Eggless Breakfast Zucchini Bread

Most zucchini breads are really more like cakes. While they are super tasty, they are perhaps not the best way to start your day.   This zucchini bread incorporates wheat germ and whole wheat flour for some added protein and fiber and a better start to your morning. It is a modification of a recipe from this blog http://foodforahungrysoul.blogspot.com/ . You could bump up the nutritional value even more by adding nuts if you don't have nut allergies like we do in our house.  All that being said it is still yummy.  My little one loves it, especially sliced and toasted with a little butter.  This makes the equivalent of two loaves.  I usually make one full sized loaf and mini loaves or muffins to put in the freezer and eat later.  YUM!

Eggless Breakfast Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups wheat germ
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat Flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 cup cooking oil
3 cups (about 3 medium-sized) zucchini, grated

Grease and flour two loaf pans (or equivalent such as mini loaf pans or muffin tins)

In a medium bowl combine wheat germ, both flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In a large bowl beat applesauce sugar, vanilla and oil until well combined.  Stir zucchinni into the wet ingredients.  Gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients stirring until just combined.  Pour into loaf pans and bake at 350 for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle come out clean.  (About 45 minutes for mini loaf pans, 20 minutes for muffins.)

Happy Breakfasting!

Bluberry Nectarine Pie

I love homemade fruit pie!  There is just nothing quite like it.  Store bought stuff just can't compare.  Some summers I make a pie a week, but not this summer.  It has just been too hot, my rhubarb didn't do well, and the fruit selection has been expensive or not very good. Bummer! The 4th of July just isn't the same without a pie, though, so I cranked up the a/c and got to baking.  I still ran into the same problem with the fruit.  Add to that, everyone wanted something different (rhubarb, peach, blueberry), so I got creative.  Blueberries and nectarines.  I love mixing fruits in pies!
 

Start with a double pie crust, whatever recipe works for you. Most recipes don't have egg in them, but a few do.  So if you want the pie to be egg free, be sure to select one without eggs.  I love the flaky pastry recipe from The Joy of Cooking.  I use half shortening and half butter, so I get the great flakiness from the shortening and the yummy taste of the butter- best of both worlds!  I also add 1/4 cup powdered sugar to the dry ingredients instead of the teaspoon of granulated sugar.  It adds a nice hint of sweetness for fruit pies.

When making pie crust, the key is fast and cold.  Your butter and water need to be very cold.  I put ice in my water, and work fast.  This is in part, so things don't warm up, but also you don't want to overwork the dough.  Ice water is also your friend when rolling out your dough.  Any tears can be patched by pressing the dough together with a little ice water as glue. Although, in my opinion, a perfect looking crust is not important; you can get that from a store bought pie.  What matters is taste and texture. I also like to roll out my dough, put my bottom crust in the pie pan, and put the pan and the rolled out top crust back in the fridge while I make my filling. That way the crust is nice and cold when it goes into the oven. Once you have your crusts and pan prepared, make the filling

Blueberry Nectarine Pie Filling:

3 cups blueberries
2 cups nectarines sliced (I left the skin on and nobody was the wiser)
3/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter cut into small pieces


Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Mix everything but the butter in a large mixing bowl.  Let sit for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Pour filling into prepared bottom crust. Work fast after this; you don't want the filling to make your crust soggy before you get it in the oven. Dot the top of the filling with the small pieces of butter.  Brush the edge of the bottom crust with ice water, place the top crust on top.  Trim crust as needed and seal bottom and top crust.  Cut vent holes and place in the bottom 1/3 of the oven at 425 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes.  Then place a cookie sheet under the pie pan (I usually put my pie shield on now too) and drop the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 30 minutes or until thick juices begin to bubble from the pie.  Remove form the oven and let cool on a wire rack before serving.

This pie was quite tasty.  In the future, I would use fewer blueberries and more nectarines.  They got a little lost in the blueberries, but nobody at our house was complaining.  Prep was super easy too, since nothing had to be peeled.  Happy pie baking and eating!

I do really LOVE to bake pies.  I think it is becoming a lost art. So if you have nay questions about crusts and/or pies, feel free to ask.  I would love to try to help!

Quick, Eggless, (and Totally from Scratch) Strawberry Cake

My first attempt at this was an utter failure.  I substituted sour cream for the eggs, added some extra baking powder, macerated the strawberries before I pureed them. I really tried to jazz it up.  The batter tasted like strawberry ice cream.  I thought I was on to something, but then... It didn't rise, not even by a hair.  I had a strawberry brick.

This time around I thought I needed to employ the K*I*S*S strategy-Keep It Simple Stupid.  I started with a simple busy day cake recipe and just substituted a simple strawberry puree for the eggs with a little extra baking powder and ta-dah: Success!  The cake rose nicely and had actual (not fake) strawberry flavor through out.  It isn't that strawberry pink color that the boxed mix is, but that didn't bother me.  All that comes from artificial junk, none of which is in this cake, and isn't that part of the point of doing things from scratch.  I didn't bother to ice it, but I am sure a little strawberry cream cheese frosting would turn this simple cake into something special.  I saved this for a book club meeting a couple days later and used it as the base of strawberry shortcake.  It was a big hit!

I am sure you could double this as well and turn it into a nice layer cake.  I am also thinking about all the fruit possibilities: peach, apricot, raspberry... If you experiment and have success let me know.

Quick, Eggless, (and Totally from Scratch) Strawberry Cake

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup fresh strawberries halved
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.  Puree the strawberries. My 1 cup of halved strawberries turned into just over a 1/4 cup of puree.  Add milk, butter, vanilla, and 1/4 cup of strawberry puree to the bowl. (If you have an extra teaspoon or two of puree go ahead and that too. Any more than that and save it for something else, like frosting.)  Beat with an elictric mixer on low until the mixture is combined.  Then beat on medium for one minute.  Pour into a greased and floured 8 inch cake pan.  I also like to put parchment in the bottom, so it releases more easily.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle come out clean.  Cool for five minutes and remove from pan and cool thoroughly before frosting, if you desire

ENJOY!

Eggless Orange Rhubarb Muffins

Last week we got our first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box of food from Olden Produce in Ripon, WI.  The email they sent out letting us know what we were going to receive mentioned rhubarb.  I had visions of  bunches and bunches of rhubarb.  I was planning pies and preserves.  I don't know why.  Our rhubarb at home has done pretty poorly due to the early hot, dry summer.  Did I think they had some magic rhubarb at the farm?  I don't know.  What I do know is that we only got 3 stalks of rhubarb.  Not enough for one pie, or half a pie, or half a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

What to do with this rhubarb?  So I got to thinking; the one thing that hardly ever goes uneaten at our house is muffins.  I started looking for recipes for inspiration and came across Orange-Rhubarb Muffins at the Rhubarb Compendium online.  Perfect!  I love citrus with rhubarb.  The two flavors play so well together!  I always add a little orange zest to my rhubarb pie.  What could be better?

So here is my egg-free, nut-free version. (This one also happens to be milk-free.)  I also tweaked the amount of rhubarb.  They came out just about perfect.  Everyone enjoyed them, even my hubby who is not in love with rhubarb in quite the same was as my son and I are.

Eggless Orange Rhubarb Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 up vegetable oil
zest of one orange or to taste
3/4 cup orange juice
1 cup rhubarb, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare muffin tin by either lining with paper liners or coating with non-stick cooking spray.  When making muffins without eggs, I prefer to use cooking spray.  For some reason eggless muffins don't seem to come out of the paper liners very well, making a mess and leaving everyone feeling cheated because half the muffin is still on the paper.  If you coat the muffin tin well, including the top, they should slide out nicely.

Combine the first five ingredients (the dry stuff).  Mix the applesauce, oil, and orange juice until well blended.  Add this to the dry ingredients.  Stir to combine being careful not to over mix.  Fold in the rhubarb. Spoon into muffin tins, and bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let cool for about 5 minutes, and then remove from the tin and place on a wire rack to continue cooling.

ENJOY!!!!