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I despise zucchini.

I spent a year in Germany, and somehow, the family I lived with got the impression that I LOVED it. As in, the mom walked in one day with not one but two THREE FOOT LONG, SIX INCH DIAMETER zuccs from grandma’s garden. She showed them to me and said, in all seriousness, “Look Erin, your favorite food!”

EW.

I suffered through every type of zucchini I could there out of sheer politeness and embarrassment, and spent more time than I’d like to admit coming up with creative ways to dispose of my leftovers-for-lunch so that they wouldn’t notice I threw them out.

And before you try to tell me that it amazing/delicious/terrific and I just need to try it in/on/with/near something else and I’ll love it, let me just tell you that the ONLY place I like to see zucchini is in the trash.

At someone else’s house.

Cuz I’m sure as heck not letting it in mine.

… unless I want to make these cookies.

My old friend Therese made them for me a few summers ago after she read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. They quickly became my favorite cookie, and I’ve yet to meet someone who didn’t love them… even if the green bits look a little strange!

I visited my a college friend and her family in Ogallala this week, and whipped up a batch with a zucc they had lying around. Might as well use it up before it turns into a zucchini boat!

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Makes about two dozen)

1 egg, beaten
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
Combine in large bowl. Try not to spill the vanilla all over the counter.

Then don’t forget the most important part: clearing out the cookie jar so there’s plenty of room to fit these babies! You will need your fuel for step 3!

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (that’s in the “coffee” jar)
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
Combine in a separate, small bowl and blend into liquid mixture

1 cup finely shredded zucchini (with or without peels)
12 oz chocolate chips
Stir these into other ingredients, mix well.  Drop by spoonful onto greased baking
sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon.  Bake at 350°, 10 to 15 minutes.

This is my zucchini grating secret so that I don’t make a mess everywhere. Maybe not what you’re supposed to do but it gets the job done! Helpful hint: if you don’t have a grater handy, don’t think you can just chop up the zuccs. It will still give you cookies but definitely does not have all the moisture that shredded will. Also, you can see the green in the cookies either way, but its less obvious if you peel them. I’ve made them both ways and its all delicious, so its totally up to you.

Now, a word of warning for fellow zucchini-haters. At some point during this process, you will get a smidge of dough on your finger and lick it off. This will be delicious. Under no circumstances should you use this as an invitation to dig and eat spoonfuls of raw cookie dough.

No, not cuz of that raw-eegs-cause-salmonella-or-e coli-or-whatever drama. Because you can TOTALLY taste the zucchini and while the batter is delicious the veg is not. so just say NO!

NOW you may eat. and eat. and eat. Seriously, these have veggies in them. That makes them healthy, right??

At least that’s what I tell myself… a “healthy” cookie is the only way I can excuse allowing zucchini in my kitchen!

Go whip yourself up a batch and when you’re done, come back and see the rest of my adventures in small town Nebraksa, plus delicious brunch in Omaha x2!

So I had friends over for a sweet dinner party over the weekend. Now that I am living in a house, I feel like I should be doing other grown up things too. The menu was pretty simple: my famous pesto with grilled chicken. When I went to Trader Joe’s to pick up the essentials, the first thing I saw was a giant basil plant for $6. I walked inside and there were mini plants for $2.50. So, lucky me picked up basil, chives, and rosemary for my new little herb garden.

Fyi, that’s the basil after I picked off 1.5 cups for pesto AND made tomato-mozz-basil crostini for appetizers. And the chives after I trimmed SIX INCHES off the entire plant. Crazy good deal if you love chives like I do!

The other sweet deal I found was on leeks! Leeks are one of my favorite veggies, and they are impossible to find around here. You can only use the white part, and I typically pay $4 for ~2 inches of useable veg. Not ok. TJs had 8 inch leek stalks that were fairly slim but all beautiful useable whites. That, plus my produce stand potatoes from the other day, and I was ready for a little amuse bouche to REALLY play grownup.

Sadly, my cam was dead so no pictures of the actual presentation in spoons like these, but it was the same as my lunch this afternoon. Vichyssoise… I do love you!

In case you’re not familiar, vichyssoise is a potato, leek and onion soup, typically served cold. It’s pretty hard to mess up since the ingredients are potatos, leeks, onion, chicken stock, and cream at the very end.  I straight up followed this recipe, and it turned out amazing. Well, almost followed it… I mixed it up with my favorite herbs and used chicken stock + water instead of broth. And then I topped it with my new find, cream from a semi-local dairy. Two thumbs up from my taste-testers!

Totally worth the $2 deposit for the glass bottle! Their milk is amazing as well, farm fresh, bottled within 26 hours, and hormone free. So good!

A little spoonful on top, plus a few chives clipped from my newly shaved plant and this soup is good to go… plus, bonus, no heating time! Perfect on a 100+ day in Nebraska.

—

Last night I was trying to clear out make a dent in my Google Reader, which has reached that sad “1000+” mark, when I came across Nicole‘s latest post: her 100 lunches project. Basically the premise is that she finds 100 people who inspire her and wants to have lunch with them before her 30th birthday. I kind of love love love this idea, so I think I might make my own inspiration list right here. Luckily my 30th birthday is a long way away so this seems totally do-able!

Now my only question is, can I put people on my list who I’ve already had this lunch with? Immediately one man comes to mind, a man who graduated from my alma mater, Don Nyrop. I helped write a paper on him a few years ago and got to interview him– many of his words still stick with me and remind me that no matter where I came from, I can do anything. There’s not much you can find online about him, but his NY Times Obit gives the basic story. As he told me, he was just a small town boy from the Midwest doing the best he could, and it it took him from a tiny town in Nebraska to the head of Northwest Airlines.

Don Nyrop, 1912-2010. Photo Credit

The renamed Don Nyrop Great Hall at Doane College, during the dedication ceremony. Photo Credit

So now that I’ve crossed off number one, here’s the first part of my list:

So there are my first 39… the reast I am still thinking of/thinking of categories for. I had to leave a blank space on the smartest people i know list, since one of those spots would have gone to my grandpa… but since he’s not around, it doesn’t seem right to put him on the list. Luckily, like Mr. Nyrop, I got all the words of wisdom I could before he died.

So, who would you put on your list? What do you think of this idea? Let me know in the comments and make sure to head over to Nicole’s site to comment there, too!

Soooo… I’ve been mia for the last few days/5 weeks, and am back with some awesome excuses and a roundup of my life since then… And then I hope to be back for good!

I may have mentioned before going all MIA on you that I was going out of town for a week for classes. I’m working on getting my teaching certificate/masters in education right now, and for this class I had to be in a town about 90 mins away for class 8-2 every day… So I moved in with a friend for a week. This seems like it should give me plenty of time to blog, but instead after class each day I spent 8 or more hours working on the 10 in depth assignments I had to complete.

I looked like this for a week.

Then I came back home, and finished doing those assignments for another week (Good news, I got an A!). THEN, I went to another super-fun class the following week. (I got an A in that one too!).

Then I worked a lot, and got another job and worked even more. And now here we are 5 weeks later!

And now, for your viewing pleasure: a photo post of the last 3 weeks of my life. Words coming soon!

Story of my life: polish, polish, polish, set. repeat!

Best. Thing. Ever. First time cooking millet: boiled per directions, mixed up with carrots, corn, and 1 egg white. At the end add in swiss chard (another first!) and wilt for a minute, throw on top of spinach and CHOW!

I have an unhealthy obsession with Le Creuset. EVERYTHING they make. In fact, the only thing stopping me from buying their entire catalog is that I don’t know what color my future kitchen will be and I don’t want my pans to clash. Problems? My roomie may not be buying brand name yet, but this little gem is inspiring to make my first purchase: a Mini Round Cocette. So perfect for individual cornbread bakes… or peach cobblers! Now I just have to pick a color…

Like I said, It’s great for cornbread. Another Edible Perspective modification, and this one was suuuuper delish. Unfortunately, the only thing I remember was for sure in it was corn, masa harina, a sprinkle of cheese in + another one on top, and lots of salsa!

This little baby was the fuel behind my marathon cooking day: A mint julep! This is one of my favorite drinks, and I didn’t get to have one this year for the actual Derby. So once I finally bought some mint, this was a necessity. Yummmmmmm!

On the menu for the cooking day: cucumber gazpacho with shrimp and melon, quinoa stir-fry, millet deliciousness (see above), quinoa with tomato and leeks. Aka my menu for my week away. BTW, Gazpacho was a fail, I thought the mint was overwhelming and I couldn’t blend it smooth enough. The stir-fry and millet were both freaking amazing (obvs since they were essentially the same thing. ps. first time also on the quinoa and YUM!). The tomato/leek quinoa dish was ok… I didn’t love it but I definitely didn’t hate it. Overall the week’s eating was pretty good!

If you were working on a master’s like me, you could spend all your time coloring like me!

Main Street in my college town… I clearly went to school in a booming metropolis. That first building was our favorite bar, Someplace Else.

Part of the trip was also forgoing my college standby of Cristina’s Mexican Food since bestie wasn’t with me and trying the new place in town, Gladys. (Crete is a mill town with a very high Hispanic population, so the Mexican is extra good!) Sadly, this place was a big fat MEH. It was ok but definitely won’t be going back… I’m convinced that Cristina’s is the place for me! Also, the elephant is a shoutout to Young House Love: I read the post about Sherry’s “Elephant in the Room” dream like 2 hours before I went out to eat… and saw that. Hilarious!

Class, Part 2: More Coloring!

And after a hiatus of a few weeks due to extreme poverty and laziness, my first meal back:

Hand-cut and seasoned potatoes bought 15 minutes earlier at a corner produce stand, with a breaded (corn meal, whole wheat flour, spices) buffalo chicken sandwich.

Yummy! And even better once you finish it with this:

Peach Cobbler! Just the way I learned in Germany: fruit (fresh produce stand peaches) tossed with a pinch of sugar and cinnamon, a bottom crust of these awesome animal cookies from Baker’s bulk bins, and top crust of butter, sugar and WW flour, pressed into circles and laid over the top. AH-MA-ZING! This was seriously one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. So good!

And there, In a very large nutshell, is the majority of my last 5 weeks. Hopefully now I will be back on a regular basis so you can get your dose of Erin!

I’d love to hear from you in the comments if you’re still reading… Let me know what you like and what you don’t, and what you want to see!

Looooooove,

As promised, a whole week’s worth of (photographed) food!

This was a week of some experimenting, so I actually am really bummed I didn’t get this up sooner. First, I moved so I was trying to use what I had around the house before I went out and stocked up on food so the first few days were not very pretty, but I do have my first eat-what’s-in-the-fridge meal of the week: buffalo tuna salad.

I worked at a popular chain restaurant up until last October, and I’m still somewhat addicted to their buffalo sauce. I know it would be super easy for me to make it myself, but what’s the point in that if friends will bring you 8 oz tubs of it? Yum.

Checking out the cupboards I had tuna, egg whites, cheese, and buffalo sauce. I love me a good tuna salad sandwich, and every once in a while I get crazy and toss in hardboiled eggs. The original plan was tuna on a sandwich thin topped with buffalo scrambled whites, but then I got creative.

I made the buffalo eggs and then softened some tofutti and mixed the two together with a can of tuna. No miracle whip but I have tofutti? What a nerd.

End result: two forks up! As you can see I stole a smear of the roomie’s miracle whip (light, ew) and mustard for some extra flavor. Next time I’d sub dijon and add some spinach and a tomato for some more color, but I will definitely be making this again!

I think I mentioned this when I made the asparagus fries, but I am an avid reader of Ashley’s blog, The Edible Perspective. I discovered her during the Project Foodbuzz contest last year but got hooked for good when she started trying to figure out what was best for her body to eat. Since my body hates me and I can’t eat 98% of delicious food (ice cream and wings, this means you), looking at some of the stuff she has done has really helped me identify alternatives and look at creative ways to find new definitions of delicious food.

The other day when I was grocery shopping, I found some masa harina for a dollar and I remembered she had mentioned using it a few times so I figured I would pick it up and do some experimenting with corn bread.

Lesson learned: stick to the recipe the first time, then make modifications.

1. Not unlike my previous meal situation, I had masa harina on hand but no eggs. Forgetting that eggs were the leavening agent in this particular recipe and not just the liquid, I thought applesauce would be an acceptable substitute and that I’d just get a slightly sweeter final product. FALSE. despite making a pretty picture, this was a total fail.

2. Peanut butter and cinnamon helped save this weirdly apple-corn flavored mush. But I still couldn’t finish it all.

3. In the spirit of experimentation, I decided to make a more correct version using egg whites and masa harina. This actually turned out correctly and became bread instead of mush! Unfortuantely, I wasn’t a huge fan of the flavor, and added more PB, cinnamon, and chili powder to spice it up.

4. My fail-breakfast. But man was that water tasty!

Like I said, lesson learned on this one. I would be interested to see how much of a difference the millet makes, and now that I’ve stocked up I may give this another shot. It was a little bland for me, though, so I would definitely include some spices in there and pick up some honey to top it off. I’ll keep you posted on that!

Next up: birthday goodies!

(mom making my amazing birthday cake!)

Apparently I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but hopefully she did!

Growing up my family had a favorite bakery that we got all our birthday/anniversary cakes from every year. This place specialized in multicolored layer cakes, including the ever-popular rainbow cake that we all still love. After a few years of pink-and-purple layer cakes, I switched to the much more “adult” alternative of almond-flavored white cake with cherry filling.

Though the bakery is now closed (luckily my family holds the rights to all the recipes) and we can’t have the cakes on a regular basis anymore, my mom said she would attempt an alternative. Enter: 3-layer almond flavored white cake with strawberry jam filling (cherry was not good) and light pink buttercream frosting! So good!

I already gave you some photos of the party eats (MYO fruit kebabs with mango, watermelon, canteloupe, strawberries and pineapple, cocktail shrimp, chips, s’mores, cake, and rocky road brownies), but this is an approximation of what I ate that day.

AKA a smore, a brownie, a piece of cake, and about 15 kebabs! My fruit intake has drastically increased over the last few days. For this party I cut up 2 lbs of berries, a whole pineapple, half a watermelon, a whole cantaloupe, and a mango… enough fruit to last a lifetime.

Or at least enough to become a MONSTER smoothie.

In the name of scientific accuracy, I measured the glass. That’s a 24+ ounce power lunch, once you add in the protein powder and ice. And it’s 100% delicious!

p.s. the 5 a day challenge is my goal for the rest of June, to eat 5 servings of fruit and veggies per day, as part of Project Veg-Up! I’m also adding a secondary goal based on my biggest struggle:

I picked up a veg I’ve been curious about for a long time, swiss chard. I’m going to try using it for lunch tomorrow, so cross your fingers it goes well!

After the longest post EVER, I’m signing off. Stay tuned to find out how my watermelon sorbet turned out!

Hi from my new HQ! Sorry for my absence the last few days! I’ve been moving and also celebrated my birthday, so lots of plans + a missing camera cord = lots of photos to go through and not very much blogging. But I’m back and hopefully resuming my posting schedule to help keep your life full of awesome!

First things first: Happy Birthday to ME! (My facebook/party picture. Clearly I don’t need anyone else to have a sweet party )

My big goal was that by the time I turned 24 I would be moved into a new place, and mission accomplished! I’m taking my time to move the remaining smaller things in, but the day before my birthday my dad helped me move all my (super heavy) furniture in, and I’m enjoying bonding with the bed I missed so much when I left for college. It’s good to be back. Just realized that I have yet to take a pic of the room– I’ll get one up soon!

I moved into a house just a few blocks from my old one, with 2 girls I don’t really know (yet) that I found on craigslist. I know some people think its super sketch but I think as long as you’re careful its pretty legit. One unexpected side effect of this was meeting my new roomie Lola.

She thinks we’re besties who should hang out every.single.second. I’m concerned she’s turning me into a cat lady… I’ve already take a LOT of pictures :/

I had two other exciting big things this week: Wicked and my birthday festivities.

Once upon a time, my family went to New York for Christmas. I had just read this sweet book in my high school’s book club called Wicked. As we were walking down the streets, I saw signs EVERYWHERE for Wicked on Broadway. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go. Meanies said no. I was sad.

A year or two later, we went to Chicago for the Fourth. As we walked around town, I saw signs EVERYWHERE for Wicked in Chicago. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go. Meanies said no. I was very sad.

A few years later I get the news that Wicked is coming to Omaha! Too bad I lived in freaking GERMANY at the time. I was even sadder.

So, jump to earlier this year when I get the news that Wicked will be back in town, and through some stroke of luck it is over my birthday… naturally I HAD to go!

(ps yay for a full length shot of the dress!)

My mom tried to buy me $128 tickets so we could have sweet seats, but I told her we had to check out the lottery– $25 tickets for orchestra floor. I missed out on the lottery tix, but we did get center floor seats, 3 rows behind the $128 seats, for 40 bucks each. Sweet deal!

The show? umm I had no words. SO good, and so glad I finally got to see it.. and even happier that it was worth the loooong wait.

Last but not least, my birthday party!

After last year’s shitshow,

(That’s my arm tally (a throwback to my college days) of the 23 drinks I intended to drink for my 23rd birthday. I succeeded, plus one to grow on. Annnnd regretted it during my 3 day hangover.)

… I just wanted a fun evening with friends and finger foods, and it’s just what I had!

Unfortunately there was one uninvited guest: Mosquitos. They must have been in a festive mood cuz I have 22 bites. UGH.

I’m glad I have such amazing people in my life, and here’s to many more years of friendship!

What I Ate post to come tomorrow!