Zucchini Cake

Carrot cake has become a tried and true favorite but, what happens when you replace the carrot with zucchini? I saw this recipe in Bon Appetit Granted adding cream cheese frosting helps the flavor of anything but the cake itself was moist, nutty and with a few modification's turned out quite good. I added half a cup of orange marmalade and finishing a container of orange juice, which was maybe about 2/3rds of a cup. I also used 2/3rds vegetable oil instead of olive, in which the recipe calls for.  I made this for a dinner party and it was devoured pretty fast. I am thinking about next time foregoing the frosting and making an orange glaze or maybe an icing. So next summer when you are in the midst of a zucchini glut, try making zucchini cake, you will not be disappointed. 

This is what I came home with I forgot to take a picture of the whole cake

A visit from the CIA

My brother is currently at the Culinary Institute of America (the CIA). On a break from school he came over and cooked for us using all sorts of veggies  from the box.

Here are some roasted tomatoes and grated zucchini sauteing.

Watching him wield his knife, we stood around the kitchen as he chopped, sauteed, roasted and crumbled. Pizza being one of the most versatile foods, and  is good for any meal we gorged ourselves on Breakfast Pizza. What is breakfast pizza, you ask? Pizza with any type of ingredient and then half way through the baking eggs are cracked on top. It's a little like an omelet baked on pizza dough.

Breakfast pizza, somewhere among the bacon and eggs there are vegetables.

To see what he is doing at school check out his blog at http://mattatthecia.blogspot.com/

Labor Day Stew

Labor day brings around the symbolic close of summer. While in southern California we may continue to have warm weather for a while but as an early celebration of the fall equinox I made a Chilean Bean Stew courtesy of

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics.   Which is one of my favorite cook books. The reason why I picked stew is because of this early fall visitor, the butternut squash.

 

 Still using the summer produce available such as fresh corn and using the very autumnal butternut squash, this a perfect in between seasons recipe. The recipe calls for 4 cups of butternut cubed but I think there was more than that, or I just need to work on my cubing skills.

The stew was full of flavor with sweetness from the squash and corn, had a little spice from the cayenne, and  a good amount of protein and fiber. I am a huge fan of colorful food and it evokes the colors of fall and summer. It has a good amount of crunch and is completely vegan. My only problem is that in using fresh corn I cut a little too close to the cob and got the weird root kernel part of the corn in the stew. Aside from that I am definitely going to make this again because it was delish.