A combination of grated zucchini and potato with a little diced onion give these zucchini fritters a lovely latke texture. But the addition of lemon zest and lots of herbs give them a freshness and lightness that's irresistible. // alexandracooks.com
I think I’m the last person on the planet to make zucchini fritters. Why it has taken me so long to give them a go I do not know. Maybe it’s that I have a general pancake-making phobia? Or that the amount of zucchini-fritter recipes I have collected over the years in addition to the blog posts I have bookmarked and the cookbook pages I have dog-eared is a wee overwhelming?
In any case, I got over it earlier this week, spurred by a revelation that helped me breeze through my zucchini-fritter recipe collection and locate a few promising recipes. My revelation, you ask? I realized I wasn’t interested in making a pancake — I wasn’t looking to make a floury, bread-crumb bound, cheese-laden pancake. I wanted something resembling a latke but composed of zucchini, which would be crisped quickly in a pan and served with something cool like sour cream or tzatziki.
The recipe here fits that description. A combination of grated zucchini and potato with a little diced onion bound by a single egg gives these fritters that lovely latke texture. But the addition of lemon zest and lots of herbs give them a freshness and lightness that’s irresistible. I served this batch with tzatziki, which accompanied them well, but which truthfully is unnecessary — they’re so good on their own. Give them a whirl! I know you’ll like them.
Batter made with zucchini from our Olin-Fox Farm CSA:
A combination of grated zucchini and potato with a little diced onion give these zucchini fritters a lovely latke texture. But the addition of lemon zest and lots of herbs give them a freshness and lightness that's irresistible. // alexandracooks.com
Zucchini Fritters
Ingredients
2 cups coarsely grated zucchini
1/2 cup coarsely grated potato
kosher salt
pinch of flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon chopped chives (or whatever herb you like)
1 tablespoon chopped mint (or whatever herb you like)
zest of one lemon
1/4 cup diced white onion
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 cup Greek yogurt
2 T. finely diced red onion
1 T. chopped mint
kosher salt
squeeze of lemon juice
Instructions
Place the grated zucchini and potato in a colander. Spread the veggies out to allow for maximum surface area exposure and sprinkle all over with kosher salt. Let sit for at least 30 minutes to drain.
Meanwhile, make the tzatziki, if desired: Stir together yogurt, onion, mint, salt and lemon juice. Taste. Add more salt if necessary. Chill until ready to use.
After the 30 minutes, squeeze veggies out and wrap in paper towels. Squeeze again. [Note: The veggies will not drain out enough liquid on their own in the collander, so squeezing them with a paper towel is a critical step to mopping up that moisture.] Open up the paper towel and spread out your veggies. Sprinkle with a pinch of flour to soak up leftover moisture.
In a bowl, whisk together egg, herbs and lemon zest. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add onion and grated zucchini-potato mixture. Stir well.
Preheat over to 200˚F. Place a foil-lined cookie sheet in the oven. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter. When foam subsides, drop a spoonful of your fritter batter in. Gently pat with a spatula to flatten out the fritters, which will help make them crispy.
Cook about 3 fritters at a time until golden brown on each side. Place fritters in the oven while you make additional pancakes. Serve as soon as possible with tzatziki on the side.
A combination of grated zucchini and potato with a little diced onion give these zucchini fritters a lovely latke texture. But the addition of lemon zest and lots of herbs give them a freshness and lightness that's irresistible. // alexandracooks.com
We made it really, really simple for people to make a blog and put whatever they want on it. Stories, photos, GIFs, TV shows, links, quips, dumb jokes, smart jokes, Spotify tracks, mp3s, videos, fashion, art, deep stuff. Tumblr is 464 million different blogs, filled with literally whatever.
Turns out that when you make it easy to create interesting things, that’s exactly what people do. All those great, random blogs your friends send you, those are Tumblr blogs. We’ll help you find and follow blogs like that, and we’ll help other people find and follow yours.
Once you follow a blog, all of its posts show up in your dashboard, just like you’d expect. See something great? Reblog it to your own blog. Add commentary if you like. Make it your own. Other people will do the same to your posts. That’s how you meet people here.
Seven post types to get you started. Your brain can do the rest. This thing is yours. Use it however you like.
I’ll hope you all had a lovely weekend and Mother’s Day. You’ll never believe it but the sun came out big time for us yesterday and we took advantage of that and went on a family picnic to the beach. We then did a little shopping in a city bigger than the one I live in and went out for dinner afterwards. What a glorious day! These were the pictures I shared on Instagram yesterday.
Looking for some quick and easy one pot meals for those busy nights? No worries because Jenn from Clean & Scentsible has put together a terrific round-up for you. Click on the picture below to check it out.
Curious about cleansing? Try these Juice Cleanse & Detox RecipesCurious about cleansing? Try these Juice Cleanse & Detox RecipesCurious about cleansing? Try these Juice Cleanse & Detox Recipes
Since we only have one more day till Easter, I figured I better get some Easter Bunny Chow ready so the Easter Bunny comes to my house and brings me lots of goodies. OK, I’m not talking about candy or colored eggs, but maybe the Easter Bunny can have breakfast ready for me when I get up? Ok, I’ll settle for a cup of coffee, and I mean a good one!! So what does one make in order to lure the Easter Bunny to your home? Well Easter Bunny Chow of course!
I really tried to make the Bunny Chow as healthy as I could, and I don’t think I did to bad! After all the Easter Bunny did tell me last year that he was watching his waistline and wanted me to go a little lighter this year, but not to light after all it is Easter and the Bunny needs energy to go to all the houses to deliver all those Easter baskets. So with that thought in mind, I decided to make, what else a peanut butter treat! After all even the Easter Bunny loves peanut butter! But that’s not all!! The peanut butter is mixed in with sweet white chocolate. Oh baby, that bunny is going to be one happy hopper!!
I couldn’t just give the bunny peanut butter and white chocolate mixture, though it is so good! I never had peanut butter and white chocolate together and let me tell you, it’s dangerous!!! The combination is amazing!! So instead of giving the Easter Bunny this wonderful combination, I used it to cover Puffins. I love Puffins! Have you every had them? It’s a cereal by Barbara Bakery Original Puffins. You can find it in the health food isle. They kind of remind me of Captain Crunch. However Chex cereal will work too!
Once I mixed the Puffins and the peanut butter mixture I added a few Easter Egg shape sprinkles, though they didn’t stick super great, but they are still cute!! You could use smaller sprinkles and that would work too!! Anyway, I added my mixture to a ziplock bag and poured two boxes of Sugar Free Instant Vanilla Pudding over the top and shook my booty until all of the puffins were covered!! I was doing the Bunny Hop as I was shaking!! Ok, I just realized I am soooooooo geeky!! Back to the Bunny Chow, next you lay your chow out on a baking sheet until it dries! Add a few M&M’s and maybe some more sprinkles and you are all good to lure the Easter Bunny to your home!! trust me it will work too! It lured Jenny to my kitchen and she thought I bought it! lol I told her I made it and she was shocked!
So what does Easter Bunny Chow taste like? First, you take a bite and you get the nice crunch with a sweet sugar taste, then the white chocolate hits your tongue and as your just about done chewing your Bunny Chow the peanut butter hits you! It’s quite amazing and quite addicting! I hope I have enough left for the Easter Bunny before I or Jenny eats it all!!
Sweet snack made with peanut butter and white chocolate covered cereal and topped with vanilla pudding.
⅓ cup peanut butter, creamy
¼ cup sprinkles (I used Easter Egg Shape)
2 pkg. Vanilla Instant Pudding, sugar free (1 oz pkgs.)
Optional: Add Easter M&M's
In a bowl add your cereal; set a side.
In a microwave safe bowl add peanut butter and white chocolate chips. Microwave for 30 seconds, mix well; if the mixture is not creamy, place back in the microwave for 10 second intervals, mix until creamy and no lumps remain.
Pour peanut butter mixture over cereal; add sprinkles, and mix until all the cereal is covered in the mixture. Be careful not to crush the cereal.
Place cereal in a large ziplock bag and add both packages of vanilla instant pudding. Seal the bag and shake until all the cereal is covered.
Place cereal on a baking sheet and let is dry. At this time you can mix in M&M's and seal in an air tight container.
I really did try my best to make this as healthy as I could without sacrificing too much flavor. The only thing that is really not healthy is the white chocolate. I decided to use vanilla instant pudding because normally this recipe contains a few or more cups of powdered sugar, which would taste wonderful, but I am really trying to be good and I figured their was enough sugar in the chocolate. The vanilla pudding tastes quite amazing this way. I’m glad I have a new use for it! I went crazy on buying pudding a few months ago and I have a ton of boxes of it!! It is one of those things,w here I want one box and can’t remember if I have any at home, so I buy a few more. Now I’m over stocked! The cereal is really a good choice! It’s crunchy, low calorie, high fiber and pretty decent in protein too!! I actually like to put it in my yogurt too!! You’ll notice it’s on my Trader Joe’s top 10 list on my Trader Joe’s page.
Well that’s it for today’s sweet treat!!!
Did you think that was all? I have more goods for you!
First I have to show you this weeks before and after of my Roasted Butternut Squash pictures. This picture was taken 1 month after I started blogging in October 2011. I’ve come a long way baby and I”m still learning! Roasted Butternut Squash is one of my all time favorite dishes. It’s sweet and savory because I add a pinch of cayenne pepper in it and it’s one of those dishes that I don’t make nearly enough. When I am craving a snack I like to eat the squash cold! I just love it that way! I still can’t get over the difference in photographs. No wonder no one looked at the recipe, the picture is soooooo embarrassing!!
Remember when I received my little package of Chobani Flips? I had a taste test to which ones I like the best and let me tell you the Coconut one is amazing!!! Dam! The second one is the Key Lime Pie! I love those two the best, blows the other flavors out of the water! If your interested you can go to their website for some coupons! I have to laugh, I printed the coupons and used them at Target and it says you can’t use in California! They worked anyway!!
Here are some of my favorite links for the week:
Shape Magazine: 15 small diet changes for weight loss. I follow a lot of these, especially number one! I drink a ton of water and in the morning before coffee, I have hot water with lemon! It’s perfect!
HUFF Post San Francisco – World Naked Bike Ride 2013 – Yes naked! There are naked pictures here, so please if you don’t want to see some not so pretty naked people or a fanny, then don’t look at the pictures! Can you imagine riding a bike with no clothes on, sitting in a bike seat? No thank you!!
Recipe Girl – How to be a Food Blogger – This is an awesome blog post for bloggers. It gives 150 useful sites for bloggers. I book marked it for future use!
HUFF Post Healthy Living – Oh man, you may think about Easter Candy! Click on the little Targest on popular candy and you’ll be shocked to what it’s made of. In a Reese’s they use the preservative TBHQ (tertiary butyl hydroquinone) is a derivative of petroleum that’s found in cosmetics, wood varnish and this candy. Wonderful! Read the Cadbury Cream Eggs, lets just say it has to do with Beavers! Gross!
Remember last week when I posted the top frozen Mac and Cheese taste test from HUFF Taste? Well I wanted to try numbers 1 and 2 on the list, which were Trader Joe’s Reduced Guilt Mac and Cheese and Trader Joe’s Mac and Cheese.
To make the Mac and Cheese it was pretty easy, 20 minutes in the oven. I was comparing the nutritional facts and at first I thought there wasn’t a difference until I realized the regular Mac and Cheese is two servings. The reduced guilt one, wasn’t to bad, but more calories that I would normally eat in a side dish, but I was good on my eating all day, so I could afford a few extra calories and besides it’s been about 3 years since I had Mac and Cheese.
So how did they taste? Well my Husband and tasted both of them and my Husband liked regular one better! The regular Mac and Cheese was very creamy, almost Alfredo like and tasted homemade. My Husband loved it and ate both servings. As for the Reduced Guilt Mac and Cheese, it was really good. It didn’t have as much cheese, but it tasted like real cheese! Both didn’t taste like they were frozen at all. Matter in fact my Husband and I were pretty impressed with both of them. My Husband thought he could add chicken to his and make it a Chicken Alfredo dish. He said he would eat it again. I would eat the Reduced Guilt one again, but I am not a big Mac and Cheese person, but when the craving hits, I’ll buy it!
Forgive the pictures! I messed up on my camera settings and I’m trying to fix it. The first picture is the Reduced Guilt and the second one on the right is the full fat.
Now for this weeks weekly recap:
Sunday: Coconut M&M’s Cookies #SundaySupper– I made two batches of these and took one to work. I had like 60 cookies and they were all gone by mid morning. They were a huge hit at work! I like them and glad they are all gone! I have a major thing for coconut and M&M’s and together, oh man, it’s good! I loved them frozen and I kept eating them! Bad, bad, bad!! But so good!!
Monday: Carrot and Pineapple Smoothie – This smoothie is healthy, refreshing and very good! I love the combination of carrot and pineapple. It makes a sweet combination and no sugar was needed in this smoothie!
Tuesday: Tropical Shrimp Salad – I love this salad! It really reminds me of the tropics! A good addition to the salad would have been some shredded coconut. Maybe next time!
Wednesday: Naked Juice Smoothies – This was the first time I ever tried Naked Juice and I must say it was really good! My Husband loved the Strawberry and Banana. When I go to Target today, I’m going to check and see if they carry them. I would love to try another flavor.
Thursday: My 27 Favorite Easter Recipes – I like doing these kind of posts because sometimes I forget what I have. Since I blog, I try to make different recipes for you and sometimes I only make something once or twice, so I’m glad to do this post. I totally forgot about the Angel Foodcake Coconut Cupcakes!
Friday: Mini Chocolate Bundt Angel Food Cake – I guest posted over at Noshing with the Nolands and made these cute little chocolate angel food cakes. You can top them with whatever you like, that’s what I like about individual servings! They would be perfect to serve for brunch or an Easter dinner dessert!
Well my Friends, again I have given you a lot to read, so I’ll stop typing!
Have a wonderful weekend and a great Easter, if your celebrating! I’ll be traveling next week, so please forgive me if I don’t get to respond to you right away, but I do want you to know that I do read all of your comments! Thank you for that!! I also wanted to let you know that I did line-up a bunch of yummy recipes for you! Which means, I have to write those posts this weekend! So I”m off to post #2!
Enjoy!
Toodles,
Jennifer
P.S. This weeks craving is Deviled Eggs! I only have these once a year and that is at Easter! I don’t know why I do that? They are good all year round! Plus this post has how to boil the perfect egg!!
So you love green smoothies, you’ve noticed that you feel better when you drink them and hopefully they’ve even been helping you manage your weight. Congratulations on making green smoothies a regular part of your daily diet. Now here’s 25 green smoothie hacks to help you speed up, save money, get healthier and enjoy the process a little bit more!
Make big batches of green smoothie and freeze the whole smoothie in individual servings. Just defrost the smoothie the previous night in the fridge and give it a quick blend if necessary.
Use frozen fruit instead of ice to cool your smoothie down. It won’t add any extra liquid to your smoothie.
Keep a stock ofgreen powder on hand for when you run out of fresh greens.
Soak your hard ingredients overnight which makes them easier to blend and easier to digest.
Grind nuts, seeds and grains in a coffee grinder or blender before adding them to your smoothie. It makes them easier to blend.
You can also use a coffee grinder to make your own vanilla powder from vanilla beans. This is healthier than buying vanilla extract and tastes amazing in pretty much all smoothies.
Use tea instead of water as the base for your green smoothie. This doesn’t add any extra calories but it does add more taste and additional health benefits. I use green tea as the base for my weight loss smoothiefor an extra metabolic boost.
Turn your smoothie into a complete meal by adding a healthy filler. This saves you time making another meal. It also helps you to lose weight. See all 20 fillers here.
To avoid fruit, make your whole smoothie out of veg instead. Use a whole cucumber as a base from your smoothie (it creates the liquid) and add your desired veg.
Thicken your smoothie by adding more bulking ingredients such as banana, avocado, chia seeds and flax seeds.
Use nut butteror seed butterinstead of whole nuts or seeds to make the smoothie easier to blend and add a nicer taste.
Blanch greens by dipping them in boiling water before adding them to your smoothie if you can’t tolerate raw greens.
Liven up a boring smoothie by adding mint, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg or cloves.
Up the protein content of your smoothie with either a protein powder, seeds, coconut, eggs, nuts or nut butter.
Add ice last to cool down your smoothie so the blender doesn’t heat the ice up while blending.
To avoid tasting the greens in your green smoothie, make sure your smoothie consists of 60% fruit and 40% or less of greens
Make your smoothie the night before. Put it in a smoothie cup so in the morning you can just grab it and go to work.
If you are missing a sit down meal with something to chew, add your smoothie from a bowl with a spoon, and add a smoothie topperto the top for some crunch.
Rinse your blender out immediately to save you time having to scrub it later. You can add some water and some cleaner and put it back on to blend for a few seconds for a quick clean.
I know you may not have time to digest all this right now, so I wanted to give you a handy print out of this blog post so you can stick it on your fridge to help you on your journey to optimal health.
Couscous preparation is simple and quick, but it adds an exotic element to any dish. When it comes to jazzing up couscous, you can pretty much add anything. You can make with vegetables or leave it plain. It goes well with fish, meat or salads.
I buy Whole Wheat Couscous at Trader Joe's.
Add water, salt and butter to sauce pan. Bring it to a boil. Turn off the stove.
Pour couscous in. Mix well.
Cover and let it sit for 5 min.
Fluff it up with the fork and sprinkle with vegeta seasoning. Top it with minced chives. Now you can enjoy it just like this or you can jazz it up.
Next; slice a handful of carrots and saute in butter for a few min.
Add half cup corn.
Add 2 eggs mix well.
Add couscous, mix.
Add 1 large cubed tomato. Mix well and saute for a few min.
I decided to do the blog today as it was my baby's Sweet 16th. Jo and I decided to go all out for her party. Kenzie chose purple, black, and white as her theme for the party.
We had so much fun searching Pinterest and the internet for ideas. Here is what we settled on:
There is the table full of all the little goodies. The photos below are close ups of all the yumminess!
Above is how we made wonton wrappers into mini tacos. Simply drape the wonton wrapper over a cooling rack on a cookie sheet, prop the cooling rack up on some tinfoil so the wrappers don't touch the cookie sheet, and bake at 375 until browned.
Fill the baked wrappers with some shredded turkey, sour cream, and shredded cheese. (FYI - we didn't really love the shredded turkey - I think ground beef would have been way better!)
We found some mini champagne plastic glasses at the dollar store so decided to make individual shrimp cocktails. Jo fancied up the plastic glasses by gluing some black and silver beads to the stems.
A spoonful of cocktail sauce and some shrimp made for some pretty cute shrimp cocktails.
The rainbow fruit kabobs were one of the things Kenzie fell in love with from Pinterest.
They turned out so cute. Even though it meant a bazillion trips to the store because, in our last minute panic, we grabbed the wrong fruits like a million times. Geez. They still looked cute though.
Individual taco dips fit my mini glass bowls perfectly. They are a layer of refried beans, layer of cream cheese mixed with taco seasoning, layer of salsa, and topped with a layer of plain sour cream and shredded cheese. They are supposed to have a layer of mashed avocado/guacamole but Kenzie doesn't like avocado/guacamole so we left it out.
The mini smokies were a big hit. We were able to buy the mini hot dog buns so Jo didn't have to make them. Which was good...I think Jo was getting a little bit tired of mini baking/cooking!
Had to take a close up. They were so cute. A little mustard and a tiny pickle on top and they were delicious. The mini buns were next to the mini hot dog buns so we bought them as well!
Our famous caramel dipped green grapes. We first made these for Easter and they were a huge hit.
Kenzie knew she wanted these for her birthday as soon as she ate one at Easter time. They really are super easy and everyone loves them!
Individual servings of jalapeno popper dip. We will do a blog about this recipe on it's own a little later. This tastes exactly like a jalapeno popper.
We found some dollar store mirrors that made really cute serving platters for them.
We made these mustache straws from a Pinterest idea as well. We made black cherry juice with frozen blueberries instead of ice cubes in mason jars, topped with a cupcake liner and canning ring. The kids loved these. They are so much fun!
I fell in love with the paper poofy flowers after I made them for Valentine's Day. They are an inexpensive way to add big, bold decorations to a room.
Of course, the small things are important too. A jar full of purple suckers and a dollar store purple picture frame with a baby picture of the birthday girl make a big impact too.
Now the middle.....Note the glass jars with the "K" full of colored candy.
Another inexpensive way to spruce up a table. Dollar store glass containers with a little colored ribbon, and some "K"s printed out on plain paper. Glue it altogether and BAM monogrammed party decorations. (There is a closer look in the very top photo of the blog)
Kenzie had a great idea with the plastic forks. A sheet of stickers from the dollar store and some white plastic forks - perfect accessories for her purple theme.
We wanted to give the kids a little thank you for coming to the party. A mini coke, a canning jar full of homemade Caramel Popcorn, and a grape sucker. All it took was a little purple ribbon and a glue gun. These looked so cute as well.
Jo pilfered the "thank you" ribbon from her work. Someone had brought in boxes of chocolate wrapped with the ribbon. Way to recycle!
There is the masterpiece. I made the layers different flavors. The bottom is Chocolate, the middle is Vanilla, and the top is Banana. (I haven't shared my banana cake recipe...yet...)
Jo and I set up a photo booth for the party. We filled a box with fun hats, glasses, mustaches, etc... the kids had a lot of fun with this. This was another great, inexpensive, fun way to bring some laughter to the party. We found all of our props at the dollar store, or else made them out of construction paper.
I love this photo... I thought they all looked like they were having fun. I think they did.
So that is Kenzie's sweet 16. She got her learner's permit to drive the morning of her party.
She is growing up too fast. (Which is weird because I'm not getting any older.)
