Well, only in Austin do we call the high 80s / low 90s “fall-like” temperatures.  After months of well over 100 degree temperatures, this coolness is odd. Baking in the hot hot summer months is rather impractical, but now that my AC doesn’t have to strain as hard, I decided it was time for some zucchini bread.

I’m not sure what makes zucchini bread quite so delicious as the only flavors are cinnamon, vanilla, and zucchini. Some how these combine with the ordinary ingredients to create pure deliciousness.

As I like to pretend that my baking is healthy, I used this recipe from Cooking Light.  However, I didn’t have any applesauce so I used plain yogurt instead (as I do in banana bread as well). I also used 2 real eggs instead of egg substitute and added extra cinnamon.

Beside the step where you shred the zucchini, this recipe is extremely easy to make. You don’t even have to break out the mixer, you can mix the ingredients by hand.

Shredded zucchini draining on paper towels:

Zucchini, egg, yogurt, and vanilla combined:

The instructions say to hollow out the center of the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients to combine, so that’s what I did:

And then mixed it all up:

The end result:

This turned out so well that when I told my husband to eat as much as he wanted, he ate almost half of a loaf!

Have I ever mentioned that I love to eat bananas? To fuel my habit of eating them, I almost always buy more than I can eat before they go bad. Rather than putting them out into the compost where the rats will eat them, I throw them in the freezer once they are over-ripe.

Then every so often, I make them into some of the best banana bread I’ve ever tasted.  I always make two loaves at a time. The best part of that banana bread is the fact that it’s semi-healthy because you use yogurt instead of butter.  To make this delicious bread, I follow a recipe from Craftzine but I go heavy on the bananas, lighter on the nutmeg, and heavy on the cinnamon and ginger. The ginger gives the bread a nice bite.

First, I defrost 8 or more bananas (in case some aren’t good enough to use). I used to peel them while frozen but after a while my fingers were way too cold.

Eww… frozen and now defrosted bananas

All the ingredients ready for mixing:

The finished batter:

And after baking for an hour, the delicious product, so good that we eat some right away:

After my last attempt at beer bread I decided to try again, this time with fresh baking powder. This time I made the plain variety from Bake at 350 using Anchor Christmas Ale:

I only baked the bread for 50 minutes at this time, in the hope that would make the bread fluffier with a softer crust.  The bread was somewhat less dense this time but still had a rather hard crust. I’m not certain why the crust is so hard but the bread is pretty tasty warm out of the oven:

I purchased a plantain because I know that I like them but have never made them at home. I prefer the non-sweet version so I decided to try out baked tostones.  While I had the oven on I decided to whip up some baked peaches since we had some very ripe peaches.

The recipe for tostones all called for green plantains. My plantain wasn’t green but I think it turned out fine anyhow.

I sliced up the plantain into thick slices and tossed with salt and just a drizzle of olive oil.

After spreading them out on a baking sheet that was covered in olive oil spray and baking for about 15 minutes, I flipped and smashed them with the bottom of a cup.  They baked for another 15 - 20 minutes and were done! I enjoyed them but next time I’ll be sure to have some dipping sauce to go along with the tostones.

At the same time, I sliced up some peaches, tossed them with some brown sugar, cinnamon and honey and baked them until soft. Delicious!

Since I came across this recipe for different types of beer bread on Bake at 350, I knew I wanted to try it. My previous experience with beer bread was delicious. A softball party for team “Beer Me” was the perfect opportunity to bake up a batch, or two as it turns out.

I decided to make a loaf of the orange nutmeg for the party and a loaf of gruyere and rosemary for my husband to take to work.

The recipe calls for self rising flour which we don’t have and I’ve never used it before. My husband pointed me to wikipedia which says you can make your own self rising flour by adding 1 tsp of baking power and 1/2 tsp of salt to regular flour. I combined those ingredients with a bottle of beer (Avery White for the orange nutmeg bread), 3 tablespoons of sugar, zest from an orange and freshly grated nutmeg.

For the gruyere and rosemary bread, I used a bottle of Real Ale Pale Ale.

I then baked the breads for 1 hour at 350. The bread smelled wonderful.  When I took it out, the orange rosemary bread was drizzled with a fresh squeezed orange juice and powdered sugar glaze.

The gruyere rosemary bread was covered with butter.

While the bread looked tasty, it wasn’t quite as good as I hoped.  The baking powder must have been too old because the bread turned out too hard.  I also think a sweeter bread would have been better. 

What’s a Smores pie you say? Well, it’s down right delicious of course! The second I saw it in my Vegetarian Times magazine, I knew I had to make it. Memorial Day seemed like the perfect occasion!

Vegetarian times taught me that marshmallow fluff is vegetarian! No gelatin like normal marshmallows (this is good for my vegetarian friends).

My husband consented to allow me to use his Malley’s dark chocolate that was still left from Valentine’s Day. Malley’s is a delicious chocolate company in the Cleveland area.

I had to break it up and put it in a bowl:

Heat soy cream to a simmer:

And then pour the soy cream over the chocolate and whisk in one egg, some vanilla and a pinch of salt:

The chocolate mixture was then poured into a prepared graham cracker crust and baked for 25 minutes. The edges of the pie crust were covered with foil to keep them from getting too brown.

After cooling for an hour it was time to “spread” on the marshmallow fluff.  Well, marshmallow fluff is not the kind of stuff you spread. It’s more like a plop:

Somehow I spread it out enough and then put it under the broiler until it was brown on top:

The finished product was very rich and delicious. Definitely more flavor than a campfire smores!