goodbye zucchini plants, we hardly knew ye

My zucchini plants all died. :(

I think it was a two-part problem. One, the hellish, unrelenting heat of the Phoenix desert. Once the temps started hitting the 100s every day and not cooling off below the 80s at night, the plant leaves started looking drier, browner, and wiltier. I watered as much as I was able, but my research showed me that most people who get their plants to survive the summer around here have a combined approach of constant watering misters and shade cloths, all stuff I'm too much of a cheapskate to shell out for.

Secondly, in the last couple weeks of their lives, the zucchini plants had a growing squash bug problem. I killed them when I saw them, but I'm sure plenty hid from me, and I saw they were laying eggs everywhere. And, apparently, no poison can kill them? The zucchini had stopped producing fruit at this time so I decided the best thing to do was just rip them all up and try again in the fall, once it's cooler. And I'll try to see if there are any squash bug preventative measures I can take.

Also, here's a fun fact about growing your own zucchini that nobody ever tells you: the fruit contain a substance that secretes when it is cut, and this substance, if it gets on your skin, dries it out and makes it tight-feeling, and eventually it peels. Almost as if your fingers are coated in dried glue, but it's just your skin. I haven't been able to find much info about this reaction from the zucchini, because a lot of my googling led to crazy talk about how it's the pesticides that cover the zucchini or it's a result of GMO or whatever. Considering I grew this myself and put no pesticides on it whatsoever, I know that's a falsehood. I saw a lot of people think it is a allergic reaction/contact dermatitis, but I've been eating zucchini bough at the store for a long time and that never happened to me before. It was only with my own zucchini. I managed to find a few sane people who put some thought into it, and their conclusion is that it is some sort of defense mechanism from the fruit. It turns out the fresher the harvest, the more likely the fruit is to have this reaction. So eventually I learned to keep my zucchini in the fridge for a week or two before cutting into it. (And that explains why store-bought zucchini never does this, since store-bought probably sat in a crate for three weeks before hitting the shelf!)

My zucchini and I had some educational and delicious moments. Here is a small photospam of the good times we had together, in memoriam:

a typical harvest off my plants. so pretty!

the first meal made with the first harvest. a chicken leg and herb-roasted zucchini

made "zucchini boats" with tomato sauce, sausage, and cheese

unbelievably delicious. and also, super filling. i could barely finish this.

me with the first harvest. RIP zucchini

such biscuit. very crave-satisfying.

I admit to being only human and sometimes I get cravings for things I don't eat anymore. One of the most prominent things I miss is biscuits. But I figured if once in a while I want biscuits, it's better to do something that's at least grain-free and sugar-free, than to just indulge with regular wheat biscuits. So I went on the hunt for a suitable biscuit recipe and have spent the last couple weeks dialing it in.

I'd seen this biscuit recipe floating around the low-carb/paleo/primal-sphere for a while, and the final product looked most appealing of most of the recipes I've seen, so I decided to try it.

My very first batch was a total failure. They looked ok coming out of the pan, but they tasted terrible. This is mostly due to the fact I was out of baking powder, so I substituted with an equivalent amount of baking soda + cream of tartar in proportion (2 parts cream of tarter to 1 part baking soda, according to Chef Google). All that lead to was baking-soda flavored biscuits. They were also exceedingly greasy and I'm not sure why. Maybe some weird reaction with the baking soda and cream of tartar? Either way, into the trash they went..

For the second batch, I actually went to the store and bought some damn baking powder. I followed the recipe exactly, and they were pretty good. They tasted great - not very almondy. They were rather crumbly, though. I think this is partially due to the fact I just put them straight into a muffin tin. Though it was greased, it was still very difficult to remove the biscuits without them falling apart. But even still, they didn't hold up well to attempted applications of butter, or cutting in half, etc.

For the third batch, I consulted my boyfriend (who actually can cook) and together, we reformulated the original recipe into something that held up better and we both enjoyed.

muffin cups would prove to be an integral part of the process

The biggest changes we made were to reduce the amount of baking powder - 2 tbsps is an unnecessarily high amount - and to replace the sour cream with almond milk (slightly less amount, since sour cream is so thick). Additionally, we added in flaxseed meal to give a bit more stability and keep the biscuits from crumbling. Flaxseed meal is like magic glue. And, lastly, this is a small point, but I feel like the amount of butter in the original recipe is a tad high (blasphemy, I know) so I toned that down a bit. We also doubled the whole recipe to make great big batches in one go so as to have biscuits to last a while. 

These biscuits hold up well; they can be cut in half and used for sausage sandwiches or the like and don't crumble. Their texture is actually fairly similar to corn bread, just without the corn flavor of course. I find the almond milk makes them taste slightly more almondy than the version with sour cream, but once you've slathered butter on there you don't notice anymore. 

biscuit sliced in half

The texture inside is moist but not soggy, fluffy, slightly craggy, and very reminiscent of cornbread.

Here's the full, modified, doubled recipe:

"Reminds Me Of Cornbread" Biscuits

makes 24 biscuits in regular-sized muffin tins

Ingredients:

3 cups almond flour (I use Anthony's Almonds blanched almond flour)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp flaxseed meal

4 eggs

1/2 cup almond milk

6 tbsp melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 400 deg, put some muffin cups in a muffin tin. Or use a fancy silicon muffin tray, I bet those would work fabulously. Or just grease a regular muffin tin if you're not inept at using them like I am.

2. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly in a big bowl, being sure to break up any almond flour clumps.

3. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, and put all wet ingredients in there. Just crack the eggs into the well, dump in the almond milk, and pour in the melted butter. (I like to let the butter cool a bit before putting it in, just to prevent any chance of cooking the eggs with hot butter.)

almond flour seems very forgiving, this is not too exact of a science

4. Mix it all together like crazy. You can't over-mix almond flour like you can wheat flour, so just mix until all the wet stuff is incorporated and there's no obvious egg strings showing.

5. Drop heaping spoonfuls into each muffin well. This should make 24 smaller biscuits, or you can put everything into just 12 wells and they will be bigger and more muffin-y.

I just used a big soup spoon and eyeballed it, but I'd guess there's ~2 tbsp of mix per well

6. Bake for 15-17 minutes. (It needs more time due to the inclusion of flaxseed meal.) When you press on the top of a finished biscuit, it should give slightly, but not feel squishy. If it's squishy it needs more time.

ta-da!

7. Enjoy! 

Carb break-down according to the ingredients used in my recipe (be sure to check your own ingredients, your almond flour or milk may have different carb amounts):

24 total biscuits: 40g net carbs

Per single biscuit: ~2g net carbs (rounded up)

---

Tips for enjoyment:

sage sausage + slice of cheddar

i missed you, sausage sandwich

Obviously they're great for breakfast. I love sausage sandwiches and it's been like a year and a half since I had one, so getting to eat this was like having a chorus of fluffy, biscuity angels descending onto my tastebuds from on high. I've also tried the biscuits just warm with some butter and sugar-free jam and they're marvelous that way too. 

the sweet variation

For a lark I also tried sweetening a half batch to make dessert biscuits. I just put about 1 cup equivalent of sugar-free sweetener in the mix, as well as a splash of vanilla. When they came out, they reminded me sort of a muffin-poundcake type of texture/flavor, so I cut some in half, topped with fresh strawberries and real whipped cream for a ridiculously delicious and indulgent dessert. The picture above is three biscuits cut in half and if you were less gluttonous than me (or if you are being strict about your carbs - I estimate that whole plate was about 26 carbs) you might share that with someone else. Or if you're just as gluttonous as me, you'd eat it all yourself. Yum. 

the tale of the dehydrated cauliflower flakes

For a while now I've had a dream of a big carton of dehydrated cauliflower flakes, a la instant mashed potatoes. Because I love mashed cauliflower, but one of my favorite past times is putting in an inordinate amount of time on one task just to make another task down the road faster and easier. I googled around and couldn't find that anyone had attempted this exact scenario, so I thought, well, why not give it a try?

So, a couple weeks ago, I started a test run with a single head of cauliflower.

in case you forgot what cauliflower looks like

 I decided to cook it, then mash it, as if I was just going to serve it up.

chopped into manageable pieces

make-shift steamer basket of tin foil

makeshift lid of tin foil. look, I never said I had a fully stocked kitchen

poking with a skewer to determine done-ness

I originally tried using a hand masher. HAHA NO. technology to the rescue!

since my plan was to dehydrate this, I didn't add anything except some water to help liquefy the cauliflower. no butter, no flavorings.

one head of mashed cauliflower fit 2 Excalibur trays

CLOSE UP ACTION SHOT

I stuck the trays in my dehydrator for a fairly long time, at a low temperature. The next day, I had cauliflower that resembled a desert.

aerial shot of Death Valley? or dehydrated cauliflower? you decide!

it released from the Paraflexx sheets fairly easily and crumbled into large-ish flakes

one head of cauliflower, dehydrated. this is a quart-sized bag

Now I fully intended to attempt rehydration in a day or two, since this was just a test run. But I kept forgetting about it/making other things and I only just got around to cooking it back up the other night. If I had known I wouldn't be eating it for a couple weeks I would have stored it better than just a ziplock bag, but oh well.

Here it is after a couple weeks of sitting in a bag:

the dehydrating process added some browning, but it seems to have browned even further while in storage

CLOSE UP ACTION SHOT

Now, the dehydrating was totally the easy part. Here comes the experimental part. Because while I had this vision in my head of the cauliflower flakes acting exactly like instant mashed potatoes, my more realistic side forced me to acknowledge that probably was not going to be the case. But I forged ahead with a simple rehydration/cooking process.

added approximately 2 cups boiling water

covered with plastic wrap and let sit a few minutes

seems rehydrated? and hot enough? tasting confirms it has retained the cauliflower taste

mixed in a chunk of butter, some seasonings.

annnnnnd plated!

Texture-wise, it ended up like slightly lumpy mashed potatoes. Chris doesn't enjoy the usual watery result of fresh mashed cauliflower, so he liked this drier/lumpier version. But I imagine it could be thinned out with more water, or milk/cream to adjust for individual tastes.

Flavor-wise, it tasted just like mashed cauliflower as usual. With butter and salt, it was a yummy addition to the plate.

Eye-appeal wise, I have to admit the browning was slightly off-putting. But I think after a few more times of making and eating it I'd get over it. It's just cosmetic, as I detected no off flavors. Or, there might be some way to prevent it. Perhaps I had my dehydrator temperature up too high, even at the low temp I set it at. I'll have to look into that possibility. I think the slight browning would matter less if this were to be mixed with something (like diced veggies/meats) and formed into cauliflower patties, cooked on the stove. That sounds good actually, now that I think about it, hah.

All in all, I think this was a fairly successful first attempt. Now I know it can definitely be done, at least! I might try some more fine-tuning of the technique before attempting large-scale production. I must zero in on my dream of instant mashed cauliflower!

squash: finally!

We got so lazy about planting the squash after I prepared the garden bed for it, it became too late. It's getting really hot every day now, and I was wary of planting seeds out in the full sun. My research tells me squash like heat, but, I tend to interpret that as "non-Arizona heat" because the heat here is about an order of magnitude worse than everywhere else.

So! Instead, we got some pots to plant the squash in, and placed them in the shade. Once they have sprouted and strengthened a bit, we'll transplant them to the ground.

I'm all about squash

We got 8 pots, and planted 4 with spaghetti squash (my favorite) and the other 4 with butternut squash (my second favorite). Both these squashes are delicious but also both so expensive to buy at the store. I'm not here for $3/lb squash.

increasing my odds of success

I'm still pretty new to gardening and I kind of scoffed at first at the instructions on them all stating to plant multiple seeds close together then weed them out later, but judging by just how many seeds I've planted so far that haven't sprouted, there's like a 60% success rate when it comes to sprouting.

in the glorious shade

Crossing my fingers this works!

zucchini overload

We're definitely starting to approach critical mass on the zucchini front - and it's glorious.

I harvested three more from the garden today, and there were five already in the fridge. There's a bunch more small ones on the plants, some of which should be ready to harvest within the week. Pretty soon I'm going to have to make a big batch of zucchini chips!

Since I don't eat grains, coming up with delicious and interesting ways to use up zucchinis is slightly more challenging. (No zucchini bread for me, I am afraid. Or cake, for that matter. Or cookies, or brownies. Etc.) Today for lunch I decided to make spaghetti. And since I would be using spaghetti squash to stand in for spaghetti, then why not zucchini as a stand-in for meatballs? I find zucchini is a very meaty type of vegetable so it serves this purpose pretty well.

I didn't follow a recipe, because if I follow a recipe and mess it up then I become sad, cause what kind of doofus can't follow a recipe? (Hint: this kind.) But if I just make it up and it turns out less than ideal, well hey, at least I tried! So I just started randomly grabbing things from the fridge.

I diced up and cooked some bacon for its grease, then slapped in a pat of butter, and sauteed two diced garlic cloves. Then I diced and cooked the zucchini in the buttery garlic bacon grease. (I'm getting hungry again describing this. It was delicious, man. You really can't go wrong with butter and garlic.)

[MOUTH WATERING INTENSIFIES]

Then I nuked a small spaghetti squash, threw that in with the zucchini, and served it up.

notbad.jpg

I topped it with some shakes of parmesan and the cooked bacon. It needed more salt (squash needs a lot of salt, I find) and some of the garlic bits were a bit burnt, but it wasn't bad! Which is about all I can ask for.

Now to think up something zucchini related for dinner..

my totally epic flaxseed cracker post

I have recently gotten SUPER into flaxseed crackers. I was buying some from the store - Flackers, by Doctor in the Kitchen - and I loved them. But gosh, they're pricey, at $6 for a mere 5 ounces. (Basically around ~20 crackers.) I was like, surely I could make them myself?

I enlisted the SO, Chris, for help, and after searching the internet, we came across this recipe. The end product looked very much like what I was aspiring to, but I didn't like the addition of the pureed tomatoes. I compared the recipe versus what was in the ingredient list for the Flackers, and decided to try a very basic version, which was equal parts flaxseed and water, and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, I followed the instructions at the link.

I did a small test batch first, and they came out PERFECTLY. For some reason I never got a picture of that first batch (for shame). But believe me, they came out looking JUST like the Flackers. Test successful, I launched on a campaign to make a big batch of my very own Flackers, with a variety of flavors.

Golden flaxseed, bought in bulk from Whole Foods. $2.49/lb

First, flaxseed. We calculated that 1.5 cups of flaxseed in this recipe would just fill one tray of my dehydrator. I decided to make 4 different flavors, and so measured out four portions. I added 1.5 cups of water to each, and .75 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (sticking to the ratio as set out in the above-linked recipe).

such flax.. very mix.. wow

Then I let it sit for about 20 minutes. The flax will absorb the water and become a sticky, gelatinous blob.

Blob status achieved.

This is when I mixed in the flavorings. I wanted garlic rosemary, for sure, as well as onion. Chris had designs on the other flavors, one being tomato basil, and the other chipotle.

dehydrated onion

dehydrated tomato

The onions and tomatoes were ones we had previously dehydrated. We gathered fresh basil and rosemary from the plants in our garden. The chipotle came from a bottle of chipotle seasoning stuff.. that one was mostly an experiment.

top, l-r: onion, tomato and basil. bottom, l-r: chipotle flavor paste, rosemary and garlic powder

Dashes of salt were added to everything as well, and mixed thoroughly.

mix mix mix

Then, the spreading began!

plopped onto a paraflexx sheet (plastic wrap also works fine)

spreading with just the back of a spoon

tadaaaa. remember this is 1.5 cups of flaxseed

close up on the flaxy loveliness

Spreading the mixture takes a bit of finesse because it will easily be ripped apart if you're rough. But on the upside, it's SO sticky that it is easy to patch holes back over. Then I dehydrated for a couple hours at about 135 to get the first bout of wetness out, and lowered it to around 105 for the rest of the time.

trays loaded

After a couple hours, when the tops of the crackers had a slight crust to them (but were still plenty gooey underneath), I took them out and scored out the cracker shapes.

I just used the side of a silicon spatula.

all scored

I scored each tray as 8 x 8 rows of crackers, so I came up with 64 crackers on each tray. Also at this stage, I sprinkled a dusting of kosher salt along the tops of all the crackers. (I like when my crackers have grains of salt on them, but this is optional.)  Then loaded the trays back in to complete dehydration!

Three of the crackers, the tomato basil, onion, and rosemary garlic, all fully dehydrated in about 24 hours. The chipotle ones however took an additional 24 hours after that. I wouldn't use that flavoring mix again because a) too wet, b) too many fats in the condiment that could potentially go rancid, and c) didn't actually like the flavor that much. However I view a 75% success rate as pretty good.

Once finished, came the fun part - breaking them all apart into crackers!

breaking & testing the undersides for doneness

some finished crackers

I need to get some better storage

I packed them all up into various tuperwares, and ended up with a total of 256 crackers. Here's a breakdown of costs:

~3 pounds of flax @ $2.49/lb = $7.47
3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar @ $5 for a gallon = $.06
1 onion = $.25
3 roma tomatoes = $1
spices, salt = $.50
fresh rosemary and basil from my garden = $0
electricity to run the dehydrator for two days = ~$3 (rounding up)

total cost: $12.28
cost per ounce: $0.26

The boxes of Doctor in the Kitchen Flackers had approximately 20 flackers in them, when I counted. An entire box is 5 oz of crackers, which comes out to about $1.20/ounce. So by making them myself, I am making a hell of a savings! The boxed Flackers of course have convenience on their side, but by doing huge batches at once, I spend a few hours of effort (most of the work is done in the dehydrator, after all) on a couple days and then I have crackers for weeks. Sounds like a good trade off to me.

And this was only with 4 trays. Next time I'll go for broke and do a full 9 trays!