Using the Vegetables

Greg's grandparents Marge & Neal have filled us up with loads of vegetables from their garden when we've been home and when we moved, which meant we had a lot of cooking learning to do. We did find some good zucchini bread and stir fry recipe that made for great and tasty vegetable usage. Definitely worth sharing.

Zucchini Bread
(Makes 2 loaves)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking power
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini

Directions
1. Grease & flour 2 8x4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
2. Stir flour, salt, baking powder, soda & cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla & sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to creamed mixture & beat well. Stir in zucchini until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Back 40-60 minutes. Cool in pan for about 20 minutes & remove bread from pan to cool completely.

Eggplant & Green Bean Stir-Fry with Coconut Rice
Prepare the coconut rice:
1 1/4 cups jasmine rice
1 can coconut milk
1 cup water

Add to pan, bring to a boil & reduce heat to steam the rice for 15 minutes. Remove from heat & keep covered for 5 more minutes.

Stir-Fry
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 large eggplant, peeled, seeded & sliced into bite-size pieces
1 pound of green beans
3-4 tbsp minced, pealed ginger (we didn't have this so we put in peppers!)
3-4 small cloves of garlic (we used minced garlic)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup basil
2 large chicken breast sliced (this was our addition)

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant and green beans, chicken, ginger & garlic. Saute for 5-6 minutes until the green beans start to turn bright green and are still crisp. Add soy sauce & basil & continue to saute for another 1-2 minutes. Serve over rice.

Iced Coffee

Yep, another recipe. This is for you, but maybe it's more just so I have a quick place to look for recipes I like. Either way, this is worth trying if you like coffee.

When it's warm outside, I'm not a big fan of drinking hot coffee. I'd rather have something cold, but still need my coffee. So I went out searching and found this recipe. It has been approved by my co-workers on the eMarketing team and also by my mom, yes my mom who doesn't like coffee!

Ingredients:
2/3 cups of course ground coffee
3 cups cold water
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Place all ingredients in a jar or pitcher, stir, cover & place in the fridge and let set overnight. In the morning, you'll need to strain out the grounds, I typically put the filter in the regular coffee pot and dump it straight into the filter and let it go through (note: don't turn on the coffee pot), it's a slow process but not that bad. You could use a french press if you have it as well.

After straining it, I usually put in back into a pitcher and add milk, add as much milk or cream as you desire for taste. Enjoy!