It's Not Easy Being Green: Zucchini Bread

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Pin It Now! There's a saying that friends help you move, and real friends help you move bodies. Turns out that real friends also tell you things like "hey, we'll be out of town next week, and we have lots of lovely vegetables that are tasty and delicious and will be rotten and gross by the time we get back. You should pick them!" [This is not quite what they said, but approximately it.]

So last week I dutifully trucked it over to my friend's house (she was in New York City with her husband and sons, poor thing] and returned with a kind of extreme bounty of produce.

Check out the harvest and an overabundance of zucchini bread after the jump!

Interruptions of a Parenthetical Nature: Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

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Pin It Now! When I'm feeling particularly on top of things (which is almost never) I craftily solve the problem of curbing the "must write a blog entry NOW" bug by typing it into my email as a draft to post later.

So I did that. On July 8th. I'll give you a moment to think about what the date is today. At least it wasn't an entire month? Just almost...

Either way, I am happy to finally give you the following recipe, and promise that my next one will be posted in a much more timely fashion :o)

Want to know more about the recipe I chose? Click below!

Sometimes you feel like a nut: Peanut Butter Cookies

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I fully admit, I am a huge lover of peanut butter. I was (er, am) that kid who eats peanut butter straight off the spoon--don't worry, I don't double dip. Towers of Ritz crackers with the peanut butter smooshed between them, toast where the peanut butter starts to liquify a little bit from the heat and the texture mixing of the crisp and the gooey is just... mmm.
I'm sorry, where was I?
Oh right, peanut butter. I hadn't baked something in quote a while, especially something new. And as fun as it would be for this blog to turn into "and then I made Dorie Greenspan's Katharine Hepburn brownies again" (I totally did over the weekend, they continue to blow my mind and my taste buds) I thought I'd push my comfort zone. Any pushing of a comfort zone that involves peanut butter is okay by me. Also, my younger sister weighed in one what I should make and thanks to her, the peanut butter cookies went from pretty awesome to OMG delicious.

Recipe details after the jump!

Mom, there’s a Kitchen in my Apartment!: Conquering Leftovers Anxiety

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When I was kid, meal time just happened: it seemed sort of this instantaneous event where my mother would summon my sister and I from our rooms and there would be delicious food sort of miraculously at the table. As I got older, I realized that this seemingly magic trick actually required work, whether it was chopping vegetables for a stirfry, cooking the meat, washing and ripping lettuce for a salad, etc. 

Now that I’m even older still (I’d say “grownup” but as an elementary school teacher, I still retain enough enthusiasm for things like Sesame Street and Disney that I don’t know how “adult” I actually am) it sometimes seems like such a vicious cycle: but I already ate dinner yesterday, why do I have to decide again about what I’m going to eat? So time consuming.

Weather Outside is Frightful: Bean and Red Chard Soup

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The weather's been wet and cold (shocking in San Francisco... can you feel my sarcasm?) so I felt compelled to make soup. Also because it's such a nicely portable food item when you need to bring lunch with you, which I frequently do as a substitute teacher.

I knew that my soup had to use chard because it is the one thing in my Farm Fresh to You box that I always get confused on how to use. I found this recipe on Epicurious--it puts me in mind of a similar soup that my aunt makes which involves sausage. Sadly, this is meat-less, but the chard and the beans and the pasta create a nice sense of bulk and OMG it is delicious.

Some Assembly Required: Apple Crumb Bars

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Ingredients, or, Mis about to be placed...

Because I remember the apple pies of my childhood so vividly (and really, it's kind of unreal how good the smell of apples with cinnamon and sugar cooking is), I knew I wanted to make something related. After meeting Anita at the bake sale, I knew I wanted to finally try something from her book, Field Guide to Cookies. So I decided to make apple crumb bars. Because it's like a portable apple pie!

Okay, first thing: if I teach you nothing else today, get everything together before you begin. I really think I need to make myself huge sign called "GOT MIS EN PLACE?" because seriously, shenanigans occur otherwise.

No Such Thing as Too Many Cooks: Bake Sale Snapshots

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Yours truly deep in some apparently serious conversation about brownies, or whoopie pies, or maybe explaining about Tomato Spice cupcakes. Hard to say. Pic taken by Irvin at Eat the Love, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackhonky/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Yesterday, I was out all day selling delicious, delicious goodies to raise money for Share Our Strength, goods all made my some tremendously talented food bloggers who can clearly both cook it as well as write about it (I was trying to make some metaphor here about putting the mixing bowl where their blog was, but it didn't quite work out. Imagine it successfully written here.)

I was so involved in writing up receipts and harassing engaging with customers that I sort of forgot to take any pictures. I'm new at this, ok?

Fortunately, others were much more on the ball, so you can see the amazing desserts and sweet treats that you missed out on. Speaking of missing out (or the opposite) I totally scored a new muffin tin at the bake sale! It's made by Chicago Metallic and I am soooooooo excited to use it. I love the weight of the pan--I can tell it will last me many muffins. Anyone have a suggestion of a recipe with which to christen my tin?