A Bounty to Contend With

I love this time of summer. While it’s hot (and it’s seemed hot here a lot these days), I love when my friends and families gardens start being harvested. Something about having food growing by people I love makes the things I make with them seems even homier.
And the things keep rolling in. I can’t say no, I mean come on. But getting back from my trip to Chicago I was crunched to get to these veggies before they went bad. So for today

Cucumber,

And zucchini,

And green beans,

Oh my!

I’m actually going to concentrate on the zucchini this post, as I feel this is the best product of the three. While I was playing with my phone out at the campground last week and looking around allrecipes.com I came across this recipe for Zucchini Blueberry Bread. Then a few hours later I was handed a few zucchinis. And then I remembered that blueberries were on a killer sale at the store. It was meant to be and who am I to argue with fate? I recommend you give this a try if you have some zucchini sitting around begging to be used. Or if you have to go buy some. Whatevs. And recommend putting a crumbly top on this bread. Because a little more sugar and butter never hurt anyone. Well, maybe that's not true, but it still tastes excellent.

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini (apx 2 zucchini)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.

Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Servings: 4 slices per mini loaf (generous slices, yes)
     Calories per slice: 345
     Carbohydrates per slice: 50g (Sugars 30g)
     Nutrition Data based on nutritiondata.com calculations


Sticking with the allrecipes.com theme I made up some Garden Green Beans. I’m not sure I’m a fresh green bean kind of girl. They were okay, but maybe you’d like them better.

And lastly, I made some cucumber salad. I feel a bit of a bum even calling this a “recipe”. I used my trusty mandolin (the kitchen device, not the intriguing musical instrument) and sliced my cucumbers up nice and thin. Put some salt and pepper on top. Let them sit in the fridge a couple of hours. Added some dried onions (just because I didn’t have any fresh on hand, that would be even better) and poured some Ranch dressing over the top. This then sits another few hours and the result is always an amazingly simple and refreshing treat. I'm told it's not true cucumber salad. My husband threw out the "ghetto cucumber salad" comment. I do not care.

Any fruits and veggies you have sitting around the house?