Chocolate Zucchini Cake

 A co-worker brought some zucchini's to work so I grabbed one and made this recipe and brought it back to work. It is sooo .... not dry. :) It's so chocolatey and a great way to use up that zucchini. I got the recipe from HERE on allrecipes.com but I did my own tweaking so I wasn't using so much oil and added a spice ganache. I also baked it in a bundt cake pan. 
You should try this one...it's seriously so good! YUM

• Ingredients
• 2 cups flour
  2 cups white sugar
  3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  2 tsp baking soda
  1 tsp baking powder
  1/2 tsp salt
  1 tsp ground cinnamon
  4 eggs
  3/4 cup veg oil
  3/4 cup apple sauce
  3 cups grated peeled zucchini 
  3/4 cups semi-sweet choc chips
  3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
  
  Ganache
  6 oz of semi-sweet choc chips (if you have a food scale use it otherwise it's about a cup)
  3/4 cup heavy cream (I kicked this up a notch and used full-fat egg nog) 
• Directions
  *Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan or 10 cups bundt cake pan.  
  *In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add the eggs, oil, and apple sauce and mix well. Fold in the nuts, zucchini, and chocolate chips until they are evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared pan. 
  *Bake for 50-60 mins in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cake completely before frosting. 
  
  Put choc chips in a small heatproof bowl like a cereal bowl. 
  Put cream or eggnog in a microwave save glass and heat up carefully in the microwave. It took me about 70 secs to heat up. Watch carefully because it will boil over quickly if it gets too hot and all microwaves are different. You could do 20 min intervals then stir in between each time. 
  Once the cream is hot but not boiling pour over chocolate chips, don't stir, and put a saucer over top and let sit for 30 secs. 
  Using a whisk take the saucer off after 30 secs and whisk chocolate and cream together until combined and smooth. Set in fridge for about 10 mins to cool and thicken slightly. Pour over the cake once the cake is cool. 
• You can garnish with chocolate chips or chopped walnuts if desired. 
• 
  

Pancit

 So there is a family that used to make this and sell it in their food truck in town and it was soooo good! It has been awhile since I've had it as they don't have their food truck anymore but I was craving it the other day. So I tried to figure out first how to spell it....then looked to see what would be the easiest. Which none of them seemed really hard but this one I came across had a lot of good ratings and caught my eye. So I made it and my husband was RAVING about it and said I could make this any time! The rest of my family quite liked it as well. It's soooo easy to do that you can whip this for a quick meal and you can make as much or as little of it as you want. 

I got the recipe from ahealthmaker.com you can see the original recipe HERE. 

Hope you enjoy! 

Ingredients

1 pkg vermicelli rice noodles. They need to be made of rice (usually in the Asian section)

2 tsp stir fry oil or extra virgin olive oil

about 10 oz Raw or Cooked chicken breast ( I used rotisserie chicken from the store and added quite a bit of it)

3 or 4 cups coleslaw mix

1 cup sliced carrots optional as this is in the coleslaw mix

snap peas - as many as you would like

1 med celery sliced

1 tsp minced garlic

3 cups chicken broth

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp soy sauce or more to liking

2 Tbsp dry onion soup mix

2 tsp sesame oil

green onions

Directions

-In a wok or large frying pan heat oil and cook the chicken if using raw until no longer pink. Skip this step if using cooked. 

-In the still hot pan, add carrots and celery and sauté until they get a bit soft but still firm. 

-Add the minced garlic and sauté again for 30 secs. 

-Add the cabbage mix and stir everything together - heating through-you don't want to cook the cabbage too much it needs to still have some crunch. You can take everything out of the pan at this point for the next step - but I don't I leave it all in. 

-Mix in a small bowl the Worcestershire sauce, soya sauce, dry soup mix and sesame oil together and add over vegetables then add the chicken broth and the rice noodles on top. Once the broth starts to heat through it will soak up the noodles. Use some tongs and start mixing it around so the noodles get in the broth. It will not take long for them to soften up from the broth. 

-After everything seems to be incorporated together I usually add green onion and mix through again. 

I like mine with Siracha and my husband likes chili paste on his. Both very good additions. 

Blueberry Buckle

 I doubled this recipe and made it to take to work for a morning staff meeting and people really liked it. It's so yummy with a hint of lemon with the blueberries and then that crumble on top...oh yeah! It's something yummy to have as part of a brunch or on it's own. A nice change up from the ordinary. This recipe comes from Spend With Pennies. You can find the original recipe HERE.

Ingredients

• ¾ cup white sugar
• ▢¼ cup butter
• ▢1 egg
• ▢2 teaspoons lemon zest
• ▢1 ½ cups flour
• ▢2 teaspoons baking powder
• ▢½ teaspoon salt
• ▢½ cup milk
• ▢1 tablespoon flour
• ▢1 ½ cups fresh blueberries

• ¼ cup butter + 1 tablespoon
• ▢¼ cup brown sugar
• ▢¼ cup white sugar
• ▢⅓ cup all-purpose flour
• ▢½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8 pan.
• In a large bowl, cream sugar, butter, egg & lemon zest until fluffy.
• In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to sugar mixture, alternating with milk mixing just until combined.
• Toss blueberries with 1 tablespoon flour. Fold into batter and spread in prepared pan.
• Combine all topping ingredients in a small bowl until crumbly. Sprinkle over batter and bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Sauce Pan Scotchies

 I'm not sure where this recipe came from it's been in my family for years. I remember mom making these whenever we would go on a camping trip when I was young.  We are planning on going camping soon so this recipe came to mind. I looked all over for it and finally found it in one of my mom's older family cook books written in her hand writing. phew! I thought it was lost forever and nothing on line seemed to be the same.  We love this recipe! They are so good! They make a big pan so you can share them! ...or not ;) 

INGREDIENTS

1 cup butter (or margarine) melt in sauce pan then add

3 cups brown sugar 

continue mixing but don't get too hot. Turn off heat and add: 

2 tsp vanilla

4 eggs one at a time mixing well between each one. 

Add:

3 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1-1/2 cups chopped nuts (you can put choc chips in if you would rather)

Pour into a large greased or lines with parchment paper cookie sheet. 

Bake 350 for 25-30 mins 

Cool completely. 

Icing

1-1/2 c brown sugar

3/4 cup cream

pinch of salt

1 tsp syrup

Cook until soft ball stage. Pour over squares. 

Let cool to set.