A new adventure!

So, yesterday I signed it. I am now a Pampered Chef consultant. Yep, that means I get a bunch of cool, new, spiffy kitchen gadgets that I can take to your house and use to make yummy food! Yay! I admit that the business aspect is kinda intimidating. Supposed to get people to buy as much as possible? How I'm going to encourage that when I'm so frugal with my own money is a question I've yet to answer. I just hope to find people who are willing/want me to come over and cook and put on a little show for them! I'm so excited for that! And I'll be aiming for food allergies and issues like that-you know, celiac, lactose intolerant, vegan, diabetic, etc. ^_^ So if that somehow seems interesting to you, leave a comment and we can chitchat about it.

Last night I hosted a Pampered Chef ladies night, and my friend came to show her wares and make us dinner. (spicy beef and broccoli stir fry, most excellent!) She was a good sport, letting me change a few of the ingredients she was using. (Corn starch? That's a no-no here with me in the house, so I subbed that with arrowroot. And the soy sauce that's in your kitchen has wheat in it, but the soy sauce I have in my kitchen is wheat-free. And the only brand of wheat-free soy sauce that is currently out there!) So she made dinner, and me, being me, had to have something else to snack  on/call dessert. I had been debating long and hard over this, but then I had the perfect solution. Some type of baked good! (surprised? I didn't think so.) It was just narrowing it down to what kind of baked good that was the difficult part. Bring in SCV freecycle to help with that problem!

What is SCV freecycle? Well, the city we live in-Santa Clarita Valley-has a little thing going on, that if you have something in good condition, that you don't want anymore, you can post it online, and those of us who ARE interested in it, can claim dibs and pick it up. For free. This is how I recently aquired my new salad spinner. A lovely gal friend of mine knew I was wishing for one, saw it on the listing and brought it to my attention. Later that day, I was the happy owner of my own salad spinnner! Yay! Well, similar thing happened yesterday. Except, it was a listing for zuccini. Yep, for zuccini. Three zuccini, "small, medium and large". Well, small was twice as big as what you see in the store. Medium matched the length of my elbow to my wrist. And I could've used the large zuccini to kill someone! The large zuccini did not fit in my fridge, that's how big it is. (I personally would've said, three zuccini, large, huge and monsterous) But hey, three zuccini for free! I'll take em!

So I had a brilliant idea. How about, I, the girl who LOATHED zuccini bread, how about I make zuccini muffins and bread? Growing up, zuccini was alright. I like how my Mom would cook it-steam it, add a bit of salt and butter, and serve.Simple and delicious. That, I liked. Zuccini served in an unnatural way, (ie, baked goods, fried zuccini, zuccini IN foods...) that was disgusting to me. So, for me, who as of yesterday morning didn't even know if I liked zuccini bread yet, the fact that such an idea came to me and I thought it sounded good?...that says something. This food thing is really changing my perceptions and my likes/dislikes. Yeah.

I looked online, searched for a couple gluten-free recipes, and found one that looked good. Yay for Gluten Free Girl and the Chef! They have yet to fail me. ^_^ I did make a few alterations, but that's just a normal thing for me. What recipe don't I tweak to some extent?..

The ladies enjoyed the zuccini muffins. *huzzah!* And I found them overly addicting. I think I more than 10...but I stopped counting after 4...so...yeah... Thankfully, they are fairly healthy and not crazy carbs, but that's also because I made them small. Which is a very good thing, considering how many I packed away!

So here's my new favorite recipe. I think I'll be making a LOT of these this week!


60 grams teff flour
60 grams quinoa flour
60 grams brown rice flour
240 grams sweet rice flour
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 eggs, at room temperature, beaten
1 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups fresh-grated zucchini
2/3 cup (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Options- chopped pecans, carob chips, cranberries, cherries, sunflower seeds, you-want-it-you-add-it..

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Sift the flours together, and add remaining dry ingredients.
3. Combine eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add the zuccini and melted butter, and stir together gently.
4. Sprinkle the soda and salt on the mix, and incorporate. Add the flour slowly, until its fully mixed.
5. Here's your options. Make into little muffins. Or make into bread. It'll make two 9x5 loaves, or about 50 some mini muffins. Your choice. Choose, and grease the appropriate pans.
6. Here's your next choice. Straight up zuccini bread? Or something else added to it? I split my dough into four separate bowls yesterday, and made a variety. One regular batch of zuccini muffins. One batch with chopped pecans. One batch with carob chips. And one batch with chopped cranberries. All are good.
7. For bread, bake it 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 20 minutes before flipping. For mini muffins, about 20 minutes is suffient bake time. I cooled them for 10 minutes before flipping.

The recipe gave me about 55 mini muffins, and for a regular batch were 73 calories and 11 carbs. So good!

Zuccini mini-muffin with cranberries and butter-YUM!