The Weekend of Zucchini

It's late August and I just haven't had enough zucchini lately!  I decided to look for some new zucchini recipes to try out over the weekend:  Chocolate Zucchini Muffins, Zucchini Fritters, and Stuffed Zucchini. 

On Saturday afternoon, the kids helped me make the muffins and B (age 5) LOVED the muffin tops but didn't like the bottoms.  C (age 9) took the teeniest of tiny bites and said they were nasty.  This surprised me since C loves sauteed summer squash and zucchini tossed with rigatoni and a little olive oil.  I couldn't believe she wouldn't want to try the zucchini with chocolate!  What is wrong with her!?  And B never tries anything new!  Ever!  I was tempted to hide the zucchini so it wouldn't scare him away, but he was so excited not only to help but to gobble them up as well!  That made me so proud!  There might be hope for him afterall!

Sunday morning, I made the zucchini fritters on my own and they were just about the tastiest thing I've put in my mouth in a LOOOOONG time!  I used bread crumbs with parmesan cheese instead of flour and they were just amazing!  They were a tad salty even for me.  (I have low sodium due to Addison's Disease so I often crave salt.)  I forgot that I salted the zucchini to help get the water out of them, then I salted them again once they were done.  And of course parmesan cheese has plenty of salt too.  Yikes! They were still superb but next time I'll scale back on the salt.  I tried to bribe C into trying one but she would only take a tiny bite and said it was "OK".  I just know she would love these if she'd really try them!  But they ARE fried so I don't need to be making them very often anyway.  I'll keep them as a guilty pleasure for ME!  They were really quick and super easy!  And did I say they were AWESOME?!?!?  Mmmmm!  (I thought I took a pic of my fritters but I must have eaten them up too fast!)

By Sunday night, I was really getting bummed that no one else was enjoying my zucchini weekend nearly as much as I was so I decided against the stuffed zucchini recipe.  We had a roasted chicken with green beans and new potatoes instead.  I still have 4 zucchinis to use up.  It's cold and rainy today so maybe I'll try this Spicy Zucchini Soup.  That would be great for my lunches this week or I could freeze some for later.

If you click on my links, you'll see that I've found a couple of GREAT blogs with GREAT recipes and ideas.  Check them out!  I'm sure you'll enjoy them too!  http://simplyrecipes.com/  and http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/

Eating healthy, but need a snack!

I packed my greek salad and some tuna for lunch, along with a nectarine. It was really tasty but I wish I had packed a snack as well.  I'm super hungry and trying to avoid the "snack co-op" in the office.   Did I mention I'm super hungry?

Tonight's dinner is grilled halibut tacos with black bean and corn salad.  Can't wait for that!!!!

P.S. this is a test post from my phone.  I wonder if it will work!

Ready or not, here I come!

Well, I’ve finally decided to join the masses and start a blog. I’m too shy to even let friends and family know about it yet. I’m just wanting a place to keep track of my journey towards a healthier lifestyle. I don’t know if I’ll post every day but I do hope to be fairly active. This has got to be a better use of my time than watching TV, right? (Who am I asking??? I don’t have any followers! LOL)

Anyway, I brought the kids to the Farmers Market today and gave them a mini scavenger hunt to keep them interested. (Thanks to http://whatscookingblog.com/ for the idea!) If they were able to mark off all the items on their list, they could pick out a treat from one of the vendors. Both kids did great! B (age 5) picked chocolate chip cookies. Of course once he saw his big sister C (age 9) getting chocolate gelato, he wanted that too. Since the cookies came in a 4 pack he agreed to share and got gelato too. So, HOW is this a healthy start? I don’t know! (I didn’t have any! Give me a gold star!) They each had less than half of the gelato and we were out of the house moving around. And we did stock up on LOTS of fresh veggies!

I came home and made a Greek Salad. It is full of fresh cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, kalamata olives, feta cheese, fresh oregano, fresh parsley and some red wine vinegar and EVOO.

Hmmm, the cucumbers look really white in the photo, huh?  The salad is marinating in the fridge now. Can’t wait to eat it throughout the week!

The Farmers Market also had fresh lobsters and other fresh fish, so tonight will be our first experiment cooking lobsters at home. Yikes! We’ve got corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes to go with it.  The kids named the lobsters Marianne, Steve and Bob.  It was nice knowing you guys!