Zucchini Bread

I haven't posted any actual cooking in a while, so here's something that is appropriate this time of year - zucchini bread.

I was introduced to zucchini bread as a child growing up in Green Bay. The recipe my mother made came from Randy Jean Maltby who lived down the street from us. I was a few years older than her girls, but they were around the same age as my youngest sister, and they were constant companions to me and my sisters as we all grew up together. I was first their older playmate, then their babysitter, and then as I reached adulthood, a buddy of Randy Jean's who used to let me in when I needed to escape my own family's chaos. She always had choco tacos on hand, and she made the best zucchini bread.

This is not her recipe, but it's still quite good. This recipe comes from my trusty 1986 Betty Crocker cookbook. And now that the zucchinis are abundant and delicious, my counterpart decided the season was right and asked for a couple of loaves.

I mostly followed the recipe but will note where I deviated:

Ingredients:

2 2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup shortening - I substituted unsalted butter because, well, butter
3 cups shredded zucchini - this is about two normal sized ones
4 eggs - I used jumbos
3 1/3 cups all purpose flour - I used White Lilly self-rising flour, and if you do this, you can skip the next three ingredients
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon each ground cinnamon and ground gloves - I substituted 2 teaspoons of the dreaded pumpkin spice, but here it is entirely appropriate
1/3 cup each chopped nuts and raisins, which I omitted out of personal preference

I let my butter soften overnight and then used the Kitchen Aid mixer to cream it before adding the sugar like you would for cookies. I then added the zucchini, water, and eggs and mixed that until well combined. Then I added the flour, spice, and vanilla and mixed it a few more minutes.

When I use my mixer, I always like to give things a good stir with my rubber spatula after mixing and before pouring into the pan, just to make sure there are no secret clumps of partially-mixed ingredients. It's a good best practice, and I did that here as well.

For this amount of batter, I needed 2 full-sized loaf pans. The recipe says to grease only the bottom of the pan, which I did. After I ladled the batter into my loaf pans, I sprinkled some coarse sugar on top because that is always a nice touch. My loaves baked up in about an hour at 350 degrees, just like the recipe said they would.

The bread came out moist and sweet with a nice crumb and a mild spice flavor. Even though this did not taste like the zucchini bread of my childhood, it still reminded me of pleasant afternoons spent with Randy Jean and her girls as summer turned into fall in a town far away from here.

The Summer's First Tomato

For the last three seasons I have been growing herbs, but this year I added a couple of tomato plants. We bought them at the Havre de Grace plant sale earlier this season with the intent of planting them in a raised garden bed. They are still in their plastic store pots, and they have been doing wonderfully well. They are bearing fruit, and today I harvested my first ripe tomato. It's a roma tomato, with a thick, chewy skin and a fruit that is both tangy and tart with just a little sweetness at the end. Fresh tomatoes taste like summer to me, and they always remind me of my very early childhood. My first memories are sitting in my mother's tomato patch in the first house I lived in, picking the fruit and then cleaning it in our old kitchen and eating it on the spot. I'm quite glad to have the beginnings of my own tomato patch, even if I don't have a daughter to share it with. My first harvest was delicious and a welcome reminder of where I come from. I've got two more on the vine and the promise of more to come.

Composition

Gareth has brought up the Acorn website to listen to BBC TV while he paints. He started painting again about a month ago, which means I have started taking photos again.

We are talking about composition, about seeing the shot in my mind and then creating it, about moving from opportunistic photography into something deliberate, intentional. Taking my time to see the shot, to let it come to me rather than me rushing to it.

We are looking at the masters. He has me listening to the Modern Art Notes podcast and the interview with Edward Burtynsky. I am on InstrGram following the New York Times Food Section, Food52, and a host of food bloggers, looking at how they are composing their shots, lighting their shots, plating their food. I am taking pictures of my meals with my phone.

I am wandering the neighborhood with my camera, shooting landscapes right now but I am getting ready for the garden, getting ready for spring. I am getting ready to write again.

Here is what I've been eating at home and not writing about. More to come soon.....

Ichiban in Columbia Crossing

I found Ichiban by accident. I was running errands over lunch and got all turned around in Columbia Crossing. Getting lost in Columbia is a not uncommon occurrence for those who don't live there. The brain child of Edward Notron's grandfather (yes, that Edward Norton), Columbia is Maryland's planned community, and popular opinion is that it was most certainly planned as only a committee could have created it. A sprawling mass of shopping centers, corporate parks, and cul de sacs cross-cut by numerous state highways and thoroughfares, it all looks blandly the same and would work much better if it were based on a nice straightforward grid.

I've been working down there since November when my company transferred my department out of our nice digs in Harbor East, and yesterday I was driving without GPS. After circling Dobbin Road, Old Dobbin Road, Columbia Crossing, and Columbia Crosing II for some 30 minutes looking for the road back to the office, I spotted Ichiban and decided it was time to at least pick up some lunch.

Ichiban offers a fairly generic selection of Chinese and Japanese take out. I got a bento box of chicken tempura, shomai, and a California roll. It came with a side of rice and miso soup. The lady behind the counter promised a 10-minute wait and that was accurate. I was in and out in good time.

My bento box was well-packaged but that's where the goodness ends. The chicken tempura was greasy, and the meat was dry and flavorless. The California roll was also lacking in flavor, plus it came without chopsticks so I had no real way to mix the small dab of wasabi into my soy sauce. And, really, am I supposed to eat sushi with a knife and fork? The shomai was good but luke warm and a little dry on one side as if it had finished cooking first and had to wait for everything else to catch up. The miso was a fairly sad affair that I didn't even bother with. The best part was the rice - nice sticky flavorful sushi rice.

I also on impulse got a strawberry bubble tea. The menu offers additional bubble and flavor at additional cost, which is a good racket for them. My tea had a good ammount of large tapioca bubbles but was thin and watery.

Overall Ichiban only gets points for speed as the food itself fell flat for me. Which is just as well as I doubt I will ever be able to find them again. At $15 total for a mediocre lunch, I doubt I will go looking, either.

Located somewhere in Columbia Crossing (I thought I saw a Rack Room Shoes nearby?), Ichiban is open for lunch and dinner, dine-in or take-out.