One last blast about zucchini! Last week I had a full tray of zucchini and I was done experimenting with recipes. Time to pull out the food processor to shred and freeze the last big batch. My little hand-held shredder was fine for one or two zucchinis to make one recipe. Now I had a pile and the food processor could handle it quickly…it probably took longer to clean up the machine when I was done than it took to shred all the zucchinis!
I had more to choose from, but the two biggest zucchinis ended up being composted…the seeds were too big!
I first cut all the zucchini into smaller pieces.
The chunks had to fit into the hole at the top:
The food processor has a nice shredding blade.
It took only a few minutes to shred all the zucchini!
All done!
I scooped 2 cups of the shreds into each quart bag and flattened them out so they would stack in the freezer.
I now have 5 bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer ready for all those recipes I tried over the last month! Yay!
If you have comments or questions, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
I just realized I had not shared my Zucchini Bread recipe yet! We’ve had enough zucchini so I’ve been able to experiment with cookies and a casserole along with how I dehydrate the zucchini shreds. You can find those articles at the following links:
Now that the zucchini plants are not producing so much, it was time to use up all the zucchini sitting around my kitchen. I put several of the small, misshapen ones in the compost bin. I saved two smaller ones and shredded the rest.
I ended up with about 5 cups of shredded zucchini. I decided to make two batches of zucchini bread…which would use up 4 cups…and froze the last cup.
Making a double batch of zucchini bread made sense and it was a lot easier if I measured everything out in pairs. I wouldn’t start mixing until I had everything ready.
Here is the recipe!
First, I measured out the Baking Powder, Baking Soda and Salt.
Then, I shredded and measured out the zucchini.
I chopped the walnuts:
Here are all the prepped ingredients:
Then, I was ready to follow the instructions.
In a large mixing bowl whisk the eggs, oil, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg (I did not use) and vanilla. Whisk well to break up the eggs and get everything well incorporated.
Blend in the baking powder, soda and salt, so they are mixed in thoroughly, then stir in the flour.
3. When the flour is almost all incorporated, fold in the zucchini and nuts. Stop mixing as soon as there is no dry flour left and the zucchini and nuts are evenly dispersed. Do not over-mix this batter.
4. I poured the batter into 3 pans, instead of 2. I’m always concerned my oven isn’t the right temperature, so I thought these loaves could be a little smaller and get cooked through.
I let them cool in the pan about half an hour (mostly because I forgot about them!) and turned them out to continue cooling.
Result…I had three loaves of zucchini bread…delicious!
If you have questions or comments, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
What in the world is an ANZAC biscuit? These cookies (or “biscuits” as they are called in the UK and Australia/New Zealand) are considered a traditional cookie to honor ANZAC day in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga.
“Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders ‘who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations’ and ‘the contribution and suffering of all those who have served.’ Observed on 25 April each year, Anzac Day was originally devised to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served in the Gallipoli campaign, their first engagement in the First World War (1914-1918).” (See more at https://anzacspirit.com.au/blog/the-traditions-of-anzac-day/)
Several sources online suggested wives and mothers would mail these cookies to their soldiers in ANZAC, because without eggs and being quite sturdy, they traveled and kept well. Other sources said, “contrary to legend, Anzac biscuits weren’t sent to our troops serving overseas in WWI. However, they were commonly sold at church fetes and galas to raise funds for the war effort. They didn’t get their name until peacetime, with the first Anzac recipe appearing in about 1919.”
You can see, the history of the Anzac biscuits has been around for over 100 years! Whether they were popular because they traveled well, or they made a good baked item to raise funds, I might have to bake some to sell at our Boalsburg Fire Company Auxiliary Yard Sale in a few weeks (September 19-20, 2025). If I include the recipe and a little history, they might generate some interest and sales!
Because they were popular in Australia, they are called biscuits…like cookies are called in the UK. However, they are basically a simple Oatmeal Coconut Cookie. They are sturdy, travel well and taste good!
Here’s the recipe I followed. I added vanilla and cinnamon to my recipe just because!!
The ingredient list is pretty simple. After making 2-3 batches and reading several variations of the recipe at various sources, I think you could add other ingredients of your choosing…walnuts, chocolate chips, etc.
Making the ANZAC Biscuits
Assemble the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
2. Melt one stick of butter and add 2 Tbsp of honey and mix well. (This is when I added the vanilla.)
3. Put the baking soda in a small cup and add 2 Tbsp boiling water. This was a real pain in the neck…next time I’ll add the baking soda and water to the melted butter and just mix it up.
4. Combine the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients to make a moist batter. Scoop about a tablespoon or two into your hand and form a ball. Place on cookie sheet and flatten gently with your fingers. They will spread and flatten as they cook.
5. Bake at 325 degrees for 12-14 minutes (to make a firm chewy cookie) or about 15-18 minutes to make them a little crunchy. Rotate trays as needed halfway.
This batch made 14-16 cookies…each 3-4 inches across! They can be made smaller and the recipe can be doubled. Might be the perfect cookie to sell at our bake sale! Enjoy!
If you have questions or comments, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com. Thanks.
My Excalibur Dehydrator has been an important and useful tool for me over the last 10-15 years. It is basically a low-tech appliance with few moving parts, but it is safe to dehydrate foods without having to monitor the oven at low temperatures or the food over many hours. It is a large box-sized appliance (about 20″ x 18″ x 12″ high). I do not use it often, but when I do I want it near the kitchen where I prep the food to be dehydrated. Here is a picture from the instruction manual. It does have 9 trays, but the food shown in the picture is not realistic. They do not recommend dehydrating so many different kinds of food at the same time!
A few weeks ago, I showed pictures of dehydrating shredded zucchini…the shreds needed to be spread out so they would dry properly. The trays shown above are much too crowded.
Anyway, the dehydrator is stored in our garage, right outside the kitchen door. When not in use, it is covered with a cloth cover I made many years ago, then covered with a custom board Bert made that has a hole for the temperature dial so it doesn’t get squished. The board keeps the whole dehydrator safe from being bumped and we find we store stuff on top. Packages from UPS often appear there when delivered!
This original cover was made from plain cotton and must have gotten snagged or just worn through with holes! Yikes! Time for a new cover!
To make a new cover, I needed to measure the dehydrator. Pretty funny…trying to get my tape measure to stay put so I could take a picture of it just right!
So I ended up measuring the old cover instead. The new cover didn’t need to be snug. I wanted to be able to just slip it on to keep the dust out.
The measurements became this pattern:
Once I found a piece of fabric big enough to make the cover, I cut the pieces out as measured above:
I stitched the 4 side pieces to the top and tested it on the dehydrator inside out before I sewed up the side seams. (I obviously didn’t go to a whole lot of trouble to iron the pieces before I started sewing!)
Once the side seams were sewed (and zigzagged for strength) I tested the fit again before I hemmed the bottom edge.
And right side out, it works great. Guess I could break out the ironing board if necessary!
Remember, I said we store the dehydrator under a board with a hole to accommodate the dial on the top. Believe it or not, that board has prevented damage to the dial for 15 years!
Now, this space is ready for UPS to drop off packages, etc. I feel better that the dehydrator is now covered! Enjoy! If you have questions or comments, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
Tomato season is just getting started and most of the ones we’re eating are the small “Raindrop” tomatoes
We had 3 regular tomatoes from the garden turn red, but each had a blemish that would need to be cut out. Then, Bert came home from camp with 4 tomatoes each in a plastic shell. They looked great but I knew they weren’t local and fresh. While we were eating the small tomatoes, I knew we’d ignore the big ones until they spoiled on the counter!
I wondered how hard it would be to make a small batch of tomato soup…I had a memory in mind of a lovely bowl of tomato soup my mother had made…MANY years ago. Somehow, the cans of condensed tomato soup just didn’t taste like my memory!
First, I looked up the recipe for “Fresh Tomato Soup” in my Joy of Cooking cookbook.
Sounded like the same procedure when I cook tomatoes in preparation for canning. I even had a fresh onion from the garden. I took the 7 tomatoes I had on the kitchen table and weighed them…almost 3 pounds! Good Enough!
NOTE: You can skip all the instruction below about preparing the tomatoes and just use several cans of diced tomatoes. Keep reading!
Next, each tomato needed to be trimmed and blemishes cut out. I cut an X on the bottom of each one. I got a pan of water ready to boil so I could dip each tomato into the hot water. In one minute, the skins would loosen so they would be easy to peel.
I lined the tomatoes up by the stove and put 4 and then 3 in the boiling water. After a minute I moved them to ice water. The skins were beginning to come off.
Of course, the steam clouded my camera!
I noticed the recipe said to remove the seeds. It wasn’t hard to just get rid of the seed pocket in the commercial tomatoes. Our tomatoes had hardly any developed seeds!
NOTE: If you have no interest in starting with fresh tomatoes, I think you could easily begin with a few cans of diced tomatoes and jump down to the step below that has the diced tomatoes cooking with chopped onion and go from there!
I had the onion ready to put in the pot with the cut tomatoes and simmered them on the stove.
After about 45 minutes everything looked pretty soft. I poured the whole pile into the blender and in less than a minute there were no chunks! Of course, I poured the pureed tomatoes/onions from the blender into a container before I took a picture of the blender! I put this container in the refrigerator until lunch time.
When it was time for lunch, I put the cooked pureed tomatoes/onions into a saucepan and started warming them up.
I added about a tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, a sprinkle of pepper and a teaspoon of Basil flakes. I let this simmer about 10 minutes. Finally, I added about 1/4 cup of coconut milk. Bert added additional regular milk to his bowl.
Very tasty!!
I know it seems like it was a lot of work, but if I’m cooking tomatoes anyway, why not make a good meal out of them while I’m cooking! Even if you start with plain canned diced tomatoes, it will end up tasting pretty good! Enjoy!
ps. Just for fun, I looked up the ingredients in Campbell’s Condensed Tomato Soup. The serving size was 1/2 cup and was 90 calories! Here’s the ingredient list for that can of soup: Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Water, Wheat Flour, Sugar, Contains Less Than 2% Of: Salt, Potassium Salt, Natural Flavoring, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Celery Extract, Garlic Oil. Contains: Wheat.
I think my soup tasted just fine without the wheat and “natural flavoring!”
If you have comments or questions, please contact me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
Just as I was babying along the first precious zucchini…surprise! We are now picking zucchini every day, with more on the way! Of course! Since I didn’t want to keep baking every day using only one to two cups of shredded zucchini in a recipe, it was time to start dehydrating the shreds.
First, I got the dehydrator uncovered and ready to use. It sits right outside the kitchen door, covered in a cloth cover with a board sitting on top. That lets us stack things on top…like the mail or stuff that needs to be put away in the garage. When I need it, I just uncover it and it’s ready to go. When it’s running, the noise, heat and any food smells are not in the house!
There is a set of plastic sheets to keep small items from falling through the grid.
Next, I set up the shredder and starting shredding!
I spread the shreds on the dehydrator trays covered with plastic sheets. I set the dehydrator for 125 degrees (Vegetables) and left it alone for about 6 hours.
One cup of shredded zucchini makes about 1/4 cup of dehydrated shreds.
I ended up with 1/2 of a gallon ziplock bag of zucchini shreds. Much easier to store! We’ll see how they work when I soak them in water and use them in zucchini bread or cookies! I picked another 6 zucchini this morning…and so it continues! Enjoy! If you have questions or comments, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
A few days ago, I experimented with a recipe for zucchini cookies. The recipe came from allrecipes.com. They didn’t taste too bad, but they were basically undercooked. I didn’t know how to trust my oven temperature and couldn’t tell by looking if they were done. I kept thinking they needed more flour and since I don’t really care for raisins, maybe chocolate chips would be better. I even wondered if I could add a little coconut to the mix! Here is the original recipe:
The cookies that followed the original recipe came out looking like these…kind of flat and undercooked.
So today, I tried again. First, shredding the zucchini:
Two zucchini made 2 cups of shredded zucchini…enough for two batches of cookies. The second cup of shreds I put in a zip bag with a paper towel to soak up moisture and stored it in the refrigerator.
Here are my notes as I modified the recipe as I went along:
The flour mixture has all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup of coconut (like for macaroons), baking soda, ground cinnamon and salt (I left out ground cloves because we don’t care for that taste).
Then, I melted a stick of butter and beat it with the sugar. I added 2 eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla. Next came the shredded zucchini, the flour mixture and the cup of chocolate chips.
At this point the mixture was really sticky, so I put it in the refrigerator for an hour. I tried making dough balls but it was still too sticky so I just scooped up dough with a teaspoon and put them on the cookie sheets. Timing was different from the original recipe…at 375 degrees, I gave them 6 minutes. Then I rotated the trays and gave them another 6 minutes. They were browning nicely so I took them out of the oven. They turned out great! They are more “cakey” but tasty and used up a zucchini!
Finally, here is my revised recipe. Enjoy! If you have questions or comments, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
I now have a folder full of zucchini recipes to try…and we finally have some zucchini! I just couldn’t make myself buy zucchini when I saw the plants in the garden a few days ago. In three days since I took this picture, I picked two that were about 8″ long.
Of course, I forgot to take a picture of them before I put them through the shredder! This little hand-operated shredder worked just great for two zucchini.
The recipe came from https://allrecipes.com and I didn’t retype it yet. I’m starting to like the way allrecipes.com formats their recipes.
When I looked at the ingredients, I saw I needed a dry cornbread mix, 8.5 ounces. Interesting. I thought that must be a small mix. Sure enough, it was a Jiffy cornbread mix!
I started by shredding the zucchini and chopping an onion.
Then I added two eggs and mixed in the 4 oz of cheese.
Then I added the cornbread mix.
I put this mixture in a casserole sprayed with oil, and sprinkled the rest of the cheese on top.
I put the casserole in a 350-degree oven timed for 55 minutes instead of 60 minutes as called for in the recipe, just in case my oven temperature was still unpredictable. After 45 minute the cheese on top was very brown. I took the casserole out of the oven, worried that the top layer of cheese was baked too hard even though the inside could probably bake another 10 minutes.
The casserole tasted fine, but next time I’ll wait until the last 15 minutes to put the cheese on top. Here’s what it looked like after we’ve eaten most of it. It really was pretty tasty!
I will count this recipe a success and will make it again! If you have a question or comment please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
My adventure into making scones has persisted for several weeks. I had never eaten or baked a scone before April, 2025. I had read about them in many novels set in Ireland and Scotland. Many folks seemed to love them. However, with all the baking from scratch I’ve done, I had never even tried to make scones! Pretty embarrassing!
With the need to provide some products for the Ladies Auxiliary to the Fire Company bake sales, and various ads from the King Arthur Baking Company, I decided it was time to give it a try. I was sure the scone mixes would make the whole process fool proof! Haha!
I ordered 5 different flavors of scone mixes. The mixes just needed an egg, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 tsp. of salt and a stick of butter. That was the easy part. Then came mixing up a VERY stiff, sticky batter. My hand muscle strength is not very good, so I’m sure the batter did not get mixed well enough. Then I had to struggle to pack the sticky batter into the ceramic scone pan.
When I baked them, the scones raised up and made a solid mass above the dividers of the pan. I ended up having to add minutes to the baking time…up to 30 minutes…and the bottom of the scones still wasn’t done! Gee…maybe something was wonky with my oven!
(Bert got an oven thermometer and is working on “calibrating” the oven temperature today. We’ve had this oven for 20 years and never knew we could do that!)
By adding time, I was able to get the scones cooked enough to get them ready for the bake sale! It didn’t seem to matter…people loved them and we sold out two days in a row at the Yard Sale (about 70 individual scones) and again at the Memorial Day bake sale (another 70 scones). Holy cow! I think we’ve got a hit…but now that the sales are over until September, I need to figure out a better way to make them!
I had an extra Cherry Almond mix (my favorite) so today I assembled the ingredients.
The jar of “sparkling sugar” from King Arthur gave the tops a nice sparkle.
First, I cut up the butter and worked it into small pieces before adding the egg/milk mixture.
Then, I added the egg/milk mixture. Since the mixing process is tough with my hand strength (or lack thereof) I decided to mix the batter up in my stand mixer. I ended up adding a little more milk than it called for just to get it to mix.
The dough was still VERY sticky, but I dumped it out onto the floured table and gave it a few quick kneads.
Then I patted it into a thick circle…about 3/4″ thick.
I used a pizza cutter to cut the circle into 8 pieces and put them on a cookie sheet. I sprinkled them with the tiny bit of sparkling sugar I had left.
Note to self: Next time use two cookie sheets to give them room to spread out.
I still had to add a few minutes, but I could get them off the pan without breaking apart…much better compared to the ceramic pan.
They tasted delicious, but now that Bert has the oven calibrated, I hope it’s a little more consistent with time. I’ve also ordered silicone scone pans to try. Maybe when I get the baking part figured out, I’ll try making them from scratch! Stay tuned!
I should know better! When a recipe says, “20-minute Homemade Bread” I should be careful. It’s never 20 minutes! That’s the bake time. And of course, the picture looks nothing like what I produced. I’m always looking for new easy bread recipes…however, the lovely picture of a loaf of bread and the 20-minute headline seemed too good to be true.
Here’s the recipe that I found on Facebook:
I was able to mix it up by hand and made a round loaf like it suggested. It tasted OK but because it did not have yeast, it really was just a huge baking powder biscuit! It fell apart like a biscuit and did not rise very much.
I think the rest of the loaf will be crumbled and dispersed for the birds! I don’t plan to make that bread again!
I still wanted to make a single loaf of bread. So today I pulled out my recipe for English Muffin Toasting Bread. I wrote about it in November, 2023. It is not a complicated recipe and does not require kneading. It’s more of a batter bread with yeast. If you compare bake time…this bread takes 22-27 minutes. It tastes so much better!
Here is the recipe:
The instructions above are pretty clear. If you’d like the step-by-step pictures, please see my post…https://marykisner.com/making-english-muffin-toasting-bread/
This loaf turned out great and really tastes good!
I think I’ll stand by my tried-and-true recipes that I know taste good and aren’t too complicated. It’s a waste of ingredients and a waste of my time to experiment. (However…I’m always a sucker for words like “simple” and “quick.”) I’ll try to resist!
