July 28, 2008 Evening: Everything Goes From Bad to Worse

Things just went from bad to worse this evening. It seems the older I get, the harder it is for me to multi-task. I had the zucchini bread in the oven, the Teriyaki chicken breasts on the grill, the fried zucchini browning nicely in the electric fry pan. I put the water on the stove to boil for the stir-fry veggies and noodles. That's when things went wrong. I'd turned the burner on high and set the pan of water on it, but I forgot to remove the burner cover. It was red-hot and quite scorched when I realized what I'd done. My new stainless steel burner cover is pretty much toast.

I grabbed the tongs and got the cover off the burner just as the timer went off for the zucchini bread. I dumped the veggies and noodles into the tepid water and shoved it back onto the burner, then got the loaves of bread from the oven and set them on a rack to cool, turned the zucchini, which were browning nicely, checked the chicken...it was OK.

Then I turned the bread out of the pans.

I tried to turn the bread out of the pans.

I tried to PRY the bread out of the pans.

I took the bread out of the pan in chunks. Well, not quite, but most of the bottom of each loaf stayed in the pans.

By that time the veggies/noodles were boiling over on the stove. The stove I had just cleaned thoroughly this morning.

I finally got things under control, sat down to eat and happened to look out the window. Remember all the chips I leveled this morning? Remember how I planted the grass seed? See what Annie and her brother did....





Caught in the act! That was one of three freshly dug holes. Annie was real proud of herself!
I pushed the bottoms back into the loaves of zucchini bread we had a couple of slices after dinner. It was really good, much better than the recipe I made earlier this week. I think I'll keep this one as my "recipe to go to".

Best Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla
3 cups coarsely grated zucchini
1 can (8oz) crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 325°F. In a mixer, beat eggs. Add oil, applesauce, sugar, and vanilla; continue beating mixture until thick and foamy. With a spoon, stir in the zucchini and pineapple.

In a separate bowl, combine flours, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Add the walnuts and raisins.

Divide the batter equally between 2 greased and flour-dusted 5 by 9 inch loaf pans. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in to the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks to cool thoroughly.