Lemon Blueberry Zucchini Bread

This is yet another zucchini bread, this one from Married/Single Parent. She has a recipe for glaze as well, though I skipped that and didn't miss it a bit. This may be my favorite zucchini bread to date, though it's a tough competition with the lemon poppyseed zucchini bread. But this was the first one I've made that was cooked all the way through and not at all gummy. And those blueberries...soooo delicious.

Ingredients:
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour, as it's softer texture)
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 c. coconut oil
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. buttermilk
Juice of 1 lemon or 2 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 cup grated zucchini
1 c. blueberries (I used frozen, but fresh would be great too)


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 35o ⁰F. 
2. Grease and flour a 9×5″ loaf pan, set aside. 
3. In large bowl, blend flour, baking powder.
4. In the mixer bowl beat 2 eggs well. 
5. Then add oil and sugar, and beat on low until well combined. Add the buttermilk, lemon juice and lemon zest and blend everything well. 
6. Fold in zucchini and stir until evenly distributed in mixture. 
7. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl and blend everything together, but don’t over mix. 
8. Stir in blueberries.
9. Pour batter into prepared 9×5″ loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. I had to bake 1 hr and 15 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.
10. 

Baked Peaches

I had grilled peaches once at a cookout, and they were just about the best things ever. So when I saw that Fannie Farmer had a recipe for baked peaches, I couldn't wait to try it.

Her recipe is a bit vague. It just says to peel, cut in half, and pit the peaches, fill with fruit, nuts, butter, sugar, spices, or lemon juice.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle with sherry or brandy, or serve with hard sauce, whipped cream, or sour cream.

Here's what I did.

Cut 4 peaches in half and remove pits. I didn't peel them.

  Fill the center of each half with blueberries.

 Place a sliver of butter atop the blueberries.

 Sprinkle with sugar.

...And nutmeg.

Bake as directed above.

 Eat while warm.

These were as beautiful as they were delicious. I would absolutely make these again, many times over, with all kinds of fillings. They were yumtastic.

Blueberry Muffins

I know what you're thinking...where are the muffins?

Sorry this post is late. Kind of hard to cook when you spend the day in the hospital with your kid. So…finally home just in time to whip up some food while he rests today.

Today’s recipe is for blueberry muffins. My sister made this recipe, and I didn’t like it very much—she used all white flour, and I’m so used to whole wheat that white flour muffins taste kind of gummy and, well, white. So I used the whole wheat adaptation listed in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

I didn’t have a muffin pan, so I just made a loaf. But I would recommend muffins, as I love them. They are just better somehow, right?

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

Mmm...blueberries.

2 c. white flour (or 1 c. white, ¾ c. whole wheat, which is what I used)

1 tbsp. baking powder (or 1 tsp. baking soda)

½ tsp. salt

2 tbsp. sugar (or ½ c. for blueberry muffins)

1 egg, beaten

1 c. milk

¼ c. melted butter

(1 c. blueberries for blueberry muffins)

Preheat oven to 375.

Butter a muffin tin.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add milk, egg, and butter, mixing enough to wet the flour. Mix should be lumpy.

If making blueberry muffins, add blueberries at this point.

Spoon into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I used the whole wheat recipe, and the blueberry recipe, from the cookbook. I also used baking soda because I don’t like to use baking powder. I left out salt, as always, and I added only ¼ c. sugar instead of ½. But next time, I might add the whole half, because it didn’t turn out very sweet at all. In fact, it was hardly sweet at all. But it was still pretty tasty, and I would make it again.

Blueberry Cobbler

If you have used The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and you should definitely get one if you don't already have a basic cookbook that you LOVE, you know that a lot of the recipes overlap. Remember that basic cake recipe I posted yesterday? Well, here's another place you can use it. Just mix up the batter and pour it on top of this.

Up close and textural.

So, for this recipe, the cobbler part goes like this:

• Take two cups of berries (or any fruit you want to cobble. Is that the right word?)

I used 3 cups of berries because I love them!

• Sprinkle with one tablespoon of flour

• Top with Cottage Pudding (AKA, basic cake recipe used as a cake, or top for cobblers, upside down cakes, etc)

I would only use half the cake recipe, because otherwise, it was way too thick, and more like blueberry upside down cake. It wasn't a thin cobbler topping like I expected. Use the full recipe for upside down cakes or regular cakes, but definitely not for cobbler.

• Cook at 425 for 30 minutes.

Enjoy the goodness. 

I prefer the goodness topped with ice cream or whipped cream.

Blueberry Pancakes

 Blueberry pancakes are a summer staple in our house. My mom made them for us when we were kids, and I still love them just as much as my own son, who loves pancakes of all varieties.

I might need to work on my photography as much as my cooking!

I have tried to use gluten-free flour when I have it, and it's incredibly tender and tasty. I actually like it better than flour pancakes, if you can believe it. But I didn't have gluten-free flour this week, so I'll post on that some other time.

Today, I went with a more traditional recipe for blueberry pancakes.

The recipe for basic pancakes from my Fannie Farmer Cookbook:

Wild blueberries work well and have more flavor.

Mix in one bowl:
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
2 tbs melted butter

In second bowl, mix:
1 c. flour (I use 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat)
2 tsp. baking powder (I used about 1 tsp baking soda instead)
2 tbs sugar

Dump all dry ingredients into the liquid at once, and mix until just moistened. Add extra milk if needed, until batter is about as thick as heavy cream or a bit thicker. I did have to add extra milk to mine.

Last, fold 1/2 c. blueberries into the mix, pour into hot skillet and cook until bubbles appear around edges. You can check under the edge of a pancake to make sure it's browning before you flip it. I always use cast iron pans, which work great for pancakes, and a metal spatula.

Butter is your friend.

Pancakes can be tricky for a newbie cook, but it's one thing I've perfected since it's one of my son's favorite breakfasts. The trick is getting the batter the right consistency. With these, we topped with simple butter and maple syrup, but you can get fancy and add blueberry syrup or any number of toppings. I'm sure I'll make some others this year and try to post some recipes.

For now, enjoy!