blue cake balls displayed to look like a flag. What are cake balls?? - Bake a 9 x 13 cake of any flavor of your choosing. This one was a dark chocolate one. Using your CLEAN hands, crumble the baked & cooled cake into into a large bowl and mix with one can of premade frosting of your choice. I used dark chocolate. Mix well with your spatula and then take spoonfuls of the mixture and roll into balls. Freeze until firm and then dip into melted Wilton chocolate melts - the color of your choice. Easy Peasy Dessert and was very popular at 2 gatherings this weekend.

St. Patrick's Day blog crawl...

Welcome!

Today, I am joining my friend Kathleen for her 3rd annual St. Patrick's Day blog crawl. Please click HERE to go to her blog, Cuisine Kathleen, and see all the other blogs participating.
I didn't have time to make the Irish treats that her party deserves, but I did set a simple tabled themed for the day.
I love these new black/white checked plates I found at Goodwill so you will probably be seeing them often in future posts. A black tablecloth, shamrock scarf and a candle holder hung with shamrocks and leprechaun hats (found at Michael's) are about as Irish as this post goes.
I did make dessert though - Meyer Lemon Buttermilk Sherbet.
I found the recipe for Grapefruit-Buttermilk Sherbet in the January 2011 issue of Cooking Light magazine and switched out Meyer Lemons for the Grapefruit.

Grapefruit-Buttermilk Sherbet
recipe from Cooking Light January 2011
Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 2/3 cup)


1 cup water
2 tablespoons finely chopped red grapefruit rind
1 cup sugar
1 cup fresh red grapefruit juice
2 cups whole buttermilk
2 tablespoons vodka

1. Bring 1 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add rind to pan; reduce heat, and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain, reserving rind. Combine rind, sugar, and juice in pan; bring to a boil, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Remove from heat; pour into a bowl. Chill for 1 hour. Strain juice mixture, and discard solids. Combine the juice mixture, buttermilk, and vodka in the freezer can of an ice-cream freezer; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.

My notes - I made as directed except for substituting the lemons.

Marsha - Thumbs partially UP (I thought the buttermilk flavor was not to my taste)
Jeff - Thumbs down

the Great Cooking Magazine Challenge

Today, I am joining my friend, Suzy (Kitchen Bouquet), for her Great Cooking Magazine challenge. If you are like the both of us you have a pile of cooking magazines laying around because there is a recipe or two that you just have to try. Suzy challenges us once in a while to open them up and try those recipes we've bookmarked. Please click HERE to go to her blog and see her entry as well as the other's participating.

Last night we had a date night meal at home so it was a great time to use the new wine themed plates that Jayme & Scott gave me for Christmas. What is date night at home? Well for us it is me choosing all the activities, LOL! Actually, I make an effort to set a nice table and prepare a nice meal while Jeff opens a bottle of good wine. Then we went bowling for 3 games (on the Wii) before sitting down to watch the movie "I Hate Valentines Day".
The napkin rings and napkins were also a gift from Jayme & Scott.
I really like the wine plates, one plate features Venice...
and one Paris.
I had planned on showing a new chicken recipe we tried on Friday night but I'll save that one for later. Because yesterday, I received my March 2011 issue of Food Network magazine and it is labeled Pasta, Pasta, Pasta! The Italian Issue with a photo of Pea-Prosciutto Sauce over ravioli on the cover. This issue is going to end up dog-eared because I love pasta! The cover photo looked great and I had all the ingredients in the house so I chose this recipe to highlight.
Their website is still showing the Jan-Feb 2011 issue so since it is not yet online, I couldn't link the recipe. This recipe is one of many in an article titled Super Easy Pasta Sauces.

Pea-Prosciutto Sauce
Food Network Magazine March 2011

Cook 4 ounces chopped prosciutto in a skillet with 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat until crisp, 4 minutes. Stir in 3 sliced garlic cloves and 1 tablespoon tomato paste; cook 1 minute. Ladle in 1 cup pasta-cooking water and simmer until reduced by half, 4 minutes. Add 1/4 cup heavy cream and simmer until thickened, 3 minutes. Toss with 1 pound cooked ravioli, 1 cup blanched frozen peas and some chopped parsley. Top with grated parmesan.

My notes: To lighten the sauce I used 1 tablespoon olive oil instead of 2. In the same issue of the magazine was an article on lightening up alfredo sauce by using low-fat milk and low-fat neufchatel cream cheese. So instead of using the heavy cream, I used 1/4 cup skim milk and 2 tablespoons of the low-fat cream cheese. It was a great substitution and the sauce still had a rich, creamy taste. We served the sauce over our favorite frozen butternut squash ravioli (YUM!). I also didn't have parlsey on hand so that was omitted. Recipes like this that only use a TB of tomato paste makes me thankful I started buying the tubes of paste.

For dessert I pulled out the December 2010 issue of Food Network Magazine and made

Espresso Chip Meringues by Giada De Laurentiis. You can view the recipe by clicking on the titled link.
If you make 12 like the recipe says mine were huge - about 2 1/2-3 inch diameter.

Marsha - Thumbs UP to the pasta sauce, we will definitely be making this one again! Thumbs UP to the espresso meringues, I like the sweet taste and airy texture.
Jeff - Thumbs UP to the pasta sauce, he had a 2nd helping. Thumbs Down to the meringues, he'd rather have a real cookie as he thought this one was like eating styrofoam, LOL! Just means there are more for me to enjoy.

back in the kitchen...pumpkin turnovers

Thanks to some gentle prodding from my dear friend, Kathleen, I'm back to blogging from Marsha's Kitchen. Summer is just such a busy time for us and our business that it is hard to find time to prepare new recipes - usually we eat the quick tried and true old ones. I look forward to sharing many new recipes once again over the fall/winter/spring months. Besides, I need to be up and running so I can participate in her White Christmas/Winter White meme on Dec 15th! Look for more information in the coming weeks on her blog.

The new recipe I tried today was from the blog of a Minnesota food writer, Sue Doeden (All about Food). She also writes a weekly newspaper column in several newspapers. She calls these little bites of pleasure "Grab-and-Go Sweet Pumpkin Turnovers".
Since the oven was heated up I also made some banana bread (2 small loaves and some pumpkins & leaves in my silicone molds).
I always add chocolate chips to my banana bread and today since I had extra chopped walnuts from the turnovers they were tossed in as well.When the baking was done I made myself a cup of tea to go along with the "sampling" and also to have a little break before I tackled the pile of dishes.
One bite into the crispy pumpkin turnover and the leaf banana bread went back on the serving plate so I could "grab" a second turnover :)
The cinnamon sugared leaves and acorns made out of the scraps of walnut studded pie crust were pretty darn good as well :)
The recipe as copied from All About Food on this POST.
Grab-and-Go Sweet Pumpkin Turnovers

* 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking spice blend, pumpkin pie spice blend or your favorite baking spice
* 1 (14.1 ounce) package refrigerated pie crusts
* 1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
* Milk
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 egg white, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar and spices. Set aside.

Unroll one pie crust on work surface. Sprinkle with half of the chopped walnuts. Use a rolling pin to roll over dough, pressing the nuts into the dough.

With a 3 1/2- to 4-inch round cookie cutter, cut 8 rounds from the dough.

Repeat with remaining pie crust in package.

Spoon one tablespoon of pumpkin mixture onto the center of each round. Moisten edges with milk, fold in half and press edges together to seal. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Brush turnovers with egg white. Sprinkle each with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place on ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake in preheated 450-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 16 turnovers.

The first ones are sweet and crunchy with the cinn/sugar topping, Sue states in her notes that after being stored the pastry will be soft. I'm leaving these sit out for a while so that when Jeff comes home he gets to taste the crunch as well.

Marsha - Thumbs UP
Jeff - not home yet, but I'm confident it will be a 2nd thumbs up :)

ice cream social for one...

I'm a little early to the party but my friend, Suzy, from Kitchen Bouquet is having an ice cream social this weekend. Please click HERE to see all the other's participating, I am early posting to this event so today she has a flashback to some of the entries from last year's social but please recheck her blog throughout the weekend to see all this year's participants..

I love a good mocha latte and when I saw a recipe for mocha latte ice cream in the July 2010 issue of Southern Living magazine I knew this was the one to make for Suzy's virtual party.
It has been a busy week of work and gardening for me so yesterday afternoon was the perfect time to take a frozen latte coffee break.
I thoroughly enjoy a good cup of coffee whether hot, frozen or floral.


This recipe was my first time using the egg custard base and I think it makes for a much richer and creamier ice cream. However, it is not a quick make like the eggless versions as you need to remember the custard needs time to chill - in this case overnight.
It tastes as good as it looks...maybe even better, well worth the wait :)

Mocha Latte Ice Cream
from Southern Living magazine (July 2010)

Yield: Makes about 1 qt.
Ingredients

* 3/4 cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1 tablespoon instant espresso
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups milk
* 1 cup heavy whipping cream
* 1 egg yolk
* 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (vanilla extract may be substituted)
* 1 cup chopped pecans
* 2 ounces finely chopped semisweet chocolate
* Garnish: dark-chocolate sticks

Preparation

1. Whisk together first 4 ingredients in a large heavy saucepan. Gradually whisk in milk and whipping cream. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, 10 to 12 minutes or until mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat.

2. Whisk egg yolk until slightly thickened. Gradually whisk about 1 cup hot cream mixture into yolk. Add yolk mixture to remaining cream mixture, whisking constantly. Whisk in vanilla bean paste. Cool 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

3. Place plastic wrap directly on cream mixture, and chill 8 to 24 hours.

4. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°. Bake pecans in a single layer in a shallow pan 8 minutes or until toasted and fragrant, stirring once halfway through. Cool completely (about 30 minutes).

5. Pour chilled cream mixture into freezer container of a 1 1/2-qt. electric ice-cream maker, and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. (Instructions and time may vary.) Before transferring ice cream to an airtight container for further freezing, stir in pecans and chocolate. Garnish, if desired.

My Notes: I used vanilla extract, skim milk and mini chocolate chips and it still tastes great.

Marsha - Thumbs UP
Jeff - not home but I am sure he will enjoy some later :)

wine soaked strawberries...

One of my favorite summer treats is ice cold Bartenura Moscato with sliced peaches in a glass. After you drink the slightly bubbly wine, the wine soaked peaches are heavenly. On a recent cycling trip we stopped at the Morgan Creek Winery near New Ulm, MN. During the wine tasting I was telling our server about the peaches and she insisted I buy their Sweet E dessert wine and do the same thing with fresh strawberries. It didn't take much convincing and while camping this weekend we had the wine soaked strawberries for dessert along with a few chocolate/pecan covered strawberries. The wine soaked strawberries did taste good but it has nothing on the moscato/peach combination :)
We really enjoy our camping and cycling excursions but not from a tent...
but in an rv with all the comforts of home.
J is becoming a pretty darn good griller too :)

Sticky Road Chocolate Bars...

Has it really been 6 weeks since I posted anything from Marsha's Kitchen? Yes, I have been cooking but it always seems like we eat before I remember to take a picture. I'll try not to be so slack since I have 2 more new cookbooks added to my collection since the last post so there will be lots of new recipes to try.
Today was a rainy day so I cleaned up the house and did some baking. I tried a new recipe I saw on tv last winter, Sunny Anderson's Sticky Road Chocolate Bars.
By the time they were done the sun came out so I took some out to the garden to snack on - it's tulip time so I knew just what plate to use :)


Sticky Road Chocolate Bars
as printed on the FoodNetwork site - recipe by Sunny Anderson, 2008

Ingredients
For the chocolate bar:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* Pinch salt
* 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, plus extra for the pan
* 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
* 1/4 cup chopped pecans

For the glaze:

* 3/4 cup butter
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
* 3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
* 1 cup chopped pecans
* 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes

Directions

Special Equipment: off-set spatula, parchment paper, 12 by 8 1/2-inch sheet pan

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together. In a large bowl using a handheld mixer on medium high speed, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and mix until well combined. Add flour mixture in batches and blend until combined and crumbly. Fold in melted chocolate and the pecans. Butter a quarter sheet pan. Line the pan with a piece of parchment paper and butter the parchment. Press dough evenly into the sheet pan and prick surface evenly with a fork. Bake until firm in the center, about 20 minutes. Let cool and prepare the glaze.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter, then add sugar, corn syrup and condensed milk. Cook until all ingredients are dissolved and a golden color is reached, about 10 to 12 minutes. Fold in the pecans and coconut. Pour the hot glaze over the cooled chocolate bars and quickly chill in the freezer to let glaze set. Cut into bars and serve.

My notes: after reading the online comments about the crust being bitter I used Baker's semi sweet squares. I also don't like to waste things so I used the whole can of sweetened condensed milk because what was I going to do with the little that was left :) The topping still turned out great.

Marsha - Thumbs Up though they will probably not be made again - too much butter in this recipe and there are other bars I like better.

Jeff - Thumbs Up

a day in the kitchen...

I let 3 bananas get a little too ripe so this morning so I decided to make our favorite chocolate chip banana bread recipe. Once the mini loaves were in the oven and I was washing out my bowl I thought why don't I just keep going and stock the freezer. So next up I made brownies (from a mix) in my pumpkin & fall leaf pan. While they were in the oven - I had to think of what I could make next since I used up all the eggs in the house. While munching on a warm slice of banana bread...I remembered a recipe I saw on a blog recently for Pumpkin Crescent Rolls. Of course I didn't have crescent rolls (much less 8 cans) in the house but I thought the filling would work great with my WS pocket pie molds. Since you can't make a regular pumpkin pie custard filling with a top crust this recipe worked extremely well.
The results were fantastic with pie crust and I can only imagine how good this must taste using actual crescent rolls. I decided to have a cup a tea and a pumpkin pocket pie and read the mail before I tackled the remaining dishes...and as you can see I couldn't wait for the first taste even before the teapot got hot enough for tea :)
Pumpkin Crescent Rolls from Snarky Mom at Postcards From Insanity.

8 oz cream cheese, softened
15 oz can pumpkin
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 T flour
2 T cinnamon
1 t pumpkin pie spice
8 pkgs refrigerated crescent rolls
½ cup sugar
Preheat oven to 375. In mixer bowl, blend cream cheese, pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, flour and spices until combined and smooth. Unroll crescent rolls, separate and lay flat. Evenly spread 1 ½ T of pumpkin mix over dough. Roll into crescent shape and sprinkle top with sugar. Bake 11-13 minutes until golden brown.

My notes: I made the filling exactly as listed - yes, 2 TB of cinnamon! It sounds like a lot but we are cinnamon lovers as well and it tastes wonderful. Oops, I guess I didn't make it exactly as listed - pumpkin pie spice is just a combo spice of cloves, ginger & nutmeg so I used 1/2 tsp of ginger, 1/2 tsp of cloves and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg because I just bought them all fresh for the pumpkin pie dessert I made earlier this month and of course, I used standard pie crust for the pocket pies. I definitely will be trying this in the future with the crescent rolls.

Click on the link to her post HERE to view the post showing this recipe and 17 others that are traditional Thanksgiving recipes for her. I will be trying some more of her recipes soon!
Our favorite banana bread...

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
3 mashed bananas
2 cups sifted flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, milk and mashed bananas, blend together. Add sifted flour and soda. Pour the chocolate chips into a small bowl and toss with a TB of flour until they are coated. This helps the chips from sinking to the bottom of the bread while baking. Mix in and pour batter into 3 buttered mini loaf bread pans (or 2 regular ones). Bake at 350 degrees for approx 45-50 minutes. Test with a toothpick after 40 minutes.

pocket pies...

Those cute little leaf pie crust cutters weren't the only thing in my recent Williams Sonona order box. I also got these cute little pumpkin and apple pocket pie molds so I could add a little love to J's daily lunch box.I tried them out for the first time today and since there will be pumpkin things everywhere we go in the next few weeks, I made apple pies but used the pumpkin mold to be more festive.
I'm still getting the hang of this food photography thing and have discovered that food with details (cute little leaves again) looks better on a plain plate and not a cute little autumn patterned one :)


No special recipe here - just pie crust, apples and egg wash with cinnamon & sugar on top. We had to sample these two warm for the sake of the blog...the rest went in the freezer for his lunch next week.

Marsha - Thumbs UP
Jeff - Thumps UP