MMmmmm..Zucchini Bread

I combined two friends' recipes last week to make a great zucchini bread. One friend has a great banana bread recipe I have posted before. The other makes the zucchini bread without the banana but with applesauce and uses egg replacer of some kind. Here is what I made and it was delicious. It did flatten so I'll have to work on that. But it was very very moist and wonderful.

Ingredients:

2 cups (more or less) grated zucchini

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 large ripe banana smashed

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups gluten free flour mix (I used Trader Joe's pancake mix)

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I use incredible cinnamon from The Spice House.)

1/2 tsp nutmeg (I have a whole nutmeg and grate a bit into the mix.)

Combine sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla and banana until well combined. Add zucchini. Mix remainder of dry in separate bowl and mix gently into the wet ingredients.

Oil and flour 2 loaf pans. Bake at 325 F for 30-45 minutes (or until done.)

Spreads and Dips! Theme: Cilantro

Cashew Spread

Made this in the Vitamix last week. It was very tasty. You can eat it 'straight' or spread it on a tortilla and bake it like a pizza. Sliced tomatoes on top would be good as well. Sorry I don't really measure stuff! It should be the consistency of a thick paste. For those that don't eat cheese, it makes a tasty alternative for pizza. It is not the same...it is better.

• Cashews
• Cilantro
• EVOO
• lemon juice- fresh squeezed.
• salt and pepper
  

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Black Bean Dip

Today I made a bean spread. Cilantro is the theme. I made it too thin but it was still very tasty. You can use it as a dip, topping for nachos or whatever. I didn't have any canned or fresh tomatoes but I think it would have been a great soup heated to serve in the Vitamix with some corn mixed in at the end.

• Canned (or pre cooked) black beans
• Pitted Kalamata olives
• Cilantro
• Lemon juice- fresh squeezed.
• Salt and Pepper
  

Rebus Recipe of the day

Recipe 1: Presto Pesto

Add Basil (Stems and all)


+




EVOO



+




Cashews



+







Lemons



Whirl until blended in your











Vitamix





YUMMO!!!


Then- before cleaning it out, because you can't possibly get ALL the thick pesto out on the first try,




walk to your garden and grab some





















herbs


add to the Vitamix with some














Lemon and some















Water
and













EVOO

Mix it up. Recipe #2 is Green Dressing for the week!

Lunchables!!!

I have posted before on Bento Boxes but thought I'd whip up a post on some of the more recent 'homemade' lunchables we have done!

These are made from a new Ziplock product I found at Target. These are very re-usable. In this I have gluten free pretzels, a salad and for dessert a smallish amount of cashews and dark chocolate chips. Trader Joes makes a great cf chocolate chip. The salad was so yummy. I do NOT like romaine or 'regular' lettuce and in general am not a lettuce gal but I have taken a liking to arugula and various leaf lettuces. I put pre-cooked chicken (that I pre-cooked), avocado and tomatoes. I love my new Vitamix for many reasons but it makes the best dressings. I make a very creamy cashew dressing with...cashews, oil and some lemon juice. Yummo.

The other lunchable is from Laptop Lunches. Love it! They have no phthalates, bisphenol A or lead. For a school kid I think they are large enough for lunch and a snack. Often times I pack both Andrew and I a lunch in there but wasn't sure how long we were going to be at the zoo so I wanted to pack for a few days ;)



Happy Eating!!

Menu Plan Monday

I posted my basic breakfasts lunches and snacks a few weeks ago and they are pretty standard. You can find them here. I will need to think these through, especially on Tuesday because we have a strangely packed week with two trips to Ann Arbor.

Dinner

Each week I am making a chicken ala Julia Child. I plan to start blogging that this week or next. I serve these with steamed green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy.

Turkey Avocado Cobb salad. I will be using chicken thighs instead of the turkey.

Turkey with green Mole. Again...chicken thighs. (I don't like turkey. Can you tell?)

Palominlla Patty Melts with Yellow Mustard Slaw. I saw Rachael make these are her show and they do look yummy!

Some sort of Slow cooker concoction with bone in chicken thighs.

Good Enough Gal...

I can tell it isn't going well. I am sticking to the plan with one small diversion which involved several rolls of homemade oatmeal cookie dough that I had stashed in my freezer. It isn't as bad as it sounds. Friends were coming over who were also GFCF and I needed to entertain. Still I had a few to many. The cookies were incredible. It is a day to day adventure. If I do this 80% of the time and 'cheat' 20% of the time, I am fine with that regardless of the results.

The Flat Belly Diet has a 4 day jump start which includes Sassy Water and even more calorie restriction. I just knew that if I did that, I'd go straight off the diet on day 5 and I am not quite sure that Sassy water would taste too great. I'd rather just go for something straight from the tap.


The other item that is 'off' the menu for this diet is coffee. Say it ain't so!!! That just is not palatable to me. I have had zero Diet Cokes in the last 4 years, very little cream and have made the move to just a tiny bit of sour cream and goat cheese to feed my dairy habit. My friends who know me well know I am a "good enough gal" and so the coffee is staying. I am moving to tea in the afternoon though and I actually feel better when I do that instead of coffee then. But I can not be a perfectionist and stick with it. Because in the end, it is all about course correction..not pass or fail.

Along the same lines I ran across a young man who has blogged his weight loss. He takes the right track in my opinion. We can't all be on the Biggest Loser. In addition, although I think exercise is healthy, I don't think many of us can manage hours at the gym every day. He has lost over 100 pounds in the last year by diet and exercise and still having cookies and setbacks every now and then. But he keeps on going.

Menu Planning!!!

Last week I ran short on time... and energy. I didn't really plan or shop. I even pulled out some cookies from the freezer because, "we were having company." That caused the scale to become mean and ornery on me. So this week we plan. The MUFAs are in bold. I think the key to this diet is the planning and the eating..not so much the mufas. But the 400 calorie meals every 4 hours make it seem not so much like dieting.


Breakfasts:

Bob's Red Mill Steel cut Oats with cinnamon, maple syrup, nuts and rice milk made in Zojirushi rice maker. (It is ready when I wake up and lovely.)

or

Eggs fried in Olive Oil and toasted rice tortillas



Lunch choices:

Pizza: pesto, arugula, cheddar goat cheese using rice tortillas as crust. Bake for 10 min at 350F and top with fresh tomatoes.

Indonesian Vegetable Salad

Wrap Sandwich in rice tortilla with meat and avocado.

Snacks:

Hummus with Crackers and avocado

Granola

PB&J with fruit

Apple with almond butter and crackers


Dinners

Roasted Chicken with green beans sauteed in EVOO

Pasta with peanut sauce. Add on Chicken for Mark.

Beef Roast with potatoes. Salad with greens, tomatoes and avocados

Bok Choy Skillet Dinner