Apr8

A post about food! And flowers–not all of them edible.

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A post about food! And flowers–not all of them edible.
This flower looks like it wants to eat ME. Any guesses?

Y’all remember how I used to frequently find zucchini on my windshield after Taekwondo? There was also that one library incident.

Since I don’t see Sensei any more, the zucchini well has dried.

Or has it?

Hubby and I are not great gardeners, but everyone talked about how, once you grow zucchini, you’re always growing zucchini–like it or not.

What the hey? I thought. I relieved a Sensei zucchini of a few seeds several months back and threw them in the ground, not bothering to check the proper growing season schedule. Four plants started growing. From the first, I got this bad boy.

Daughter demonstrating its diameter. (Duh.)

At least a half dozen others like it are still growing. But so is a weird phenomenon.

This… thing.

Hubby concluded a recessive gene was in the seed mix. No matter. I’d chop it up and fry it like the others, expecting the usual white interior.

But no, my friends. And this was no easy squash to slice either. It seemed more like…

Am I frying an oblong pumpkin?

That is what it looked, smelled, and tasted like. How it wound up in our garden with the zucchini remains a mystery. But it, like everything fried in bacon grease, was delicious.

It was also a lot, so I put the last bit in a pan with a little water and steamed it until soft. Then I mashed it with ease and saved it for later baking.

If you’ve been here a while, you know my baking typically goes haywire, so when the oven is on, I stay out of the kitchen.

My daughter had friends over for her birthday and decided to bake brownies in mini-cupcake wrappers.

For a weird change of pace, no last minute grocery-runs needed to made for these brownie cupcakes.

Or did they?

As it turns out, the only oil we have is olive and coconut. My daughter hates coconut, so she used olive. To say these olive brownies were gross is an understatement. They went in the trash.

So, you guessed it, Hubby did a late-night store run for vegetable oil and a fresh box of brownie mix. The re-creation tasted much better, but stuck to the wrappers. We learned two lessons here: don’t bake with olive oil! Also, brownies don’t belong in cupcake wrappers.

The next month was my oldest daughter’s birthday. She works at a bakery, so she literally got paid to make her own cake. Then she bought it. (We paid her back.)

So much for not bringing her work home with her.

She also had several friends over for dinner, on a beautiful day, so we ate outdoors. Birthday Daughter decorated the tables with flowers harvested from our yard.

You want close-ups? I’ll get you close-ups.

I was so impressed by her use of greenery on this one. She’s a natural at floral decor, frosting or otherwise.
Even dandelions had their place for a splash of color.

My contribution was hanging this wreath on the door.

I know, I know. It was a challenge, but I persevered. Please, hold your applause.

I’m months overdue to show you the salsa chicken we made from Diane’s recipe. Her blog is a treasure and has been indispensable in using zucchini.

Easy to make and incredibly delicious.

All of you long-time readers, this nexy picture is for you.

This bag is saying, “I’m back, baby!”

It just wasn’t as good as in the old days, however.

My last food-related item has to do with when I went to coffee with friends and needed to decide, with others waiting, what I should order. In all tough, life-or-death situations such as this, I thought, “What would Andrew do?”

A delicious raspberry latte for the win! (Thanks for the inspo, buddy.)

I hope you’re all having a delicious, baking-disaster-free spring!

Naturally, I had to comb through my trivia book for something food related. Huzzah when I came to a page labeled “Recipes”! The first one fits the bill quite well too.

What do these ingredients construct:

Spaghetti, olive oil, onion, garlic, eggs, bacon, parmesan, pepper, and parsley.

[P.S. I asked you for a vote last time. I’ll get back to that in my next post. Probably. No one ever knows what’s going to happen on this blog.]

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77 responses »

  1. That first picture is a Triffid, right?

    “olive and coconut. My daughter hates coconut, so she used olive. To say these olive brownies were gross is an understatement. They went in the trash.“
    Hahahahahahaha! That sounds like something Mrs B would do. Good times, good times 😀

    I have zero idea about the trivia. But it sounds interesting, so I’m hoping someone else answers it easily.

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  2. Your daughter has a talent for creating beauty! 👌🌟

    Too funny: When I ran a poetry pulishing house and held readings, one of my poets had a piece titled, “Advice to the Backyard Gardener.”

    That poem was so funny! It began, “Never grow zucchini in your garden. If you grow zucchini in your garden ~ you will be sorry…”

    It goes on to detail how the little sprout rapidly takes over your whole garden, producing innumerable vegetables, which then must be used.

    The word “zucchini” itself appears in the poem so often that its own intrinsic comicality is felt along with that of the rest of the story.

    “All your neighbors,” it went on, “seem to be mysteriously not at home when you visit carrying your gift of zucchini…”

    The poem lists all the unlikely foods in which zucchini may be used.

    Finally, “You see a good friend coming up for a visit! She is carrying… a large basket of zucchini…” 🤣

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  4. You can never go wrong with a raspberry latte. The only way to make a raspberry latte better is to have a chocolate croissant with it. yum … oh and just so you know the raspberry counteracts the chocolate in the croissant and the two cancel each other out so there are no calories in this combination (follow me for more diet tips).

    That flower is hungry and about to eat you — which is my basic advice for all foods: Eat it before it eats you.

    If I recall, those things would make a kind of carbonara. Not sure. I’m more on the eating side of the kitchen rather than the cooking side. I mean, no one has died from my cooking, but there have been … er … complaints … no charges filed.

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  9. I think frying in bacon grease rather negates the healthy reward of fresh veggies, but I’m sure it tasted great. 😉
    I made the baking with olive oil mistake once. Never yo be repeated. It’s amazing how awful that was.
    Loving that candy cane colored rose on your table. Wow!
    And that professional cake? Stunning.

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    • There’s another blogger who swears by the health benefits of animal fat, so who knows what to believe? All I know is, it tasted terrific.

      Wish we’d known sooner about the olive oil. So much waste. 😦

      I was told that particular rose is called ‘fire and ice.’ Cool name, right?

      And, yes, my daughter did a nice job on her cake. The butterflies were a fun addition. 🙂

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  10. Chex Mix is back!! Be still my heart. It’s like I stepped into a time machine and was spat out in 2021.

    Thank you for teaching us that all cooking oil is not created equally.

    Yep, carbonara for sure. Let’s just pretend I was first for a change.

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    • If anyone was going to appreciate the CM, it was you, Mark. I’m so glad you did. Thinking about it now, I believe the obsession actually began in 2019! I’m remembering the CMG transferring to a new store… {thinking} at the end of 2020. Then my neighbor and I saw him at that store… yes, in 2021, at which time I bought some [not so good] Chex Mix. Yes! You win! Wow. Memory roller coaster.

      Olive oil is strong in large quantities, apparently. It’s weird because we haven’t had regular vegetable oil for a long time and were doing just fine. Pancakes, crepes, frying stuff, no problem. The amount needed for brownies, however, is too much, apparently. This is how we learn.

      Pretending you were the first! 😉

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  11. Mmmm…carbonara pasta! Yum! And thanks for the LOL moment…the Ziploc baggie with the questionable contents…including a question mark…too funny! I could’ve used some clues like that when we spelunked in my mom’s freezer once upon a time…😜❤️😜

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  12. The birthday cake! Um, you’re killing me here. For a sweet tooth like myself, how am I supposed to go back to work now? Looks amazing. Congrats to your daughter. If my sons or daughter brought cakes like that home … I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t get anything done. Also brownies in wrappers? How is that a bad thing. I think I could make that work … somehow! Ha ha.

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  15. Happy birthday to your daughter! The cake looks amazing.

    I also love the surprise from your garden. Did you check to see if a giant beanstalk grew in your garden too? Everything fried in bacon grease sounds yum!

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  16. “Delicious” post, Ilsa (esp. that leadoff birthday cake – oh my), and I love that instantly knew the meaning of “What would Andrew do?” at the tail end. You are talking about carbonara in the trivia. But more importantly I had a couple of “I spy” moments with your photos. In your table close-up I notice a cool glass butter dish. Where’d you get that? Even better, I REALLY like the design of the fan of glass at the top of your (front?) door. Very classy. Er, glassy. Er, you get my drift.

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    • “Glassy.” Ha! I like our front door, too, but mainly the blue. We painted that ourselves. Well done knowing the Andrew trivia! More impressive than knowing the trivia-trivia. 🙂 The butter dish trivia is a tough one for me. We’ve had that forever. Maybe it was a wedding gift? Maybe it came from Crate and Barrel? That was over two decades ago now, though, so… ??

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    • Yes! We used to make zucchini bread a lot with those early zukes. Now I get lazy and just chop and fry the buggers. The stuff in the bag I froze will likely become bread. Maybe with chocolate chips. 🙂

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  20. Ilsa, I love your humor – and wow – the olive oil brownies were so bad they had to be tossed? I have used olice oil for cooking and it was edible – but I wonder if it was the kind of olive oil that matters? Either way, it is not ideal for baking – that is for sure.

    On a side note, i have to mention the dangers of using Vegetable oil, because the seed oils (canola, vegetable, etc) are really really bad the human body – and they are so processed – where they have to be more processed to remove the funky odor – but the human body doesn’t know what to do with this processed chemical oil! It is a dead item that is shelf stable and it adds up to take a toll on the body.

    I used to make biscotti for about 12 years – it was holiday gift to give – and I preferred vegetable oil because it held the biscotti together better. However, that was before I knew the very serious dangers of seed oils – and it took years for me to grasp it. So please just think about it… it is bad news.

    __

    but on to the good news – oh my goodness the flower arrangements came out amazing – and the butterfly birthday wake – whew – true work of art- very fun post!

    xxx

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    • Hi, Yvette! I definitely hear you on the veg oil, which is why we didn’t have any in our house and hadn’t for quite a while. I’m not sure how we’ve gotten away with baking for so long without it. All I can figure is this recipe required larger quantities than normal. Hubby was on a mission and grabbed the first, quickest thing he found. Before this, we had used grapeseed oil, as I’d heard it wasn’t AS bad as just straight veg oil. I know there are others that are safer still, but I was cost-conscious during that time. I went with what was a little cheaper. Strange thing, we’ve made pancakes with the olive oil and couldn’t taste a thing! Something about brownies? Not sure what to make of it. Fortunately, the veg oil was a small container. It will not last much longer. I appreciate you looking out!

      Thank you for appreciating the flower arrangements (on the cake or otherwise). I was really impressed with my daughter’s handiwork in the arrangements. And–you’d be pleased with this–the number of friends attending kept growing, so what did we do? We made a longer table! 😛

      It was great. They sat outdoors on a beautiful evening, talking late, so we had hanging outdoor bulbs turned on. It was lovely ambiance. They seemed to all have had a nice time. It was a memorable birthday for my girl. 🙂

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      • Thanks for your kind reply to my rant on seed oil. I felt comfortable with you to mention it and duh! that makes sense that you know about it and only had coconut and olice oil on hand!
        Also, I do sort of feel similar with you that at times it is okay. However, that has backfired for me. For example, at the Hamburg Arkansas Armadillow fair last year, we walked up to a food truck that sold deep fried pied – and it said “we use canola oil” and I think I got wooed by the cute truck set up and SMELL of frieddough – and ordered one – hubs and I shared it and I felt so sick. Then, I broke out on my skin…. and so in my case, my body no longer lets me get away with it. Even though I am sure it is still here and there, I will just say NO when possible. –
        For my keot pancakes – I use avacado oil – or olive oil – and a ton of eggs and coconut flour with a dash of almond flour, salt, and baking soda, and they come out great.

        Your seed oils comment also reminded me of my son’s friend who makes these fun “anti seed oil” videos (S.O.F.A.) similar to the 1980s Just Say No drug commercials – they are super fun!
        I will link you up when I share about them in a future post – because Ilsa, – you have a GIFT for humor and that wit!

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      • You needn’t worry about offending me, Yvette. I’m a writer. I eat criticism for breakfast. (Ugh. Those empty calories!) But thanks for mentioning avocado oil again. Someone else on here did also. I’ll have that be my backup when a child hates coconut and the olive is too strong. Lemme go write that on my shopping list before I forget again…

        And, done. I would love, if you felt up for it, for you to tell me more about the virtues of animal fat. Someone mentioned losing health bennies of the veg when I fry it in bacon grease, but I was like, “Yeah, but Yvette said…” and then I forgot what you said, so I didn’t go into any detail. Or use your name, for that matter.

        From what limited health knowledge I have, sugar is the root of all evil. Okay, and processed foods. Then there’s that whole food dye thing, which had me eyeing my daughter’s cake warily. When will it end?!

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      • Hello! First of all, thanks for the time with the comment chatting here. – The hubs and I are careful with good talk because it is a touchy topic – like money, religion, politics – etc – and we also know how tought i was for us to learn new info. The cognitive dissonance is powerful and the new information shock is real.
        I will reply more about the topic of fat in a little bit… – and you can always use my name if needed – but there is a battle in the food area about healthy food – and many folks can use research to argue any point – so it is a tough road – and to be honest, if my body did not become toxic and need to heal (I rebuilt my terrain because my system shut down from the toxins accumulating) but had that not happened – I likely would still eat the same low nutritious stuff I THOUGHT was the better choice. –
        Oh and I used this herbal blend to get off sugar – I did a ten day mild cleanse uses health Plus colon cleanse – with extra fiber on the side – and taking this with water a few times a day – and eating some good food – helped me not have the huge withdraw from sugar – staying full helped – but it took a long time – and taking my Thymic formula daily is a must for me – I still have a tiny bit of sugar items – but mostly got away and use stevia for keto ice cream – but it takes a lot of time to make changes and the body needs us to go slow.
        and! Anytime you say no to chemicals is a win – so we do the best we can to not get overwhelmed. right?
        BE ENCOURAGED! because it takes time to change and it is the sum of many parts – xxx

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      • It’s kind of hard not to get overwhelmed, right? And we have to avoid plastics too? Come on! If someone says coffee is bad for you, I’m being like, stop the world. I want to get off.

        Thanks for sharing all of that, Yvette. I thought after my last comment, maybe I should’ve mentioned: You have my email. You can use that if you want! But I hope other people who need to read this will. And learn and grow and be edified or whatever. Maybe they’ll just be hungry. 😉
        Thank you, Yvette. You’re a peach–a totally organic, pesticide-free, non-GMO, free-range one not wrapped in plastic. Of course.

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      • and oh my goodness – I got chills to read about the friends list growing and the table getting extended.
        It warms my heart for a few reasons, – because of the book too – and to have that “how we eat” connection with you is special. Thanks again for your support with the book. –
        —
        and side note, at a dinner party we hosted at a small restaurant, I made a dozen flower arrangements for the tables. I did not mean to – but it was at a destination place…. and the plants I was going to buy for each table (only a few stores nearby and the meal was that night) and when I saw the airbnb had white bowls (so many places have those Amazon basics white dishware that is pretty cool) – and that could work as vases – I gave it a try. It just so happened to be a time when there were a lot of flowers to get from the area where we were staying – 😉 .
        \My step daughter helped add these green sprigs and suddenly it worked. To my great relief. – And I asked this one person not to say I made the flower arrangements. Not sure i wanted it private – maybe cos people see them more professional if they assume we ordered them?? Like your daughter’s look professional – omg.
        anyhow, at the start of that event – said person quickly told folks I made the flower arrangements. It was a little snarky – but unfolded so well. Cheers to flowers – and I still am amazed at that colorful butterfly cake

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      • Oh that’s hilarious that your friend outted you right away. Ha. I might have done the same. Not sure. Glad it all worked out well! I have no qualms outting my daughter. As her mom, it’s my duty, right? And I was just so darn impressed! She had a great natural ability, I thought. The added little vines cascading out–utter brilliance. Must be something about daughters understanding that green sprigs really help pull the decor together. 😛

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