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. 

Mini Meatloaves

 I have a recipe for instant pot meatloaf on here but this is a little bit different recipe and done in individual portions. Makes it easier for serving and it doesn't have to cook as long. 

This recipe is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on cookingmamas.com You can find the original recipe HERE I added in my twist to it and kept some of my original likes I have when doing meatloaf. My son who does not eat meatloaf actually ate this...all of his portion...wow.. That seriously is a win!

We paired it with some fried potatoes and corn. My dad said it was his favorite meal. Another win! 

Hope you enjoy it!

photo from Mommy Hates Cooking

INGREDIENTS

Meatloaf: 

1 pound lean or extra-lean ground beef

1 pound ground turkey (you can use both ground beef if you want, but you can't tell it's in there!)

1 pkg Stove Top Stuffing, chicken flavor

1/2 pkg of onion soup mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup ketchup

Sauce:

Approx 1 cup ketchup - I just squirt until it looks like enough.

2 Tbsps brown sugar

1 tsp mustard

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. (you could also use a muffin tin)

2. Put Stove Top Stuffing in a bowl and add milk to it. Mix to coat and set aside. 

3. Add ground beef and ground turkey to a large mixing bowl. Add onion soup mix, eggs, ketchup and mix well. 

4. Once the stuffing has sat a bit to soak up the milk add to the meat mixture and mix well. 

5. If you have an ice cream scoop that works well to divide out the meat otherwise I just divided the meat mixture into 8 oval mini meatloaves. 

6. Cook for 35 mins. 

7. Mix sauce ingredients together in a small bowl. Take meatloaves out when done for 35 mins. Add sauce on top and put back in the oven for another 10 mins. 

*internal temperature should be at 160 degrees

Banana Bread

 This recipe comes from a family cookbook and my cousins the Solis family submitted it. I'm not sure where it originally came from but I've added a bit of my tweak to it as well. There are a lot of banana bread recipes out there but I love the added sour cream or greek yogurt to help the texture.

This is not my picture but comes from Cooking Classy.

INGREDIENTS

3 ripe bananas mashed

1 cup sugar (can do 1/2 brown 1/2 white)

1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

1/2 sour cream or plain greek yogurt

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. and grease a loaf pan. 

2. Mash bananas and add sugar, oil, sour cream, and eggs. Mix well. 

3. In a separate bowl add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 

4. Add to bananas.

5. Bake approx 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Blueberry Lemon Loaf with Lemon glaze

 I love everything lemon and when it is teamed with blueberries that is a win win in my books. I had some blueberries that were starting to go bad so I looked at Pinterest and this recipe came up. It is from Juliasalbum.com and you can find the original recipe HERE

It is so full of lemon and blueberry flavor and is so moist (yes I said the word) but seriously, it is! 

This one you really need to try. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients

Blueberry Lemon Loaf

• 1/3 cup butter melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest grated (heaping - love lemon)
• 1 cup blueberries fresh or frozen (heaping)
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Lemon Glaze

• Lemon juice from one lemon (I get about 2 or more tbsps using my lemon juicer)
• I also had lemon zest left over so I added that to the glaze. 
• one tbsp of soft butter 
• Enough powdered sugar to make a nice consistency. Around 1/2 cup. I like it thicker. 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F 
2. Butter a loaf pan, line the bottom and two sides of the pan with the parchment paper.
3. In a mixing bowl, beat together butter, 1 cup sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.
4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt; stir into egg mixture alternately with milk.
5. In the same bowl where you combined flour, add blueberries and toss them in 2 tablespoons of flour. This will help prevent blueberries from sinking.

6. Fold in lemon zest, and blueberries into the batter. Do it carefully and fast. Pour the lemon bread batter into prepared pan.

7. Bake in preheated oven for about 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool bread in pan for a few minutes then take out to cool longer on a wire rack. 

Lemon glaze:

1. Combine freshly squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest and some of the powdered sugar in a small bowl using a whisk to combine. Add softened butter and whisk to get lumps out. Add more powdered sugar if needed for the desired consistency. 

2. When the Loaf is cool add the glaze on top to cover.