Good Thing I Wasn't Trying to Fool Anyone...

If you read yesterday's post about my Pineapple Zucchini Cookies, you know that after making 3 entrees, countless sides, and a dessert all featuring zucchini, I still had 7 cups of shredded zucchini to use up.  I searched for a recipe that used a LOT of shredded zucchini and found one that looked extremely interesting.  I predicted yesterday that none of you would guess what I made.  Did any of you say Zucchini Cobbler?  The recipe claimed that it tastes just like apple cobbler and that no one would ever guess the 'secret' ingredient.  Intriguing! 

You start by putting the zucchini in a frying pan with lemon juice.  The recipe specified that you needed to peel the zucchini before shredding it, but since mine was already shredded, that was out of the question.   

 

After 15 minutes, you add cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar.  You make a bottom crust, layer the zucchini, add the crumble on top, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake. 

 

I realized fairly early on that I was not going to be able to fool anyone into thinking my cobbler was apple instead of zucchini. The peel is fairly distinctive. Fortunately, I wasn't trying to fool anyone. Steve and Trevor both like zucchini. Besides, they would have noticed the gallon-sized bag of zucchini missing from the refrigerator and been on to me.

What do you think?  Any chance you'd think it was apple if you didn't know better?

By the way, it was absolutely delicious!  It did indeed taste like apple cobbler.  This recipe is definitely going into my Favorites folder in anticipation of next year's bumper crop of zucchini!

Pineapple (Zucchini) Cookies

We visited friends recently who gave us a gigantic zucchini.  Huge.  I should have weighed it. Anyway, we love zucchini and our plant stopped producing about a month ago, so this was a welcome gift.  I removed the seeds and then shredded all the flesh and put it in several huge ziplock bags.  We ate sauteed zucchini.  I made Crustless Zucchini Quiche and Zucchini Enchiladas.  Steve made his famous Zucchini Soup.  This hardly made a dent in the supply.  So I dug out this:     

It belonged to my grandmother, an avid gardener and wonderful cook.  Those are the bookmarks she put in it, decades ago.  The book is stained and full of handwritten notes.  

 

There was a bookmark at Pineapple Cookies, but no stains and no notes.  I don't know if she ever made them or just intended to.

I decided to make them.  That minute.  Fortunately, I keep most baking ingredients on hand at all times.  However, this recipe had some tricky items.  I don't cook with margarine, don't keep wheat germ on hand, and have never seen pineapple extract for sale (though I'm going to keep an eye out for it now).  I made the following changes to the recipe:

• I used butter instead of margarine.
• I replaced all but 1 T. of the oil with crushed pineapple.
• I used extra pineapple juice in place of the pineapple extract.
• I replaced the wheat germ with whole wheat flour.
• I refrigerated the dough for 2 days instead of 20 minutes. 
• I didn't grease the cookie sheets.

Boy, when I write it all out like that, it's a wonder they turned out!  But they did turn out.  They were delicious!

There was no zucchini taste.  The pineapple was subtle; the extract certainly would have helped in that sense.  The cookies had a deep brown sugar taste and a soft cake-like texture.  

After making the cookies, I still had about 7 cups of shredded zucchini left.  Tomorrow I'll share what I made to use up the entire 7 cups.  I bet you'll NEVER guess...

The Stories of my Life

At the beginning of August, I shared a page from Kidding Around, the art journaling class Trevor and I were taking together. The page was titled, "10 Cool Things About Me." (Click here to see it.) I can't tell you how many people asked me about two items in particular: the time I found a baby and the time I was interviewed on MTV by Pauly Shore. Time to finally tell the stories!

As it turns out, I'd included those stories and a few others in a mini book I made in 2011 for a National Scrapbook Day challenge.    

Here's the title page. That's me at 8 months and just before I turned 39. As you can see, it's the same picture that I'm using here on the blog. I still look the same, but I probably should update it one of these days.  

This story is about starring in an instructional video.

"Not too many people can say they've starred in an instructional video, but I have! I had done a lot of work with the Lawrence Hall of Science before, testing new kits and having my class photographed for one of their books. When they approached me to star in an instructional video, I jumped at the chance. It was really cool- a wireless mic taped to me, stage directions to follow, and a director telling me to say a certain line. Too bad I woke up with a 102 degree fever the first day of filming! I wasn't going to miss the opportunity, so I came to work really sick and managed to make it through. I'm glad I did."

***

The next story is about meeting Pauly Shore.

"When I was 18, I was a California 4-H State Ambassador (Diamond Star).  I traveled all around the state giving speeches and acting as an MC at events.  I gave the keynote address at the annual convention of the California Women for Agriculture (held over Veteran's Day weekend) on the topic of “What Is a Veteran?” despite the fact that I knew nothing about agriculture or veterans. I worked the Junior Grand National Rodeo (again, knowing nothing about rodeos or livestock) where I was approached by Pauly Shore. He was conducting interviews for MTV and wanted to know why I was the only person there wearing a suit. The interview appeared on MTV, but I never saw it.  He's the first famous person I'd met. He was such a jerk that I didn't want to flatter him by asking for his autograph."

I'm not sure why I didn't mention that my friend and co-Diamond Star Piper was with me for both experiences. She actually saw the MTV interview air and said it was painful. It must have been a bit weird to see two teenagers in suits at a rodeo, but that's no reason for Pauly Shore to have been so incredibly rude. (Go here and scroll down to 1990-1991 to see a picture of my team in our suits. I'm the third person from the right.)

***

Here's the story about finding the missing baby.

"When I was 25, I was walking with my then-boyfriend in St. Helena. We saw a young toddler pushing a stroller, with no parent in sight. He was too young to talk, but clearly had a destination. We followed the baby for awhile, hoping he was headed home. Suddenly, he turned and darted into the busy highway! I leaped over and grabbed him, as horns honked and people yelled at us what bad parents we were! As we headed to a phone to call the police, a frantic woman rode up on a bicycle and grabbed the baby. She explained in broken English that he had opened the front door lock and headed out while she was in the bathroom. She was extremely grateful that we had found him and gave us a $50 reward."

***

Here's a story about my medical abnormality.

"My heart is rotated 90 degrees from normal. It might have happened when my lung collapsed at age 10, or I might have been born that way. When I was about 21, I had chest x-rays done. As I was waiting in the exam room, I heard a doctor outside the door telling a colleague to come look at some x-rays. The second doctor asked, 'When did the patient die?' The first doctor said, 'She's in the exam room right now!' 'Really?' he asked. Ten seconds later, in walks my doctor with my x-rays. No mention of the fact that his colleague thought I should be dead."  

***

My maiden name caused a few problems.

"I was temporarily switched at birth. Fortunately, my mom took one look at the baby they brought her and said, 'This isn't my baby!' After cleaning me off, they'd brought me to another woman with a similar last name- Jonas instead of Jones.  

This was only the first of many times my last name caused me problems. In college, I got a phone call from the police department, saying they'd found my driver's license. I had mine right in front of me, but they insisted- 'Cynthia M. Jones, right?' Yes, but not me. Same thing happened with a very pushy bill collector. And then there was the fiasco where the investment company switched my TSA with that of another Cynthia Jones in the STRS system. 

Not surprisingly, this kind of problem hasn't happened a single time since I've been married!"

While I haven't had a case of mistaken identity as Cindy deRosier, I have a new set of problems!

***

When I made this album, I left a bunch of blank pages so that I could add more stories. I really should do that. I have enough stories like this to fill dozens more pages. When I posted the link to the 10 Cool Things About Me post on Facebook, one of my friends commented "You're cooler than you let on!" which cracked me up. I've decided that if I ever write an autobiography, the title will be "Cindy deRosier: I'm Cooler Than I Seem."

My New Washi Tape Storage

Are you into washi tape? I absolutely love it. (Trevor does too.) My first six rolls of washi tape hung on one of the two pegboards in my scraproom (which you can see here). It was really convenient... until my collection of washi tape grew. Soon I had washi tape cluttering up my desktop, balanced on paper trays, and on the floor under the desk. Totally unacceptable.  

I've seen dozens of different ways to store washi tape, including vertically on a paper towel holder, lined up in drawers, thrown into baskets, organized in pencil boxes, and even displayed on a window shutter. I wanted my washi tape to be out in the open but off the flat surfaces. I wanted a storage system that was flexible in size and easily accessible.  

I happened to have a length of dowel that was just long enough to hold all my washi tape rolls. I bought some Command wall hooks (affiliate link) and stuck them above my bulletin board.

 

I organized my washi tape by color and threaded it on the dowel. I balanced the dowel on the hook and that's all there was to it!

Here's a closer look:

 

I absolutely love it! The best part is that I can leave the tapes in place and tear off whatever I need. As I collect more rolls, I can either replace the dowel with a longer one and move the sticky-back hangers outward or I can put a second washi tape hanger just like this one directly above it.

How do you store your washi tape?

Some Pastel Scrapping

Even though my favorite colors are bold blues and greens, it's fun to scrap with pale pinks and other pastels every once in a while.  And now that I have a baby niece, you can expect to see girly colors from me a lot more often.

 

With all the boy scrapping I usually do, it's fun to do something totally different!