~Lets Talk About Butternut Squash~

So how many of you actually cook with this delish veggie? Growing up i hated it absolutely hated it! But as we get older our taste buds change and you would be suprised if you revisited some of the foods you hated growing up! So this fall just like last fall butternut squash was a HUGE item in my cooking :) It is so inexpensive, its tasty! It can hit your sweet craving or your savory one! In the next few posts i will be blogging about some of my recipes i use this delish veg in! But for now lets talk health factor! I know everyone is or has been watching what they eat which isnt such a bad thing at the end of the day :) we all need to keep our bodies healthy specially with all this flu business going around! Did you know that one cup of of this tasty veg is only about 80 calories? Its very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, its also a great source of vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, dietary fiber, some omega3 fatty acids, 18 grams of carbs and even some iron! What a super food no? You can add this veg to almost anything im telling! AND its high up on the fullness chart! So what kind of ways does this home sick aussie use this super veg? I throw it in my braised chicken harvest dish, i make soup out of it! I bake/roast it i make mashed/smashed potato's out of it! I toss it in the crock pot and much much more!

Happy Belated Fall My Friends!

Ahhh fall! LOVE it! But hate what comes after it! Yep not even gunna say that dirty 4 letter word that starts with an S! So how has everyone been? I know my end has been B.U.S.Y! Lots of family activities fun with friends and family! Cook outs cooking in general (for me anyway) crafts decorating and soccer...Yea Loche played soccer this season which was interesting but fun :) Anyway i just wanted to let you all know that i am working my way back to bloggy land! I have heaps of recipes and photos to post and share with u all!

One of my last harvests before it got to cold for anything to survive!

Delish Fall veggies!

Decorating for fall LOVE IT!

Kindergarten Pictures!

Pretty lil Cardinal one fall evening!

Divine Home Made Chocolate Syrup

So while in amish country last wkend i baught a ton of carob powder and dark cocoa powder :) what better way to use this up? Make home made chocolate syrup! My girlfriend Angie has made her own for a lil while now so seeing my boys like their chocolate milk why not give it a shot right? So on sunday just gone while preping my green tomatoes i made up a big bottle of choco syrup :) and to my suprise it turned out pretty dang good! Here is there recipe Angie passed on to me but i used it only for guidline as u all know by now i cant follow a recipe!

½ cup cocoa powder

1 cup water2 cups sugar

⅛ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla

Mix the cocoa and the water in a saucepan.

Heat and stir to dissolve the cocoa. Add the sugar, and stir to dissolve.

Boil for 3 minutes over medium heat. Add the salt and the vanilla. Let cool. Pour into a sterile glass jar, and store in the refrigerator. Keeps for several months. Yields two cups.

So here is my version of this yummy recipe :D

1 cup of dark cocoa powder

1 cup of carob powder

2 cups of raw cane sugar

2 cups of water

1 Tablespoon of vanilla
and a pinch of salt

Mix your carob and cocoa with your water in the saucepan, stiring constantly, keep mixing until the cocoa and carob dissolves. Now add your cane sugar mix till dissolves. Boil for a few mins then turn it down to a simmer. *REMEMBER* WATCH YOUR SYRUP IT DOES NOT TAKE MUCH FOR IT TO BURN!

Add your vanilla and salt mix threw. Take it off the stove and let it cool down, once cooled off pour it into a sterile bottle or glass jar.

This made 4 cups of divine syrup.

REMEMBER YOU CAN ALWAYS TATSTE IT TO MAKE SURE ITS SWEET ENOUGH FOR YOUR FAMILIES LIKING!

What does one do with 9 pounds of green tomatoes?

You call you grandmother and ask her for her recipe for her delish tomato pickle/relish/chutney recipe?!?! So here's what happened... I had been babying my 3 tomato bushes watching them and looking for signs of blight or any other disease we seem to of been hit with here in ohio.... And last week while looking threw my fruits i noticed a couple had spots! So i picked every green tomato i could and put them off to the side till i 1. got my nans recipe and 2. had the TIME to actually make them! So last sunday i spent a few hours cutting up tomatoes and onions.... YES it takes FOREVER to cut up 9 ounds of green tomatoes! But it was well worth it! Here are a few pics from my adventures :) And to top it all off my boys LOVED it woohoo! (thats good cuz i have a TON of the stuff now!)

My baby started Kindergarten TODAY!?!

Yup my baby had his first day of kindergarten today!

I held the tears back i did good!

I knew if i started he would tear up...

Just putting him to bed last nite with out hubby i was tearing up..

Loche told me its ok mummy while a tear trickled down his face..

He can be such a lil terror sometimes but when his sweet...

His OH so sweet...

Heres a couple pics of my baby!

Hope everyone has a great wkend!

Healthier Zucchini Bread

I have never made Zucchini Bread in my life... nor had i ever had it till i moved to the states!

But i did realise that it can be very unhealthy for you even though its made of zucchini!

I browsed threw a few recipes and decided on one that didnt have "as" much sugar in it and as per usual i couldnt follow the recipe.... (; BUT thats ok cuz it turned out delish either way!

I am going to post the version i made but if ud rather the recipe i hlf followed by all means email me and i will send it to you!

~!Healthier Version of Zucchini Bread!~

What you will need;

3 cups of grated squash/zucchini

1 and a hlf cups of apple sauce (unsweetened)

1/2 cup of canola oil

3 smallish eggs

3 teaspoons of vanilla

1/2 to 1 cup of sugar (depending on how sweet ou want it!)

2 cups of wheat flour

1 cup of white flour

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

How to throw it together;

(DO NOT BE AFRAID TO TASTE YOUR BATTER TO MAKE SURE ITS SWEET ENOUGH FOR YOUR FAMILY!)

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottoms only of 2 (8x4-inch) loaf pans with cooking spray.

2. In large bowl, mix zucchini, applesauce, oil, egg product, vanilla and sugar until well blended. Stir in all remaining ingredients except walnuts until well blended. Stir in walnuts. Spoon batter evenly into pans.

3. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans to cooling racks. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

The guys really enjoyed this! I made this last night and they polished of one whole loaf minus 3 slices i sent over to Angies!

Apparently its REAL good with low fat cream cheese i was just told on the phone :) by Hubby!

What to do with that bread dough thats been sitting in your fridge!

You make lil muffins with them!

Yep i had a batch of bread dough in my fridge that i hadnt gotten around to baking yet and it needed to be baked!

They turned out really nice almost like bigger sized italian pop overs!

What you'll need;

Bread dough of any kind!

Beaten eggs

Grated Cheese

Diced cooked bacon or diced ham

Herbs

Salt & Pepper

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Muffin pans

Olive Oil Pan Spray

and an OVEN! lol..

How to throw it together;

Preheat your oven to aout 350'

Take small bits of your bread dough dont handle it to much but form some kind of ball and press it into your sprayed muffin pan/pans.

Dont use to much dough eye ball it the bread will rise like usual so u dont want the eggs spilling over the side of he muffin tray!

Sprinkle your herbs or choice your S&P and garlic powder n onion powder on top of the bread to taste.

Then pour your eggs on top dont use to much as i mentioned earlier the bread will rise and the eggs will puff up as well! I think i used about hlf a teaspoons worth!

Sprinkle the eggs with your meaty toppin :D

Toss your muffins into the oven and i cant tell you how long to bake them i havent timed it...i judge from the smell coming from my oven.. and looking threw the glass to make sure they look cooked!

I compost! Do you?

Its not pretty by all means but hey it helps with the amount of junk you toss out in your trash bins! Begining of spring SAMS CLUB had these awesome compost bins! And i got one, it lives out behind my back fence by a mullberry bush that never gives any fruit...and its over run with morning glory....i use to just toss stuff out there now and then...until i got the bin that is...well as things got more and more over run....with vines and other crap... what kind of other crap u ask? POISION IVY!! UGH! I personally have never had the stuff we dont have it in australia and up until this summer i really didnt know what the stuff looked like.....apparently our backyard is a great place to grow the stuff! In my flower bed by the "good" mullberry bush i have a bunch of it growing there....its growning by my cucumber out by my fence...and its quickly surrounding the compost bin! Oh and i reccenty found some growing in my bamboo garden! YAY!..... Anyway back to composting... u dont "need" a special bin to compost your house hold veggie scraps! In fact if i had more land i would just have a compost pile... its amazing what grows in those piles! When we first moved here we had a corner that was ugly in the back yard the previous owners used it as a junk pile i guess? I at the time had no plans for the backyard so when i needed to throw some rotting potatoes out...or a mushy tomato out i just threw it on the pile...b4 fall came i had 3 tomato plants grown and some kind of squash i think but not knowing the history of the pile we did not eat any of it and my husband fed the stff to the guinea pigs we had at the time! I read a really awesome book a few months ago it talked about all the different kinds of compost piles u can do and what not, heres a picture of the book check it out next time your at your local library or when your browsing in the book store next!

Here's a couple of pictures of my compost bin!