Brainphreak

Oh my goodness!  I’ve been out in the world flagrantly violating rule #3 of Make N’ Tell: Thou shalt not make and not tell!  Better to make and not tell than to have nothing to tell, however, so buckle your seatbelts.  I’ve been the busiest of bees.

Day 18:

I threw together a quick food make, which felt a little like cheating.  I had good reasons, though, since we had a residents’ bowling outing (where my kids learned how to “play bowling.”   How could I have forgotten the camera?) followed by dinner with a couple of buds from my class.  Since I knew it would be a late night, I incorporated my make into our dinner and came up with this creative side dish to accompany buffalo burgers and corn on the cob:

Not that stir fried vegetables is the most revolutionary thing in the world, but what was new for me was I threw in some tomatoes on a recommendation from one of the nurses I work with who said she’s now hooked on tomatoes with soy sauce.  The rest of what you see there is some broccoli and zucchini, with spinach wilted in at the end.  I just cooked it in sesame oil and soy sauce, but the result was delightful.

Day 19:

Again a food make, but the backstory helps explain how I got involved in Make N’ Tell in the first place.  My husband once told me about an exercise he tried in college where you accept every invitation you get for a week.  This means saying yes to everything, and it makes you realize how automatically we start trying to figure out how to say no when someone asks us for something.  The other piece of this is realizing how little we are asked for in our lives.  It’s a fun challenge to try, and it changed my perspective to trying to figure out how to make things possible rather than making excuses as to why they’re impossible.  Hence, when Make N’ Tell presented itself, my first thought was “I don’t think I’ve got what it takes.”  That immediately led me to thinking up a handful of projects and diving in.  It’s a reflex I’ve developed that’s led me to adventures in my life, so I’m a huge advocate.

How, you ask, does this relate to zucchini pancakes?  Well, during the week, Max asked me for zucchini pancakes for breakfast.  My first thought was, “gross.”  Then I thought, “hmmm…hold on a second.”  We have a tasty zucchini muffin recipe that was highly successful in bribing Max while he was potty training.  Could we not alter it just a touch to be a zucchini pancake recipe?  Why, yes.  Yes we could!

My only caveat is that they’re pretty sweet.  Just a little butter was all we needed to add, though the boys also liked them with applesauce.

Zucchini Pancakes

1/3 cup crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 medium sized zucchini, coarsely grated
3/4 cup mild olive oil
3/4 cup honey
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F

Pulse crystallized ginger in food processor until finely ground, then add flour, ground ginger, cinnamon,  and salt.  Pulse until combined.

Whisk together zucchini, oil, honey, eggs, and vanilla in a medium bowl, then stir in flour mixture until just combined.

Cook like pancakes.

Day 20:

Today started out like a typical harvest Sunday.  Trip to the farmer’s market and then a mad swirl of cooking, chopping, canning, etc.  I got 2 batches of pesto into the freezer, two more quarts of pickles canned, 2 quarts of apple butter almost done for canning tomorrow, and Dan pureed 25lbs of tomatoes for a new batch of sauce that’s now cooking down in the oven (also to be canned tomorrow).

THEN, El Dugan came over.  She has a sewing machine, or at least her mom lets her borrow hers, and I’ve had some projects kicking around my head for a while.  Also, I then came up with more projects on the fly once we got rolling.

It all started with the desire to totally rip off Laura’s great idea for a project bag. I thought this would be a great use for my “fat pants.”  Plus, look at all those pockets!  While I was poking around looking for the aforementioned fat pants, I came across a pair of jeans that were now too small for both boys and a pair of jean legs from some pants Dan cut off (he wears them around the house, don’t worry).  Suddenly, I was pants-bag crazy, and before I knew what had happened El Dugan and I had whipped up 8(!) purses.  Only six of them are pictured here, as I let the Dugan take our two BFF purses with her to embroider badass tattoos on.

Here’s a closeup of the project bag, which is already providing a home for my knitting.

Thanks for the awesome inspiration, Laura!  I’ll post photos of the BFF tote when I get it back from El D.  Also, I’ll be firing up the sewing machine again soon in hopes of successfully making this skirt.  Wish me luck!

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