Red, White, Blue & Zucchini!

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend! 

It was a pretty relaxing one for us this year.
Saturday we vegged out all morning and then we attended my cousin's going away party in the afternoon. He recently accepted a job offer in Oregon and we are so proud of him and and all of the opportunities that lie ahead in his career!

women's stripe sweatshirt - hunter boots (simluar here)

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In other news...It's zucchini season!!!

Growing up I never understood the awesomeness of this vegetable, and I would always find it  so odd when my mom would make zucchini bread. Therefore I always refused it try it. Well, fast forward to 3 years ago when Aaron and I started our first garden. We ended up with  a very large bounty from our 10 zucchini plants. (He didn't realize how MUCH one plant would produce) That summer I found myself trying all different kinds of zucchini recipes just to use them and ended up giving away the rest!

During all of my zucchini recipe adventures I came across 'Lemon Zucchini Bread'. 

If you know anything about me you know that I LOVE lemon! Love, love, love it! ..lemon cake, lemon cremé puffs, lemon tarts, lemon crinkle cookies,, lemon ice cream, lemon flavored anything with the exception of lemon meringue pie because honestly who likes that?

So, here is my all time favorite bread recipe! 

*You can glaze it you prefer but I usually don't in a ditch effort to cut of those extra calories. I do that because the crust of this bread is so sweet and yummy that I could literally cut the tops off of all the loaves and just feast on that. 

Lemon Zucchini Bread 

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup canola oil
• 1⅓ cups sugar
• 2 TB lemon juice
• ½ cup buttermilk (I've used heavy cream once and whole milk twice and both work fine) 
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 cup grated zucchini 

Instructions:

1. Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Then add oil and sugar until well blended. Add lemon juice, buttermilk, lemon zest to this mixture and blend all together.
3. Fold in zucchini until it is mixed well.
4. Add dry mixture to the wet mixture and blend all together until well combined.
5. Pour batter into greased 9x5 loaf pan.
6. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.
7. While still warm, eat a piece! Then save the rest ..if you can ;)

Adapted from Lil Luna's 

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To end our weekend we watched movies all Sunday morning, Con Air for the grown ups and Little Mermaid for the littles. 

Then in the evening we had the girl's godparents and their daughter over for a quiet dinner. 

I decided to use my new spiralizer to whip up some yellow and green zoodles!

(Paderno Spiralizer)

Mint Serving Tray 

Cilantro & Lime Zoodles:
-Sauté 2 cups of zoodles in 1 tbsp EVOO, 1 tsp minced onion, 1 tsp garlic, juice from 1/2 lime, fresh 1-2 tbsp of cilantro, finely chopped & salt and pepper to taste. 
-Sauté 2 mins for a soft crunch (longer if you prefer a softer Zoodle)
-Enjoy!


Happy Independence Weekend!

-Tiffany