Lately, we’ve been finding ways to use all of the zucchini that we’ve had coming out of our garden.  This bread is one delicious way to use up that zucchini.  The recipe comes from a friend of my family, back when I was growing up.  This is what she wrote about the bread and why she named it “Green Bug” Bread….

When Jamie was three, he returned home from visiting with some friends.  He wanted me to make “that bread with the green bugs in it.”  Needless to say, I called immediately to find out what he had eaten–zucchini bread.  It’s been “Green Bug Bread” ever since.“Green Bug” Bread

2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups grated zucchini
3 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 cup nuts (chopped) (I didn’t use nuts at all.)

Mix sugar, eggs, and oil. Add zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and nuts. Mix into batter. Pour into two greased loaf pans, and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Enjoy!

(Recipe obtained from my old school/church cookbook: Sugar and Spice…1985)

This recipe is a bit unusual, and at first, I thought for sure I’d made it wrong, or that Grandma had a crust recipe somewhere that she used, in addition to this.  After taking it out of the oven, though, and tasting it….it brought back memories of Grandma’s blackberry cobbler.  Sure enough, it was delicious and another hit with the family!  Plus, it was super easy and quick to make.  Enjoy!

Fruit Cobbler (in this case, Blackberry Cobbler)

Select any fruit, canned, fresh, or frozen, without sugar.  Put fruit in baking dish, and dot with butter (I used half a stick of margarine).

Mix together:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Mix well, and add:
1/2 cup milk

Once mixed up well, pour over top of fruit, and sprinkle with 3/4 cup sugar. Then pour 1/2 cup cold water over sugar. Bake 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees.

If you use canned fruit, drain off most of liquid. Freezes good after cooked.

Mmmm….Dad’s ice cream is the best!  He learned how to make it from the best too, from Grandma and Grandpa; I remember using a hand-cranked ice cream freezer at their house when I was younger….the results were always worth the hard work of cranking.  Of course, the picture is not a pic of his actual ice cream, as once again, I failed to get a pic. (Sorry!) However, we have made his ice cream twice in the past week. We made banana ice cream for the 4th of July, and then for my choir’s ice cream social last night, strawberry-peach ice cream. Yum! Enjoy!For this recipe, you’ll need ice, rock salt, and an electric ice cream freezer, preferably a 4-6 qt. maker.

Dad’s Homemade Ice Cream

Mix together the following ingredients:
6 eggs
1 can Eagle brand or sweetened, condensed milk
3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp. vanilla
Dash of salt
3 cans evaporated milk; if using Milnot, only 2 cans

Puree whatever fruit you’d like to flavor your ice cream with, or you can just keep it vanilla. If you use fruit, you’ll want a good amount of whatever fruit you have; for instance, we used 5-7 bananas for the banana ice cream, and for the strawberry-peach, we used a not quite full quart bag of each.

Mix your fruit in with the above milk mixture. Empty into your ice cream freezer container, and finish filling with whole milk, mixing well.

Once you’ve filled the container to the fill line, place the lid on, and follow your freezer’s directions for freezing. We use water, ice, and rock salt, and it usually freezes in 10-15 minutes. It’s a fast, quick treat for the whole family! Happy summer!

This weekend will be Independence Day, a day to celebrate the freedoms that we have and to honor those who have bravely fought for those freedoms.  In honor of the 4th, I made a Jello flag cake yesterday with Jacob.  The recipe basically comes from my mom, and it makes a great summer dish for any occasion, even without the flag.  Enjoy!

Jello Flag Cake

1 white cake mix (w/ingredients, as indicated on back of box)
1 pkg. any flavor Jello (I used strawberry)
1 cup boiling water
1 container Cool Whip
Strawberries
Blueberries

Mix up the cake mix, and bake as instructed on back of box. Take cake out of oven when done, and let cool for 15 minutes.

Now for the fun part. Mix gelatin and 1 cup boiling water. Take a fork, and poke holes all over the cake, and then pour the gelatin mixture all over the cake. The holes allow the gelatin to really soak in, flavoring the cake well. Chill in fridge.After cake has cooled in fridge for a couple of hours, take out, and put a complete layer of Cool Whip on top. Lastly, add blueberries for the stars and halved strawberries for the stripes. The kids will have fun with this. I let Jacob help me, and he had a little trouble, since the berries were so slippery, but he still had fun and was ready to eat right away! Yum!