Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins.....and Bread

When zucchini is plentiful in the garden, I love to bake with it. Double chocolate zucchini muffins are one of my favorite recipes to make with zucchini.

Every season we plant a good amount of zucchini for our farmers market stand and our CSA shares. If you've grown zucchini before, you know once the plant starts producing the zucchini grows fast. A lot of our customers prefer smaller zucchini for regular cooking, so we try to pick them at a smaller to medium size.

Occasionally some get missed, it's easy to miss some. Then all the sudden they are huge! But these huge ones aren't wasted! They are GREAT for baking!!

Whenever I see some large zucchini in the garden, I am sure to grab them to shred up using a food processor and freeze! I generally put 3 cups worth of shredded zucchini in Ziploc quart freezer bags and its perfect for my zucchini recipes. I especially like baking with the zucchini.

Now on to the recipe: 

Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Ingredients: 

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon 

3 cups zucchini 

3/4 cup cocoa

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup applesauce

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

For variation add 1 1/2 cup chopped nuts and/or 1/2 cup coconut. 

Directions: 

Mix all the ingredients together well. Bake at 325 degrees. 

Muffins in a muffin pan 10 - 15 minutes. Makes 2 dozen. 

Bread in two loaf pans for 1 to 1 3/4 hours. 

When dough is poured in the pan, I like to add a few chocolate chips to the top of each one. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE

This double chocolate zucchini muffin recipe is a great way to use some of that zucchini in the garden. My kids love the chocolate taste and they are delicious and moist. 

I like to make up a batch of muffins to enjoy right away and also make up some loafs to put in the freezer for later. 

This double chocolate zucchini muffin recipe is a great way to use some of that zucchini in the garden. My kids love the chocolate taste and they are delicious and moist. 

So if you have extra zucchini around, be sure to try this recipe out! Bake up some muffins and grab yourself a glass of milk and enjoy! 

Parmesan Herb Roasted Potatoes

We always enjoy freshly dug potatoes from the garden and look forward for them to be ready! These Parmesan herb roasted potatoes are one of our favorite ways to fix the new potatoes and add to our meal.

Every year we plant several hundred pounds of seed potatoes. We like to plant Yukon Gold, Kennebec, Irish Cobbler, Pontiac Red and All Blue potato varieties. We plant them in April and about mid June check, we like to dig some to check on size. A lot of our customers like the smaller fresh potatoes. This past week, we dug a good amount and enjoyed them with our dinner.

My farmer really likes to have potatoes with our meals and likes them prepared several ways, but this recipe of Parmesan herb roasted potatoes is one of his favorites.

Parmesan Herb Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:
2 pounds of new potatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 dried onion
2 Tbsp butter
Sprinkle of parsley

Directions:
Clean potatoes and cut them into bite size pieces. Place potato pieces in a mixing bowl and add the olive oil, garlic powder, thyme, oregano, basil, Parmesan cheese, and dried onion. Mix potatoes, oil, cheese, and herbs together to the potatoes are coated well. Place potatoes spaced out on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and mix in the butter and sprinkle the potatoes with parsley before serving.

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE

We love eating from the garden and look forward to harvesting what we have grown. These potatoes are definitely a favorite among what we prepare from the vegetables we harvest. 

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

One of my favorite summer desserts is homemade Strawberry Rhubarb Pie! I am a big fan of fruit pies, so this is one I make every summer when we can harvest the ingredients right from my own garden. The combination tartness from the rhubarb and sweetness from the strawberries is just SO delicious. Paired with the crust from the pie making it truly a summer dessert must have!!

Our strawberries in the garden and producing so good! We have a decent size patch and the end of May/most of June we enjoy strawberries fresh from our own patch. This is the second year for our rhubarb plants and they are producing good stalks as well for us to harvest! What better way to use both the strawberries and rhubarb than in a pie!!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients: 
Crust:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. Clabber Girl Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
10 Tbsp. butter, cold and cut into chunks
4 oz. cold water

Filling:
2 Tbsp. Clabber Girl Corn Starch
2 cups fresh rhubarb, chopped
1 cup granulated sugar
3 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
2 Tbsp. butter
1 egg white
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Pie crust:
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the chunks of cold butter and mix the butter into the flour using a pastry blender. Continue to do this until the mixture looks like bread crumbs or small pieces of butter. Add the cold water and stir it into the mixture so that it all sticks together. Clump the dough all together to form a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. You want the dough chilled and cold, but not hard.

Roll out the dough to a 13 inch circle on a lightly floured surface. Save some dough for your top lattice strips.  Lay the circle of crust dough in your greased pie dish. Roll out the remaining dough and cut into 1 inch wide strips for the lattice top and leave aside until fruit in the pie crust.

Pie Filling:
Whisk Clabber Girl Corn Starch together with 1/4 cup water until well blended. Combine with the rhubarb and sugar in a medium pot and heat until thickened. Then add to strawberries. Add the vanilla and stir all together. Then let sit for about 30 minutes for your filling to thicken. Pour the fruit mixture into the pie crust. Add the butter chunks on top.

Arrange the crust strips in a lattice pattern over the fruit mixture and press the strip ends into the crust. Brush the egg whites onto the top of the crust strips and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees F for about 35 minutes or golden in color. Let cool for filling to settle and thicken.

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE

 This post is sponsored by Clabber Girl Corn Starch but my

 thoughts/opinions are always 100% my own.

How to tell when pumpkins are ready to pick?

With our Summer days nearly close to over, its time to start thinking about the months ahead. The Fall season brings some of the most beautiful colors in nature. Colors in the changing of the leaves, mums, Indian corn, gourds, and PUMPKINS.

Around the beginning of September, the feeling of Fall is in the air and people are ready to start decorating their homes for the season. Pumpkins our our biggest crop we grow and one of our favorite. We love the Fall season and providing all the beautiful items for our customers to decorate with. We sell in bulk to local businesses and to customers at the farmers market and our Fall Harvest Days event.

Some grow pumpkins in their own garden. So when are pumpkins ready to pick?

Color - A good indicator is they have turned orange by this time of year. But also some pumpkins are ripe and ready to pick when they are still green, so be sure to check the other areas to see if they are ripe.

Tap the pumpkin - By taping the pumpkin or giving it a thump if it sounds hollow inside, the pumpkin is ready to pick.

Skin - When the pumpkin is ripe, the skin or outer core becomes hard.

Stem - You want the stem closest to the pumpkin becomes hard, the pumpkin is ready to pick.

Vine Leaves - The pumpkin vine leaves will start to dry and become crispy. The vine will die down when the pumpkins are ready to pick.

A few picking tips to remember:

Use a sharp knife or pruners when cutting the stem of the pumpkin.

Leave a long stem when cutting the pumpkin, this will slow down the rotting process.

Disinfect the pumpkin with diluted bleach to kill any bacteria on the outer core of the pumpkin that could cause it to start rotting early.

Picking pumpkins at cooler temperatures and displaying in shaded areas can also help slow down the rotting process by keeping out of direct sun and heat.

Pumpkins are beautiful decor pieces, a fun tradition to carve for Halloween, and great for all those favorite pumpkin food items everyone loves this time of year.

Enjoy your pumpkins and Fall!

Loaded Mashed Potatoes

Are you looking for a Loaded Mashed Potatoes recipe?! Then I have the recipe for you! My family loves these potatoes.

Potatoes are one our favorite vegetables to grow in the garden. The grew very well this year and produced several bushels of potatoes. We are in the process of getting all the potatoes dug, cleaned, and graded by size, then sell them in bulk for our customers for the fall and winter months. The kids enjoy helping us dig them too. I especially love that they are seeing the whole process of farm to fork with helping us plant, dig, and prepare them for cooking.

We love potatoes!

Potatoes are a staple in our home. We eat them often various ways. This recipe is one of our favorites to have and everyone likes it! Usually we get leftovers from it too, which is also a added plus. 

Ingredients:

- 5 lbs potatoes

- 1 stick of butter

- 1 cup sour cream

- 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

- 1/4 cup milk

- 1 lb bacon 

- green onions, green tops cut into pieces

- pepper

Directions: 

- Peel and cut up the potatoes and place in pot of water, boil until fork tender. 

- Cook bacon and crumble into pieces. 

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Once potatoes are ready, drain and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Cut butter into several pieces and add those, the sour cream, and milk to the potatoes. Mash all together with a potato masher. 

- Add pepper, half of the bacon, and 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese to the potato mixture. Mash everything together with the potato masher. I don't mind if my potatoes are slightly chunky, but mostly mashed. 

-Transfer potato mixture to a 9 x 13 baking dish. 

- Sprinkle the remaining cup of shredded cheddar cheese onto the top of the potatoes. 

-Bake in the oven until top cheese is melted and potatoes bake through - about 20 minutes. 

- Remove from oven and sprinkle the remaining bacon and the green onion pieces on top of the mashed potatoes. 

-Serve.  

This loaded mashed potato side dish would make a delicious addition to any of your meals. It is also great for those family get togethers and potluck dinners. A great way to enjoy potatoes from your own garden as well. 

Enjoy! 

Summer rain affect on our produce

The summer of 2015 - a different one for sure. Midwesterners will remember this summer as one with lots of rain. Here in Northwest Indiana we got 21 inches of rain in 16 days. Crops sitting in standing water. Everywhere. At a critical part in the growing season also! Farmers have taken losses for sure.

Picking kale for CSAs after 4 inches of rain

As produce growers, we have gotten several questions asking "How has the rain affected your crops?"

At first, we really thought our produce field would be okay. It is in a sandier soil and wasn't sitting in standing water. A few dry days went by. The ground was still wet, but the vegetable plants still looked good. Then we got more rain, inches at a time, for several days. Even after the lengthy period of rain, it was too wet to get in to the fields to cultivate and take care of our plants. 

Getting a late start at planting due to the longer winter and so much rain really put a dent in our production. So much that we haven't attended our usual farmers markets this year. 

You take the challenges as they come. With the wet weather, we are thrilled that we have been able to still fulfill our weekly CSA deliveries, getting a nice assortment of produce, and still have enough for ourselves to enjoy each week and preserve for the winter. But just not a lot extra to have a good variety to take to the market.

The summer rain has also created an interesting harvesting schedule for our sweet corn. We planted 3 plantings of sweet corn, each two weeks apart. Due to the rainfall in June, our sweet corn will all be ready very soon.

Our biggest crop, pumpkins, had minimum wash out and are basically on schedule. We are looking forward to fall harvest. We will see closer to fall how things will look for our Fall Harvest Days.

Each year we don't know how the weather will be and we take each year as it comes. This year was just one of those years that created issues and we are working with what we have.