Mac and Cheese

I know I said I would do veggie bread next, well... epic failure.  So bad, that I am not going to blog about it.  No joke.  I totally butchered the recipe trying to make it healthier and well...  not even edible.   So, moving on!

The good news is....I think I have done it.  I think this may be as good as it is going to get for my mac and cheese.  Wait until you see the picture!  It looks just like homemade mac and cheese!

BUT first things first!  Did you notice my two new tabs up above?!?  That's right, 6 months later, I have started my "done" recipe pages!  Right now there is only two recipes or so that I think are good enough to be considered "done" but hey - it's a start!   Annnnd, I think this recipe will go over there also. 

Cheese sauce ingredients:
1 cup cauliflower puree
1 cup shredded cheese
1 tsp yellow mustard
1/2 cup milk
Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Cook on medium-low stirring often until smooth.

 Pour over macaroni noodles and LOOK, LOOK LOOK at how great it looks!!! 

So you understand why I am so excited, you might need to look back at the pictures from my last mac and cheese attempt...

So, it wasn't super orange, but 1/2 cup cauliflower puree and 1/2 cup carrot would solve that problem.  I do think it's important to puree the purees as smooth as possible.  This was as smooth as I have ever made it, and there was still a tiny hint that something else was in there, but like I said, I think it's as good as it will get.

Also this recipe was barely enough for my research team and I, so... just so you know.  :)  Well, I guess D had some too, it was his first mac and cheese!  See, train them young, and they'll never know mac and cheese isn't supposed to have pureed veggies!   Hmm... I wonder if I should make him part of the research team?

The Verdict:

 "It's so much creamier than last time!  Is there more?"


 Next time... maybe veggie bread?  Maybe.  Hopefully.  I promise to try and follow the recipe... a little closer...

Mini Cheese Quiche

I have two confessions before I get started here.

First:  It was all I could do not to title this blog Mini Cheesy Quichey.

Second:  I ate four cookies just now.  Which is an unacceptable amount of cookies to eat while making dinner!  In case you missed it, check out these chocolate chip cookies with avocado for half the fat, which, really, doesn't make it any better that I just ate four of them right before dinner. 

Anyway, normally when I make quiche I put lots of veggies in it that are not hidden at all... spinach, green peppers, tomatoes, or whatever we happen to have in the fridge.  So it actually didn't occur to me to hide veggies in it until I saw a recipe for mini cheese quiches on a "kid friendly" menu.  Ah ha!  Now I can try and hide veggies in something that shouldn't have any.

I found a handful of recipes online, and this is what I came up with after looking at them.  One interesting thing I read was to use bread as the "pie crust."  Just roll it out before putting into the muffin pan.  So, since I don't have any puff pastry or pie crust, I thought I'd give that a try.

I should also note that I used a jumbo cupcake pan.   In the jumbo pan this recipe made 6 quiches, so it would probably make 12 in a normal size cupcake pan.

Ingredients:
6 bread slices rolled flat
4 eggs
1/2 cup cauliflower puree
1/2 cup squash puree  (Note:  you can use any white/yellow/orange puree combination that totals one cup)
1/4 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400.  Roll bread slices flat and press/fold into cupcake pan.  Press cheese into the bottom of the crusts. 

Wisk together eggs and milk.  Wisk in purees.  Pour egg mixture into crusts. 

Bake approximately 20 minutes or until set. 

See how cheesy it looks?  Mm mmm, and it smells like toast.

While I was finishing dinner, my research team served our 11 month old some bread with carrot fondue...  I think this veggie thing is catching on!  Even I haven't completely replaced cheese with veggies! 

He also ate veggies hidden in quiche... sort of.  Mostly he smashed it on the tray.  But I have proof of at least one bite:

They turned out pretty yummy!  I felt like I could taste the squash in them, but the research team couldn't taste the veggies at all.  He knew there were veggies, but said it tasted like cheese quiche.

In the future I think will add some spices (I'm actually not sure why I didn't this time) ... salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, but I think that is all I would change. 

Also the bread-for-crust turned out really well!  It wasn't quite as tasty as the biscuit recipe I use for my chicken pot pies, but it was good.


The Verdict:

"Fooled the baby!"   (and the Daddy too...)


Next time... either veggie bread or brownies...  the way I ate those cookies I'm thinking I should hold off on the brownies for a little while, even if they do have spinach in them!  ;)

Sweet Potato Pie

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was in charge of a few pies for Thanksgiving, and since my research team isn't a big fan of pumpkin pie (I know, I know, I don't know what is wrong with him either!) we made sweet potato pie instead.   Which is HILARIOUS, because sweet potato pie tastes just like pumpkin pie.  :)   Moving on...

Actually, there are a few things about sweet potato pie that are better than pumpkin.  For example, if you want to make it from the actual vegetable, and not from a can, sweet potatoes are much easier to deal with than pumpkin.  No carving with a massive knife, no seeds, no stringies, no pumpkin splattered all over your computer... well, I suppose that could happen with sweet potato, it just hasn't happened to me... yet! 

I've made sweet potato pie in the past and this is my favorite recipe so far. 

I looked up a recipe on allrecipes.com and then also made some of the changes suggested in the comments.  It turned out so good.  Here is the recipe with the suggested additions/changes:

1 pound of sweet potatoes
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnimon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground chives
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon flour
1 pie crust

Directions

1. Boil sweet potato whole in skin for 40 to 50 minutes, or until done. Run cold water over the sweet potato, and remove the skin.
2. Break apart sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth. Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a souffle, and then will sink down as it cools. 

 

I didn't quite follow the directions exactly (you know me!), but I wanted to put them up here for next time I need this recipe!

So, one of the funny things about this recipe is the 1 pound of potatoes requirement.  I don't have a scale in my kitchen, do you?  Am I the only one who doesn't, and if so, how did I miss that? 

Well, I checked a few other recipes and found 2 cups of mashed sweet potatoes, and also 3 medium sweet potatoes.  I happened to have 3 medium sweet potatoes, so that is what I boiled.  But when I mashed them up it seemed like WAY more than 2 cups, so I didn't use it all.  I didn't measure it though (of course...), which I really should have done considering that I ended up with two pies worth of sweet potato pie filling. 

 

Anyways, I didn't want to wait 40-50 minutes for the potatoes to bake, so I peeled, cut up, and boiled them.  Honestly, it probably still took 40 minutes...  then I really did follow the recipe, I swear.

 

Like I said, I ended up with two pies, luckily I had two pre-made crusts in the freezer!  I thought that it would turn out fine since a few of the comments on the recipe said that it was really sweet.  So I figured that if I had too much sweet potato it would turn out perfectly.   

And they did.  I don't have any pictures, but if you just imagine a pumpkin pie, it looks exactly the same.  :)

In the future I think I will use 4 cups of mashed sweet potato for this exact recipe and plan on making two pies out of it.   I also will increase the amount of spices a little bit.   

 

It was so good!  Every time I make sweet potato pie I say that I am never making pumpkin pie again!  

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I eat healthy enough in my life that on the occasion when I am going to eat dessert, it better be worth it.  Butter, sugar, dark chocolate... no substitutions, nothing fake, no holding back.  So I have to admit that I almost didn't want to make these cookies.  I don't want to make or eat cookies that are only kinda good.  But, for the blog, I figured I'd try it out.

I heard that avocado can be substituted for butter, so I looked up a few recipes.  I ended up on The Hill Country Cook and basically followed her recipe.   (If you go to her page, be warned, she used green m&m's so that's what the chunks of green are in her cookies, not avocado! :))

So I had this great plan to have these cookies ready for my research team as a welcome home surprise after he had been gone for a few days, (two surprises:  surprise, cookies!  and surprise, hidden avocado!)  but when I opened the avocado, this is what I found:

It's weird because the skin was hard, so it didn't feel too soft.  I had three avocados, so I figured one of them would be good... but no, they all looked like that!  What the heck!?!?  I was super bummed, especially since I had already started mixing ingredients.  Ugh, and avocados are expensive!  :(  Well, I figured I'd just make a batch with no avocado, and then I would have a direct comparison when I did make them with avocado.

One week later... we had 3 new avocados.... but this time I checked the avocado before I mixed ingredients!

Phew!  Much better.  And so far, of the three new avocados, two have been beautiful.  (Plus BONUS! these were on sale!)

So now I can continue:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup avocado (1 small avocado)
3/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
dark chocolate chips
Combine dry ingredients, set aside.  Cream together avocado, butter, and sugars.  Here is what it looked like:

It's hard to tell in the picture, but it is just a little green.  But more worrisome was that I could taste the avocado... hmmm.  Add eggs and vanilla, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Then add dry mixture one cup at a time.  Add nuts and chocolate chips.  After adding the flour, we could STILL taste the avocado.   I felt more and more nervous that this whole batch was going to be a waste.

The recipe said to roll spoonfuls of dough into balls and flatten slightly.  Well, my dough was pretty sticky, so I sorta spooned the dough onto the baking sheets and tried to flatten it a little.  (Which after a batch of those, I pulled the flour back out and rolled them into balls and flattened them, to see how that turned out...)   Bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes.  

Here's how they came out before I was rolling and flattening them, and then also a picture after I rolled and flattened them:

I actually like the non-rolled ones better, but I am weird like that.  More importantly they were not green at all, no sign of the avocado.  Also, and this was shocking to me... no sign of the avocado in the taste either!  None.  I was shocked.

So beautiful.  So in terms of comparing the cookies to the batch with no avocado (and 1 cup of butter, that is the only difference in the recipe)... this is how those came out:

They, of course, taste great, but are obviously much flatter.  It's funny because I like my cookies fluffier and WOW does the avocado solve the flat cookie problem!

I feel like I am still in shock about how well they turned out.  No joke, I think I am always going to make my cookies like this from now on!

The Verdict:

"Also great for breakfast!"

(Hee hee, he is not joking, we really did each have a cookie before breakfast...)

Chicken Pot Pies

We don't have pot pies VERY often, but it is definitely one of our favs.

I am honestly not sure how to make a real pot pie, but I invented this recipe and to this day it is one of my proudest accomplishments.  (It's actually not the pot pie itself that is so good, it's the biscuit recipe I use for the crust that is so good...)

So I thought it was about time I hide some veggies in it.  And it's zucchini season, so that's what I used.  This time I didn't puree it, I just finely shredded it, just like I would for zucchini bread.  (In truth, it would probably be much easier to hide cauliflower or white pumpkin, but like I said, it's zucchini season!)


Here we go!

I mixed together:

2 cups cooked frozen veggies (carrot, pea, corn, green bean combo... but choose your favorite)
1 cup finely shredded zucchini
1/2 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup cooked chopped chicken (I only make pot pies when I have left over chicken)
dash of black pepper, basil
 

Then I make this recipe from Recipes for Moms.  It's a baking soda biscuit recipe, it's easy, and the biscuits are so so good.  So for pot pies I roll it out to 1/4 inch or so, and cut it into circles with a bowl:

In to the cupcake pan they go (this is a jumbo cupcake pan, also called muffin size - these are the pans I used to make the cupcakes for my sister-in-laws wedding), and I stuff them full with the veggies and chicken.

I fold over the edge and use the leftover dough to fill in the tops.

The biscuit recipe says to bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes, I usually do 12 for the pot pies.

Oh these make me so happy!  They smell so good... 


Here is a picture of the finished product:

To be honest, I was disappointed.  You can see the water?  I should have pressed all the water out of the shredded zucchini really well, but I didn't.  I guess I didn't realize how much there would be.  So the bottoms were soggy.  :(

On the plus side, they tasted great!  The middle was a little greener than normal, but I don't think anyone would have asked.


The Verdict:

"Tastes like delicious pot pie!"

So in the future, I'm going to really press out all the liquid from the zucchini... or I'll just use the good ole standby... pureed cauliflower.  Or maybe, just maybe, this really great recipe will have to go without hidden veggies.  ;)   Ha, just joking, I can't help but hide veggies... next time I'll probably just screw it up with a different veggie!

Last minute dinner... plus BONUS! hidden veggies of course

We all have those "how the heck did it get to be dinner time already" days, and this was one of mine.  Fussy teething baby, no nap, no time for mama to do anything, then took REALLY LONG walk to keep baby happy (plus, yay! extra walking for me and the dog too!), and all of a sudden my research team was home!

So what to do for dinner?  Burritos are my favorite quick dinner, but we were out of tortillas and green chili.  So I pulled this out of the cupboard:

I am not a fan of meals-from-a-box, but it was on sale, so I bought it for a day just like today.  Anyway, I also had some acorn squash that I had baked, but not pureed... I thought I might be able to hide it with all the different textures of beans and rice.  Here you can see how not smooth the squash is:

I followed the directions on the bag and added the squash with about 5 minutes left to boil.  I measured out one up of squash, but as I was adding it, it seemed like there might be chunks of squash which wouldn't be very hidden.  So I chickened out and only added half a cup.

Also at this point I added half a U of sausage.  You know those U sausages?  

Here's how it looked:
 

At this point, my research team said "Hey, what are you taking pictures of?"  I didn't want him to know that I was hiding veggies (although I think he is smart enough to know that if pictures are being taken in the kitchen that means hidden veggies...) so I say "My foot."  And I get back to putting dinner together.

Well, he keeps bugging me about why I am taking pictures, and I keep side stepping the question, and he gets more and more curious.  Finally, he ends up with the camera, and looks at the pictures!  So I told him about the squash that was going to be in the beans and rice.  So much for trying to make him guess what the hidden veggie was!  That is my favorite dinner game:  guess the hidden veggie.  Oh well, next time.

I cut up some other veggies to eat, and decided that since it was a little spicy, some avocado would be good with it.  Here is a picture of my bowl:

My research team thought it was weird with the avocado, but get this:  during dinner I asked him what he thought of the meal.  Here's how it went:

Me:                     "Sooo... what do you think of dinner?"
Research Team:   "I love these beans and rice meals.  This is my kind of meal."
Me:                     "No, I mean what about the squash?"
Research Team:   "What squash?"

No joke, after all that pestering about the picture taking, and the stealing of the camera, he COMPLETELY forgot about it and didn't notice anything squashy in the rice.  :)  Awesome.

So, I did notice some squash pieces, but all in all (obviously) it was pretty hidden!  And tasty!  I am still going to try and have puree to hide, but it's good to know that in a pinch I can maybe hide some other non-pureed veggies.

Also, I think this is a pretty classic example of how some hidden veggies can make a out-of-the-box-last-minute-meal a little better for us.

On a side note:  I think my research team has taken my hidden veggie idea and reversed it.  He is hiding fatty foods in our veggies!   See?  ;)

Zucchini Lasagna

It has been awhile since my last post!  I have missed all my hidden veggies so much!

Want to know why it's been so long?  :)  Well, I was in charge of making 120 extra large cupcakes for my sister-in-law's wedding.  It was so much fun, and we ate so many cupcakes that by the time the wedding happened, both my research team and I didn't really want one!  It was fun, but now...sigh... we really do need extra veggies! 

So, here we go!  I read an article online called '10 easy ways to be healthier' (or something like that), and this was one of the suggestions:  substitute sliced zucchini for lasagna noodles.  I'm not sure if the zucchini will be hidden enough to count as a hidden vegetable, but it might.  I have to admit, I am very skeptical about how good this is going to be.  It's weird because I like zucchini, and I love vegetable lasagna... but for some reason I am doubtful about how this will turn out.


Because I am doubtful, I figure I'll do everything I can to make it delicious... I will use lots of cheese, our delicious homemade tomato sauce, and I'm going to add sausage... something I usually don't put in our lasagna.  So I know that even if it doesn't resemble lasagna at all, at least it will taste good!

I sliced 1 1/2 medium zucchini's, and mixed up:
1 egg
1/2 of a 15 oz tub ricotta cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
dash of basil and parsley

Then I heated up a large pot of homemade tomato sauce (sorry, I didn't measure it, but I always make way more than any lasagna recipe calls for because one time my lasagna was sort of dry...)  and browned 1 lb ground sausage:

I stirred the meat into the sauce.


You know the drill:  layer of sauce, layer of zucchini, layer of ricotta mixture, and repeat until you run out of something.  :)  I usually run out of ricotta mixture, or space in the pan.  See my layers?

I KNOW I KNOW!!  I never once thought about how to slice the zucchini.  I should have sliced it length-wise, but that never occurred to me.  It seems so obvious now! 

I added about 1 cup of mozzarella to the top:

Online there were several suggestions for baking time.  I did 375 for 30 minutes.  (The other options took longer...)

So beautiful, and it smelled delicious!  See the beautiful layers:

NOT!  (sorry about that, I am a child of the 90's)  Who am I kidding... there were no layers.  This is what my plate looked like:

And this was my research team's plate:

Needless to say, this lasagna did not look like lasagna, and the zucchini was not hidden at all!  It tasted like yummy lasagna, but looked more like zucchini and tomato casserole or something. 

So as far as the Hidden Vegetable blog is concerned, this was a huge fail!  It did taste great, and the zucchini was cooked well.  However, not only were the veggies not hidden, but it didn't even look like the meal it was supposed to!  Well, I can't win them all...


The Verdict:

"People watch Nascar for the crashes."

X-Rated Desert

A note from the Author:  I'm sure when I started blogging that I electronically signed an agreement not to post anything explicit.  So, in an effort to comply, I will be editing this post with "words in quotes" as deemed necessary by my research team.  However, unless you want to answer unusual questions, I do not suggest looking at the pictures with your children.  Thank you.  


My mom turned 60 this month.  And though she is usually the kind of person to take everything in stride, she seemed a little down about turning 60.  So I thought... what does a 60 year old woman want on her birthday?  The answer is obvious.  What any woman wants on her birthday.

A 12 inch, black, "rocketship" cake.    (Not that I have anything against white "rocketships," just ask my research team.... I just happened to have chocolate cake mix in the cupboard.)

So I began the process of making her a "rocketship" cake.

As I said, I had some chocolate cake mix (devil's food, of course) in the cupboard, so I baked it in a 9x13 inch pan:

Beautiful!  I let it cool and carefully removed it from the pan.  (Carefully = I put some wax paper over a cookie pan, put that on top of the cake and flipped it over... when the cake didn't fall out, I banged on the bottom of it until it did.)

Then I cut some of the cake away to a nice "rocketship" shape.

No I did not have a stencil, I am just that good with "rocketships."

So then, I needed to add the "creamy center."  I experimented with several different options and settled on whipped cream and vanilla pudding mixed in equal parts. 

In order to get it in the center, I had to cut the top of the "rocketship" off.  Guys, you should probably look away...

It's "hard" to tell from the picture, but I cut a groove down the center of both halves.  Then I filled it with the "creamy center."

Next I carefully placed the top back on.  Guys, feel free to look again.

This is my favorite. cake. ever.

Next I needed to fill the "solid rocket boosters."

Again with the slicing, guys, you should look away.  I sliced the top off the "solid rocket boosters" and filled them with "creamy center."

Did I mention this is my favorite. cake. ever?   It is.

Then I carefully replaced the tops again.  Phew, done with the slicing, guys we are in the clear.

At this "point" I licked all the bowls clean.  So good.

Next I topped the whole thing with dark chocolate "sauce." 

Here is the finished product.

I could be wrong, but I think this will make Mom's day... if you know what I mean.


The Verdict:

"I'm not putting anything "rocketship" in my mouth.  Sorry."



Follow up:  The cake was delicious!  My mom loved it and we had lots of good jokes about the cake (none of which are appropriate for this blog, but you can use your imagination...).  Next naughty cake to look forward to... my dad turns 60 in December!   

Tacos

Since I have had success hiding vegetables in ground meat for enchiladas, I thought I'd try it for tacos.

I bought a package of taco seasoning, because while I am getting better at spicing up food, I can't quite get the spicy ground meat flavor right.  Anyways, I figured I'd hide pureed carrots because they are sweet, and then buy the 'hot' spicy seasoning for tacos.  So the sweet carrots would compliment the 'hot' spicy-ness.  Right?  

So here we go...

Brown 1 lb ground meat (I used beef), drain fat
Add:
Taco seasoning packet (I chickened out and only used half.  Sigh, I was afraid it would be too spicy!) 
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup carrot puree
1/4 cup tomato puree  (I used all the carrot puree, and then decided it needed more puree... tomato seemed like a good option for taco meat.)

Boil for 5 minutes...  see how it looks:

 Looks like taco meat!  Here are the toppings we used.  It's funny, I didn't have any lettuce or spinach or any lettuce-type product.  It's funny because I'm supposed to be the vegetable person!  Oh well. 

 

Other additional veggie idea:  use green peppers instead of taco shells.  Just half the green peppers and stuff with meat and extras.  So yummy.  Sort of a mexican version of stuffed green peppers.  (Had the leftovers this way, mmm mmm good.)

Here is my plate:

My research team made a taco pile:

The Verdict:

And I quote, "Tastes like tacos!"


They really were delicious tacos.  There was no sign of hidden veggies, and the flavor of the taco meat turned out so good.  It wasn't too spicy, yay!  I am always walking this fine line where my research team likes it spicier and I like it less spicy, but this time I got it right and we both thought it was great! 

Zucchini Bread!

Side note:  One of my good friends had a baby girl a few weeks ago, and she just posted a blog with her birth story.  I shed a tear and my heart swelled while reading her story.... and here I am posting about zucchini bread.  It seems sort of... lame... compared to childbirth!  :)  Well, congratulations Reyanna, and hopefully this gives you something mildly entertaining to read when you are up in the middle of the night.  :) 




This is my favorite time of the produce-year.  Not cherry season, not apricot season, not peach season... but zucchini and pumpkin bread season.  Mmmmmm, you just can't beat good zucchini or pumpkin bread.  I have to work really hard to not eat the whole loaf at one time...

 So my friends Kim and Chris have an awesome garden (they are so motivated!) and shared some zucchini with me.  My first one of the year!  Yay for the start of zucchini bread season!

Believe it or not, I actually follow a recipe from a cookbook.  What's a cookbook?  In the age of I-look-everything-up-online-before-I-make-it, this is one of the things I just keep using the same old standby.  So, unfortunately, no link available.   :) 

(Although, now that I think about it, I probably could find the website of the cookbook...)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 cup finely shredded, unpeeled zucchini
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Here are the instructions from the cookbook:
Preheat oven 350, grease 8x4x2 inch bread pan (I'm assuming that's what mine are?).  Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.  In a separate bowl, combine sugar, zucchini, oil, egg, and lemon peel; mix well.  Add dry mixture to wet and stir just until moistened, batter is lumpy.  Fold in nuts.   Spoon batter into pan, bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, cool on wire rack completely, wrap and store overnight.  (Yeah right.)


After I shredded the zucchini, I had 1 1/2 cups, so I made enough for all the zucchini.  I usually go a little heavier on the spices, and sometimes I put chocolate chips in!  (But not this time.)   I also made them in muffin cups instead.... Oh, and I forgot the nuts, and just remembered when I was filling the muffin cups.  So half the muffins got nuts on the top! 

They turned out great.  I usually freeze several loafs of zucchini bread, so I went ahead and froze about half of these also.  I put them in freezer bags and suck all the air out, they keep really well. 

Also, the recipe says to wrap it and store overnight... well in my experience, after it's been wrapped it does taste really good, but so far I have yet to conclude whether that is because it is actually better after it sits wrapped, or if it just tastes better because we have been WAITING AND WAITING to eat it!!  The loaf just sits there, taunting us...       

When I make it in a loaf, I usually do wrap it and refrigerate it until the next day, but muffins get eaten up right away.  And they are mmmmmgood.


The Verdict:

The research team ate all the zucchini muffins before dinner.  (Alright...I helped him.)  So I guess he liked them alright.  And I guess we won't be having any for breakfast!   :)


Something about muffins is more fun than a loaf.  Maybe it's because they look like cupcakes...   maybe it's because it's harder to eat the whole loaf at one time...   maybe it's because it's easier to justify putting chocolate frosting on muffins than it is on a loaf...   (Am I really that bad?   In the words of one Phineas Flynn:  "Why yes, yes I am.")

Not a hidden vegetable, but a learning experience...

I had seen pictures of ice cream cone cupcakes, and I was so excited to try them!   I envisioned spirals of frosting with sprinkles, spreading happiness all around!  I was going to make them for a party, but decided to do a practice run.  It was a good thing I did... here's what they looked like out of the oven:

Well, something was spread around, and it wasn't happiness!  :)  I just used a cake-in-a-box, and I filled the cones about 2/3 full, maybe just a little more.  As you can see, they over flowed, and the ones that runneth over, the cone became soggy where it ran over. 

Well, I frosted them anyway, because, homemade frosting can fix anything, right?

Well, they didn't actually taste that good.  It was weird, the cake sort of took on the flavor of the cone, which, as it turns out, wasn't very good.  And the longer they sat, the worse it got!  Also, right from the start, the cone wasn't as crunchy as it should be.  After a few days, we started just eating the frosting off the top and throwing out the rest!  (I do make really good frosting, it's the one thing I actually can make as good as my mom does!)

So, I didn't end up making them for the party.  But if anyone knows how people do this, and have it turn out well, I'd love to hear about it!!    (See, I'm still envisioning making cupcakes with sprinkles of joy...)