Farmer's Market Goodies!

The summer is coming to an end and my little man has begun the first of many, many, many years of school. Yes that's right I now officially have a preschooler! Scary and exciting all at the same time. Time sure flies as an adult. Summer was over in a blink this year and although the days of lounging by the pool are fading quickly, I do have to say my most favorite time of year is coming fast and I have that ich to decorate and bake everything fall! Lately our new family ritual has been to check out some local Farmer's Markets on Saturday mornings and I just happened to find one I'm in love with. Even better it is only about 10 minutes driving distance away. Heaven! We kind of live far from everything, and driving a gas guzzler like I do this was just a perfect opportunity for me to get back into cooking and creating/trying new recipes with fresh, Arizona grown ingredients! Over the  weekend my husband and I kind of splurged on some somewhat, healthy versions of some not-so-healthy appetizers. The first recipe I adapted from a recipe I found on skinnytaste.com, Zucchini tots. The second one my husband I have been making forever I just tried something new.

Zucchini Tots

Fall is right around the corner and what does that mean? Football season! Ok so I don't watch football at all, neither does my husband but this little tot will satisfy fans of all ages. Who am I kidding you really don't need an excuse whatsoever as to why you should make and eat these!!! I'm serious, they are good and instead of being fried they are baked, and with panko bread crumbs for Pete's sake! So instead of feeling extremely guilty after snacking hard you'll just feel slightly guilty, or non at all. The ingredients are as follows:

1 zucchini 

1/4 C panko bread crumbs

extra Panko bread crumbs for rolling

1 egg

1/4 C grated sharp chedder cheese

cooking spray

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2) Grate zucchini into a clean dish towel and wring out fluid.

3) In a bowl combine all ingredients (minus the extra Panko for rolling). Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4) Scoop out 1 Tbs. of mixture and roll into balls. Roll the balls in the extra Panko bread crumbs then place on a cookie sheet sprayed in cooking spray.

5) Spray the top of the zucchini balls with cooking spray and bake in the oven for 16-18 minutes or until lightly browned.

YUM!

Fried Okra

One of my favorite treats are fried Okra. They are addicting and there is no way of not feeling guilty about consuming these!  Better make sure I'm not the only one in the kitchen when I make these because the minute they come out of the fry daddy they are popped into my mouth. Warning these are fried so there is nothing healthy about them, only one important fact, they are way too good. Please treat yourself and your loved ones to these, they will think you are glorious. They are also easy peasy. The ingredients consist of:

Whole Wheat Flour

2 Large Eggs

Fresh Okra, sliced into pieces (or frozen, if you don't have fresh)

vegetable oil

Panko Bread Crumbs

1) Fill your fry daddy 1/4 full and let heat up. (works fine in a medium saucepan as well)

2) Pour flour on a plate, scramble eggs in a small bowl, and pour Panko bread crumbs on another plate. Make a little dipping station for yourself.

3) Dip the okra in the flour, then in scrambled eggs, then in panko bread crumbs.

4) In small batches fry the okra, about 3 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Drain on paper towel. Then Enjoy!

I know I still have a couple weeks more of summer but I think we will make the conversion to fall early in this household! Next on my list of fall and winter favorites made from my yummy local produce, soups! So let me turn down the air conditioning and let the pretending begin.

Cleaning Secret Numero Uno

Ok everyone, this post is quick, sweet, and simple. I love myself for looking this cleaning tip up! Do you want your granite countertops to look flawless without buying an expensive cleaner made with a bunch of chemicals you never heard of before???? Well I have the perfect solution and it was tile contractor approved. All you need is:

50% rubbing alcohol

50% water

scented oil (optional)

Mix it all up in a spray bottle, spray surface, and wipe clean with a clean dry cloth.

You are all so welcome!!! It looks beautiful and doesn't strip the sealer off like a vinegar and citrus solution would do.

Key Lime Cupcakes and Strawberry Ganache

My daughter's 2nd birthday was this weekend and we all had a blast! A slip'n'slide, water balloons, and squirt guns made for the perfect, hot, July, toddler's birthday party. One tradition we have as a family for all the children's birthdays is baking our own birthday cakes/cupcakes. For my son's 2nd birthday I got so creative I created a cake fire truck! This birthday I wanted to do things a little different. Instead of putting my decorating skills to test I decided to try new flavors and improve my baking skills. I knew I wanted to do a strawberry filling to compliment my fun fetti vanilla cake and came across a very simple recipe for strawberry ganache (strawberries/cream/white chocolate). It was amazing, but what was even more amazing than that was my key lime cupcakes, a recipe I just happened to roll across in my search for a strawberry filling. Let me tell you I could easily eat a dozen of the key lime cupcakes! So... here is goes, I'm sharing my "out-of-this-world" cupcake recipes for strawberry ganache filling and the key lime filling with meringue topping.

The vanilla cake recipe I use is found on the back of the Pillsbury Softasilk Cake Flour, it is always a crowd pleaser and you can add a few extras to make it your own. for my Strawberry Ganache I added sprinkles to make it a fun fetti cupcake. Also the frosting I used for the fun fetti cupcakes is my cream cheese buttercream frosting you can find the recipe under my mint chocolate cupcakes post.

Strawberry Ganache 

This is a super easy recipe and taste great in vanilla cake and would be heavenly in a chocolate cake as well. The ingredients you will need are:

1/4 cup strawberries

3/4 cup heavy cream

7 oz. white chocolate

1) Chop the strawberries up into small chunks.

2) In a small bowl combine the strawberries and heavy cream, place in refrigerator over night.

3) Drain the cream and strawberries mixture into a sauce pan using a wire mesh strainer. Make sure you press the strawberries down to get as much cream as possible off the berries. Scrape the bottom of the strainer with a spatula to get the excess cream off.

4) Heat the cream over medium heat, when the mixture begins to boil pour in chocolate stirring from the center out until the chocolate is completely melted.

5) Place in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

6) Pipe or spoon filling into cupcakes or use as a filling in cakes.

Key Lime Filling and Meringue Topping

If you were amazed at how easy the strawberry ganache filling is to make just wait until you read how easy it is to make the key lime filling! The ingredients needed are:

1/3 cup key lime juice*

14 oz. can condensed milk

*if you can't find key lime juice use 1/2 lime juice and 1/2 lemon, that's what I ended up using

1) Stir together condensed milk and key lime juice

2) That's it! Pipe it into cupcakes :)

For the meringue it was also easy, just takes a little patience.

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tarter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Beat egg whites and cream of tarter until soft peaks form.

2) Add 1/3 of the sugar and beat for 1 minutes, repeat until sugar is gone.

3) Pipe on top of cupcakes. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes.

Of course I made way too many cupcakes, but still enjoying them!

Farmer's Market Zucchini Bread

My kids and I just love visiting the farmer's markets over the weekend. My kids love all the fresh, organic, locally grown vegetables.

Colbie enjoying some cherry tomatoes! At the Maynard's Farmer's Market

Who can pass up fresh, organic zucchinis? Not me and one way I love them, my kids as well, is in bread. Today the kids and I made the yummiest zucchini bread so I thought I would share the recipe!


The ingredients include:

2 zucchinis grated

2 eggs, beaten 

1 1/3 C sugar

2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

2 tsp vanilla

2/3 C unsalted butter, melted

3 C whole wheat flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 Tbs chai seed

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray two loaf pans with cooking spray.

2) Mix together in a large bowl: eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

3) Add the grated zucchini and melted butter to the bowl and mix.

4) Sprinkle baking soda and salt into mixture and stir.

5) Add flour a third at a time.

6) Mix in cinnamon, nutmeg, and chai seed.

7) Divide batter evenly into two pans and bake for 1 hour checking bread at 50 minutes.

*You can fold in dried fruit or nuts to add more protein.

Low-Cal Banana Muffins

If there is one thing my family loves it is bananas, and even more than bananas, banana muffins! Today I wanted to try something different to try to make these heavenly snacks a little bit more healthy for my little ones. So I found a recipe on a low-cal site for muffins using unsweetened applesauce in place of butter/oil. Of course I substituted the flour for whole wheat pastry flour and added some chai seeds. The result was a success, hooray! According to the low-cal site these babies only have 75 calories and 0.5 grams of fat. The ingredients are:

1 C Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1 Tbs baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp kosher salt

2 bananas, mashed

1/4 C sugar

1/4 C applesauce

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla 

2 tsp chai seed

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray muffin tins with cooking spray.

2) Mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, chai seed and baking soda.

3) In a separate bowl blend together applesauce, bananas, egg, vanilla, and sugar.

4) Pour banana mixture into the flour and mix until well blended and scoop into muffin tin.

5) Cook about 15-20 minutes, or until tooth pick comes out clean. 

Chocolate Mint Milk Shake

Yes!!! These might be dangerous because they are so freakin good! I've been sitting night after night trying to come up with a way to feed my toddler fresh vegetables without him noticing. Since he began consuming solids he is a vegetable detective, anything green was tossed to the side. Today with my brilliance and a little help from the Diva Dish I snuck spinach into a tasty chocolate mint smoothie. It is the perfect healthy "kid friendly" treats for these hot summer days! I will post a picture later I was just experimenting today. The ingredients include:

1/2 C Organic Chocolate Milk (future I will use chocolate almond milk)

1 C (or more) of Fresh Spinach

2 tsp coco powder

1/2 tsp Organic Agave Nectar

3 Coconut Milk Ice Cubes

1 Frozen Banana

Some Fresh Peppermint Leaves

Put everything into a blender and liquefy. The perfect summer treat!

Oven-Roasted Beets

My love used to be brussel sprouts but after having them a couple times a week my husband and I got tired of them. Now my new love is roasted beets. When eating out if a salad had beets in it that is what I was getting, it beat any other dish every time, so when the kiddos were at Oma's for the night and I actually had time to watch tv and it wasn't Peppa Pig or Mike the Knight, Guy, my roasted beet super hero, was making roasted beet and bacon kale salad. By the way that is also the day I discovered sauteed kale! It is easy and the beets taste phenomenal!


I get the organic beets from the store because they are always much larger. Trim off the greens and cut off the top and bottom. Double wrap in aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle some Kosher salt over them. Seal them up and bake in oven at 425 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes. You know they are done when you can stick a fork through them. Peel and enjoy!

Since my husband doesn't eat them I sliced them up and stuck the left overs in the fridge for a salad the next day!