Fruity Fun Friday- Zucchini! Whaaat?

1. First Zucchini of the Summer, 2. Summer Zucchini, 3. curry zucchini pickles, 4. Zucchinis

Surprise! Zucchini is a fruit, which is really handy for today's Fruity Fun Friday since we have all that zucchini someone piled up on the front porch.

Botanically, anything with seeds is a fruit. All the other parts of a plant- stem, leaves, roots, etc- are vegetables. That's a pretty simplistic break down of fruit versus vegetable but it gets us mostly on the right road. Most of us know the botanical surprise that tomatoes are fruit but things like cucumbers, pumpkins, and green peppers are also fruit. That kind of flies in the traditional face of our understanding of fruit as being sweet but many fruit we treat, gastronomically, as vegetables. It doesn't really matter other than my trying to justify having zucchini as today's featured fruit. Just trying to get through the bounty.

by ljcybergal

Folks in South and Central American have been eating zucchini, which is a summer squash, for thousands of years. However, what we consider zucchini was probably developed in Italy. Christopher Columbus most likely took seeds back to the Mediterranean with him. Zucchino is the Italian word for small squash and squash comes from the Indian word skuatasquash, meaning "green thing eaten green." However, squash comes in a variety of shapes, from cucumber-like to bottle shaped to the blossom shaped patty pan squash. It's color ranges from deep green to light green to yellow to white. And of course it comes in a variety of sizes, depending on how many days- hours?- since you checked your garden.

1. summer squash, 2. Summer squash, 3. 189/365 patty pan squash, 4. bowl o' crookneck squash

One medium zucchini has about 20 calories and contains calcium, potassium, Vitamins A, B, and C as well as folic acid. Zucchini is a good source of dietary fiber.

 So- let's get rid of some zukes!

Garden Zucchini Pie

This is another of those recipes that came from a magazine years ago but I am unable to tell you which one, where, or when. I can tell you that I've had it longer than eleven years because that was B.K. (before kid), when I had time to type up my recipes and add them to my binder. Now I just shove the recipe into the binder on whatever piece of paper it happens to be scribbled.



Ingredients:
3 cups of frozen loose-packed shredded hash browns, thawed
4 eggs- total (you won't use these all at the same time in preparation)
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (or a tad more)
2-3 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped
2 medium zucchini, thinly sliced (about 2 1/2 cups)
1 tbsp margarine or butter
3/4 cup shredded Swiss cheese (about 3 oz)
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp snipped fresh oregano (or 1/2 tsp dried)
1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/4 tsp pepper (or to taste)

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 egg, onion,  and Parmesan cheese. Stir in the potatoes. Transfer potato mixture to a greased 9-inch pie plate or 10-inch square dish. Pat the mixture in the bottom and up the sides of the dish. Bake, uncovered, in at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes, until the potaotes are golden brown.

Reduce oven to 350 degrees.

While the potatoes are baking, saute the garlic in butter. Add zucchini and cook until the zucchini is "crisp-tender." Arrange the zucchini mixture in the potato crust.

In a small mixing bowl combine remaining 3 eggs, cheese, milk, oregano, salt, and pepper. Pour on top of zucchini. Confession- I usually sprinkle on some extra Parmesan at this stage.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until the filling appears set when gently shaken. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Notes- You can make the crust ahead of time- it freezes well. Just thaw it in the refrigerator before using. And off course you can use egg substitute instead of the real eggs.

Humor me- one more mosaic before we go.

1. Zucchini Alert !, 2. Zucchini / Courgette, 3. Courgette flower, 4. Untitled

Hey, it's been fun today. Keep working at that pile of zucchini. I'm going to go surfing for Curry Zucchini Pickles, pictured in the first mosaic of today's post.

Check back again for a new tutorial-

Faux Stained Glass.

National S'Mores Day

wpholmes

Yes! Another day as an excuse to eat!

It's no secret here at The Butterfly Jungle that I have a special fondness for S'Mores.

by parl

The truth is, however, I just don't have the heart or the stomach to whip up any S'Mores recipes to share with you today because there is still a good portion of the Chocolate Zucchini Bread left that I shared with you on Sunday. I really need to focus on chocolate-free vegetables this week. So instead, I'm going to share some links and pics and S'Mores stuff with you and turn you loose to explore on your own. I hope you don't mind but, incredibly, I can't make eye contact with any chocolate right now. Told you the zucchini bread-cake was rich.

by kara burgman

Look at this cute felt S'Mores fella. Clever.

Taste of Home has a nice section of S'Mores recipes.

Rianne over at The Art of Dessert has a post about Fruit S'Mores- that makes then healthy.

Then there's the Campfire Marshmallows website, with lots of recipes and a cute kids section with jokes, puzzles, songs, even marshmallow crafts.

Not able to fire up a campfire? Like kitchen gadgets? No worries- got ya' covered with the Casa Moda S'Mores Maker or the Progressive International Microwavable S'Mores Maker. (These link to Amazon but I am not, as of the writing of this, an Amazon Associate. Maybe someday).

by dmdzine

S'Mores Christmas ornaments? Go to Flying Cloud.

Social activist T-Shirts? Zazzle has your statement.

Toys for your kids? Check out Hasbro S'Mores Pony.

by CeeJay

(Yea, I would like to know too.)

OK- so that about does it- I'm starting to get queasy.

Thanks for visiting today- it's been fun and sweet and disgusting.

Nice Things About Summer- Beach

You know what a nice thing about summer is? The beach. My dad took this photo in about 1983, give or take a year. Nags Head, NC- my home away from home.

You know what's even better than the beach?

A beach with the girlfriends.

A group of us gals used to go to Nags Head every year, no boys allowed. The makeup of the group varied  somewhat from year to year- coworkers, friends, kids, friends of kid-, but there was a core group of 3 or 4 of us who went every year for about ten years. Funny thing, the no boys rule was taken very seriously as turned out those with kids had girls.

My husband starting going a couple years after we got married but he's just one of the girls. That's not a reflection on Big Un's masculinity but more on his personality. I've never met anyone who seems to be able to fit in anywhere with anyone like my husband does. He's not a cameleon, he just is who he is and accepts most people on the same basis. Good guy. He made a great babysitter that year when we girls headed out for the night!! He's the one who came up with the idea of Big Un's Beer and Bait Shop as a retirement plan.

"Coldest beer, freshest bait,
best BS on the Outer Banks." 

We figured we would hire some old sea dog fisherman to hang out and give advice and we would do all the hard labor. Plus, we would need some bodacious blonde at the cash register. I'm blonde but my bodacious parts seemed to have migrated to my mid-section the past few years. Not attractive customer bait.

Eventually it was just my husband and I who made the yearly trek to the beach, towing the kid and all her flotsam along behind us. We used to go in September or October after school started and the rental rates went down. But once my kid started kindergarten, we had to start paying regular rates again as anyone with kids can tell you that once they start school, your schedule and life are determined to a large extent by the school district.

It's been a couple of years now since we've gone to the beach, something I swore would never happen. The first year I missed I was hugely pregnant. I thought it would make a good story to birth the kid on a beach blanket under an umbrella buy my midwife objected. So life changes and you adjust. But, like losing a red-hot sports rivalry, there's always next year.

Because going to the beach is

a nice thing about summer.

It's Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night

Yup- a legitimate holiday. OK, not so much a holiday (unless you're the one unloading a couple tons of squash), but more of a festive, wacky observation. Some folks call this Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day, but it really is best to do this under the cover of darkness. After all, it only takes a couple of gardeners sneaking around the neighborhood with a wagon full of green goodness before a person can end up with a pretty big pile of zucchini.

On the other hand, zucchini is very easy to put away for a rainy day. Spend a day working up some nice casseroles for the freezer. Or this super yummy bread. There are hundreds of recipes for Chocolate Zucchini Bread, all of them more or less similar. This recipe comes from Joy of Baking and is a bread-cake hybrid. Jump on the link to get the recipe and when you come back, check out my Chocolate Butter.

Before we do that I want to make a couple of comments about how I make this bread recipe. First of all, you've probably noticed how dark this bread looks.

I love dark chocolate beyond good reason so I used the Special Dark Chocolate Cocoa powder for this recipe. No one in my house loves dark chocolate like I do, so I'm doomed to eat this entire loaf by myself. There's alot of debate in the "real cook" circles about whether or not dutch-processed and natural cocoa powder are interchangeable. I've never noticed significant differences when baking with one or the other but that just may indicate an undiscriminating palate. Dark chocolate is one of those things that you love or hate and I'll be honest with you-- using the Special Dark cocoa powder for this recipe almost puts it over the top. It is pretty rich.  Probably best to stick with the regular if sharing.

The second comment is that I use less than a cup of flour and substitute wheat germ for the rest. It works out to about 3/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup wheat germ but I'm never quite that definite about it. I just short the cup a bit and top it off with wheat germ.

So now for the Chocolate Butter. This stuff is pretty heady eating and is not for the faint of heart. My food preferences tend to run outside of mainstream at times but this stuff is to be administered in small doses.

There are a couple of ways to make this but they are both pretty easy. The first version is based on a 1:1 ratio. I make small batches because there's no reason to have too much available at once.

Here I've used 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips. Melt the butter in the microwave and then add the chips. The heat from the butter will melt the chips (you can give it a nuke bump if needed).

Sticking with  the 1:1 ratio, you would use 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup chips, 1 cup butter with 1 cup chips (which even for me seems pretty excessive). Using this method, the butter firms up a good bit in the 'frig because of the chips and needs to sit out a room temp for a bit to soften up.

Remember that is you store your chips in the freezer, let them thaw out to room temperature before you try to melt them. You can melt chocolate with things like shortening or oil but any water (which you will get as condensation from frozen chips) will cause the chocolate to get gritty and it won't melt to a nice smooth texture. Just sharing my learning experiences.

The next method doesn't firm up so much in the 'frig.

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp sugar

Whip the ingredients to fluffy and wa-la! Chocolate Butter.

Store in the refrigerator.

What's that you say? You still have more zucchini?

1. Zucchini, 2. Rialto market - zucchini flowers, 3. Zucchini, 4. Zucchini By The Foot

Stop back on Friday and we'll get rid of some more of your squash.

It Might Rhyme With Tickly But It's Not

by Misserion

Is it not enough that it's 90-plus degrees and 90-something-unbelievable percent humidity?

by rileyroxx

Is it not enough that I have to try to function in this mess without an air conditioner to come home to?

Argh! It's Prickly Heat!

The scourge of my summers since childhood, I ignite a patch of prickly heat every year somewhere along about July and it can't be doused until September. I usually erupt across my abdomen, but lately, as I reach a certain age with all of the horrific body morphing that goes along with that age, it reaches more hidden areas.

I won't show you my current conflagration- that would require the wide angle lens and approval by city council- but this poor child has a doozy of a case. Some extreme cases are rather startling to see.

Prickly heat, or heat rash, is considered a sweating disorder and occurs when the sweat glands are blocked by clothing, body oils, bacteria, or dirt. 

Once the sweat glands build up enough pressure from the backed up sweat trying to escape, they will rupture. This causes the sweat, with all its chemicals, to be trapped below the skin and can lead to inflammation and irritation.

by seat_32b

Prickly heat looks like a rash of tiny pink or red bumps or maybe little water-filled blisters. It frequently has what is described as a pins and needles sensation, though this has never been accurate for me. It's more of a burned and then scraped across the asphalt kind of feeling. With fire ants.

Prickly heat can run the gamut of severity, from a pinkish uncomfortable rash localized in one area to widespread and miserable. It is usually never anything to worry about though it does need to be taken care of as it can progress. Scratching excessively at the bumps can open them up and leave the sufferer vulnerable to a secondary infection. Don't scratch, right?

Also, because prickly heat is a sweating disorder, any time you have trouble cooling your body there can be much more serious issues lurking in the wings. When my batch of rash first appeared this summer, I had been working on a remodel in the Master Bath for several days. The temperature and humidity were through the roof and even though there was a pretty good breeze, the bathroom windows didn't face the right direction to catch it. I sweat like mad in spite of the fan. On the afternoon of the third day I felt the prickle. A couple hours later, I had a headache and didn't seem to be sweating as much. Uh-oh.

So what do you do once the prickle has erupted? In a word (or two)- cool off!

My first assault on this year's rash involved getting into the pool and staying there for a couple of hours.

by tgrayphoto

It seemed like a good excuse anyway and it does help. The chlorine sort of dries your skin out, even though you're wet. Weird, I know.

Take regular cool showers with a mild soap. I also like to use Stri-Dex Medicated pads but things like calamine lotion, aloe gel (the pure, clear stuff), or an oatmeal bath work well also. Do not use oils or ointments as these can further block your pores. Avoid getting heated up, wear loose clothing in breathable fabrics like cotton or linen, drink plenty of fluids. Do not cover with bandages as your skin needs to be open to cool dry air. Many folks use talc powder, such as baby powder or Gold Bond but cornstarch is a better alternative. It doesn't take much.

I have discovered Snake Brand Prickly Heat Powder. Someone shared this with me when I was in SE Asia a couple years ago. It contains menthol, camphor, talc, and some other miscellaneous ingredients (eye of newt maybe?- it is magical)- love it, love it, love it. None of our local International Markets carry it so I have to order it off the Internet from Thailand. It doesn't take much and there is a definite cooling sensation.

by wZa HK

Prickly heat should go away in a couple of days or so if you take care of it and stay cool, but as I can testify it sometimes takes longer. This usually happens in deeper tissue cases where the layers of skin just need time to be replaced. Other conditions can look like prickly heat so go ahead and get it checked out if it's your first case, especially in kids. Also, go see you physician if it won't go away or gets worse (spreading, increased discomfort, more widespread swelling, weeping or pus- graphic, sorry- from the bumps).

I wish that I didn't know so much about Prickly Heat but that's the price I pay for being a sweaty blond. If your visit here today has helped you, then I'm glad to share my affliction.

Thanks for visiting - stay cool.

Feeling Helpless

My kid was upset last night. My husband and I were in the living room minding our own business over a nice book each when it dawned on me that I had been hearing crying coming from upstairs. Our daughter has a couple of medical things going on that require "regular monitoring and periodic intervention". Nothing life-threatening but definitely life-long. She's always been such a good sport about it. The past year or so she has begun to occasionally express frustration that she has to have these things done but for the most part she takes it all in stride. Not so last night. Apparently, while she was writing down this weekend's sleep-over with a friend on the kitchen calendar (our Brain-Central of the house), she took note of the her scheduled trip to the O.R. in a couple of weeks. Now, this isn't a surprise- she's known about it all summer. But the take-it-in-stride stars just didn't align for her last night.

Maybe it's her age. My kid is an independent operator, not caring too much about bending to pressures from other kids or worrying too much if she's a bit off-beat. She is off-beat but that quirkiness is what makes her so fun and likable and she generally likes to be her own gal. It isn't because he's cute that she likes Johnny Depp movies- no, it's the quirkiness. Solidly into the tween years now, however, she has begun to care just a bit about her looks, being normal enough, and fitting in with the crowd. Not much, but a bit. So the regular trips to the little pool of physicians in which she swims must suddenly indicate to her that she's abnormal in some way. Don't you remember that feeling as a kid, that horror at thinking that you may not be quite OK enough?

So what does a mommy do after she sneaks upstairs and crawls under the covers with her kid? Well, you snuggle and huggle of course. And you let her cry. After awhile you ask, "What's the matter sweetheart?" and of course she says "Nothing." But the tone of her voice means, "Really big things are the matter and I'm trying to be brave but if you ask me again I'll spill my heart because I really want to talk about it and I need my mommy." (Tweens-- miles of sentences with no punctuation in sight and no stopping for air.) It's so nice to be needed, even if you have no idea how to help.

We don't know the burdens and troubles other people must bear. We do know people who are in situations that are so much more serious than ours. We pray for them and are thankful that we aren't in that place. We don't know why God has chosen to hold back His healing hand from our daughter. It's a huge step, even for an adult, to accept on faith something that you feel is deeply unfair. What do you say to the most precious person you know who harbors a suspicion that she is unacceptably different? Quirky and independent are one thing but "different", to a Tween, is a whole 'nother ball game. It's serious business.

I did my best to help her see things in a perspective that would take away her fears- fear of going back to the O.R., fear of being unacceptably different, fear of what things might be like years down the road. As parents, we do the best that we can, we pray more over one person than anyone else in the world, and we do our level best to keep our own concerns and fears hidden away. My daughter can tell you both of the times in her life she has seen me cry but neither one has been over her medical issues. She needs to know that I'm not going to fall apart on her in these situations. I need for her to know that they aren't worth falling apart over.

She is a Tween now. These are the discovery years, when she'll start finding out who she is, what she can do, where her talents are, and how she fit in to the world around you. She starts to change. She actually picked out some non-Tomboy clothes while school shopping the other day.

Maybe Johnny Depp is kind of cute after all.

Thanks for visiting today. Thanks for letting me spill my heart.

Terra Cotta Garden Bells

I'm not sure where this Garden Bell craft came from. I vaguely remember seeing a similar craft somewhere, though I'm not sure it was even a bell craft, but this is an adaptation of that project, whatever it was. How's that for being vague and uncertain? This was a great success with the patients at work and there were several staff looking over our shoulders taking notes. So let's get busy.

You need:

2 clay garden pots- the two smallest sizes

Garden twine- about 24 inches

Jingle Bell

2 macrame beads

The clay pots measure 1.5 and 2.5 inches across the top. I had to go to Michaels to get them as the Garden Center at Lowe's did not have them this small. Of course you can make them whatever size you would like but these look so dainty.

Check your macrame beads to make sure they are larger than the hole in the bottom of the clay pots.

You also need:

Craft paint in whatever colors you would like. This will get you started. Scissors and paint brush

The hardest part of the craft for my patients was deciding how to decorate them. We stayed with paint but you can add embellishments or decorate any way that you can imagine. Of note- these will not stand up to high wind or high moisture environments so I would suggest hanging them under the porch roof, inside a sunroom, by an open window- any place that is protected but still gets a breeze.

Paint you clay pots first. You can paint them solid, like the pot on the left in the photo, or just the rim, as on the right. You can do just the rim on both or only one. You may need a couple of coats if you want a good solid, opaque surface. This is also the stage where you decorate the surface however you choose.

Cut your twine to 24 inches, fold it in half, and slide the loop end through the hanger loop on the jingle bell.

Thread the cut ends through the loop that has already been strung through the bell and ...

... pull the twine up nice and tight.

Measure your pot. These are 1.5 inches tall so I made my set of knots at about 1.25 inches. This allows the bell to hang down just below the rim of the pot and be seen as well as to catch any breeze.

When you make your knots, you may need to double knot to keep the bead from sliding down. Make sure you make the second knot right on top of the first ...

...not above or below. Slide your first bead down onto the knots.

Thread the ends of the twine up through the smallest pot.

Measure 1 to 1.5 inches up on the twine and repeat your knot and bead.

Make a nice hanging loop above the top pot. (Hey "top pot" is a palindrome. Surprise!)

And there you have it- an inexpensive, easy decoration for your garden or porch.

You can actually make these somewhat weather proof by finishing off with a coat or two of Polycrylic but you have to plan around any embellishments you might want to add. Flat embellishments like stickers, pictures, cut-outs, etc can be covered with the Polycrylic but 3D elements like rhinestone, glitter, polymer clay, etc might be trickier to coat. Those will need to go on after thge Polycrylic. You'll figure it out.

Just some others.

This one was decorated with Sharpie pens. How easy is that?

These were done by a couple of my patients.

Look how cute she made this little Ladybug bell, with silver pipe cleaner legs and antenna.

I came up with these for a friend whose daughter got married a couple weeks ago. The white rimmed ones were for the bridal shower earlier this summer. The silver rimmed ones were for the evening "garden formal" receptional under a canopy tent after the wedding. The ones we made for these events (I lost count of the final number- we made alot) actually had regular windchime tubing instead of the bells. Super nice sound. But when I went back to get cheap mini-windchimes at the Dollar Tree for this tute, they were all out. Hmmm, bet I know where they went.

Both have glitter on the rim.

These looked really nice and the rim very sparkly under the candle light at the reception. Tons of candles.

One of these days I'm going to see how they turn out using three pots in successively smaller sizes.

So there it is-- fun fun fun. And cheap cheap cheap. Yeah!!

Late post today because when I was ready to photograph the bells yesterday, a huge thunderstorm roared into the area and it all had to wait until this afternoon when I got home from work. It just wouldn't be a normal week if we didn't have a big storm to knock out the power.

Thanks for looking in on me today- stop back soon.