Zucchini Bread

One of my favorite breads to cook in the summer is Zucchini Bread.  I got this wonderful recipe from a girl I worked with in North Carolina.  I think it was her Mom's recipe that she got from a friend.  It is INCREDIBLE!!  I can eat 2 small loaves by myself.  I grow a lot of zucchini in the summer and this bread is perfect because you can freeze it.

Here is the recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  

Grease and flour (very important to flour the pan) the pan.  Either two 8 loaf individual loaf pans or 2  9" x 5" loaf pans

3 eggs

1 cup salad oil ( I use olive oil)

2 cups sugar ( or less if you want)

2 tsp vanilla

Beat eggs until they are foamy and thick.  Then add other ingredients.

Stir in:

            2 cups coarsely shredded zucchini 

            1 can (8&1/2 oz) crushed pineapple ( do not drain juice)

Combine and stir in:

            3 cups flour

            2 tsp soda

            1/2 tsp baking powder

            1&1/2 tsp cinnamon

            3/4 tsp nutmeg

            1/4 tsp ground cloves

            1 cup chopped nuts

Bake for 30 minutes if making individual loaves and 50-60 minutes for a whole loaf.  Time might needed to be adjusted for your oven.

Hope you really enjoys these.  I know I do!

Into the Wild

This past week we had family come up from TN!!  I was really happy to see them and we had lots of stuff planned to do.  One of the most exciting things that happened was we decided to ride out the Stampeade Trail.  The Stampeade Trail is the road  Christopher McCandless went down and died.  If you don't know about his story you can read about it by clicking his name or reading the book Into the Wild.  It's a pretty amazing story.

Anyway, we couldn't go down the whole way because of a river AND we were told the road was so bad that Gabe's big truck wouldn't make it so we decided to go take a look at this lake.

You can kind of see the road we attempted to drive on.  I say attempted because this is what happened.

Leslie and my attempt at mad faces!  Both of us were trying really hard not to laugh.

There were the clumps of grass that you thought were solid ground that just disintergrated into water!  That's one reason we got stuck.  Plus the tundra is like walking in a bouncy house.  It's really soft and you really get no traction.  Why we tried this road I have no idea.  Oh yea I do, everyone wanted to go but me.  The boys said we would have no problem.  They were obviously wrong!  I even got to say I told you so.  If you know Gabe that doesn't happen too often.  Haha! 

Poor Leslie even tried to help dig it out.

When we got stuck you couldn't even open the passenger doors without getting them stuck in the tundra.  Lucky for us there was a guy with a jeep that helped pull us out and gave us a shovel to dig  out.  By us I mean Gabe and Jackson.  I didn't dig but Leslie dug with a stick while the boys tried to find someone to help us out.  

We (the boys) had to fill the hole with rocks to try and give the tire some traction.  The whole ordeal lasted less than two hours but with a cranky two year old that wanted to help Daddy it felt like a whole lot longer.  Can I just say I tried to tell the hubby he wouldn't make it?!?  I'm smart that way!   The hubby loved it though. I'm pretty sure Jackson had fun too. This is where Gabe seems to be the happiest.  Just getting out into nature and seeing what happens.  I like to get into nature too but I don't like to get stuck.  

After this experience I learned that Alaska is a big and different place.   The ground is so much different than it is back in MS or TN.  It is a gorgeous place, I mean gorgeous, but you can get in a tight spot in an instant, as we found out!  

The rocks.

Thank goodness it wasn't raining or too cold but it was windy so the girls are glad we had on long underwear!

Hope you all had a good weekend exploring nature and maybe even getting stuck!

P.S.  We rented a fish eye lens and played around with it.  It can take some pretty interesting photos.  More on that later.