Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok, so this is a new favorite. We found it online through ivilliage.com and tweaked it only a bit to add wheat flour instead of white flour. Definitely a do-over! The nutella and lemon zest add some great flavor to the normal chocolate chip cookie recipe! :)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour: 2 1/2 cups
Cocoa powder: 1/4 cup
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Salt: 1 tsp
White Sugar: 3/4 cup
Brown Sugar: 3/4 cup
Butter, softened: 1 cup
Eggs: x2
Vanilla: 1 tsp
Lemon zest: 1/2 tsp (We added a bit more)
Nutella: 1/3 cup
Chocolate Chips: 2 cups
Optional: add Hazelnuts

Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside. In a mixing bowl or mixer, combine sugars and butter and cream until smooth. Add eggs one at a time to this sugar/butter mixture until smooth. Add vanilla, lemon zest, and nutella to this same mix. Gradually add the flour mixture to this slowly. Add chocolate chips and optional hazelnuts.

Bake 12 minutes. We made our cookies a bit smaller and so baked them for closer to 9 minutes.

Enjoy! :)

Holiday Cookie Recipes to come

So, we know that we have been negligent on this blog but we have been so busy! So, to make up for it, we are going to put up our Christmas cookie recipes this year. No, they aren't "from our garden" but it's that time of year when not as much is being made from our garden, so this will be a fun new part of our blog for this time of year! Check back soon - we'll try to post a couple in the next day or two. Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday Mommy!!!

Harvest season is over!

We soon will have more recipes to share on here, but to hold you over, here are some pictures of our harvest time and what we've been up to from our harvesting of about 120 tomato plants! Ufta.

Finding potatoes in the ground is very exciting!

Our piles of beets, pumpkins, and squash (acorn, butternut, spaghetti, and buttercup)

Lots of acorn squash!

Our 81 jars of tomatoes, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes and peppers, and tomato water. We've been busy!

First Zucchini bread of the season!

So, we have successfully made our first batch of zucchini bread and mini muffins (mainly for Elsie) and have the recipe below. We started out grating about 3 medium sized zucchini and had a lot to work with, so we doubled the recipe.

Our darling daughter helping make the zucchini bread!

Here's the recipe. Originally, it was from the internet, but with all the tweaking that has been done, I take credit for it at this point! :) Enjoy.

Low Fat Zucchini Bread

3 eggs (whites only)

1 cup Splenda (sugar can also be used if you don't have Splenda available)

1/2 cup Splenda brown sugar (or 1 cup regular brown sugar)

2 cups grated zucchini (2 medium sized or 1 big usually)

1 Tbsp. vanilla

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

3 cups wheat flour (white flour could also be used)

2 tsp. cinnamon

3/4 cups nuts (optional)

Mix egg whites and sugars - beat really well. Then, add all other ingredients one at a time. Usually makes 2 bread pans, sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 350º for 50-55min. If using by the recipe written, the bread won't rise much, but maintains a perfect shape.

Garden 2009

Soon we will have recipes to post for this blog, but until then, here's a picture of our big garden at the vineyard this year. We measured it as 60ft x 60ft and we have approximately 80 tomato plants to name just a couple of the plants we have. We are growing everything from giant pumpkins, to squash (acorn, butternut, buttercup, spaghetti), zucchini, eggplant, green beans, broccoli, spinach, corn, cucumbers, onions, green onions, potatoes, snap peas, peppers, beets, dill, basil, cilantro, and garlic (to name a few)!

Curried Pumpkin Soup

This is a new favorite of ours - modified from Epicurious.com

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 onions, sliced
2 leeks, trimmed, cleaned, and thinly sliced
3-4 carrots, peeled and sliced
4-6 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 Tbsp mild curry powder
1/4 cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, and 3 allspice berries, tied in cheesecloth to make a sachet
1 medium-large sized butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and sliced in cubes
1 sweet potato, peeled and sliced in cubes
6 cups chicken broth
1/2 can coconut milk (use to your preference of taste)
Chives for garnish

Preparation:
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat
Add the onions, leeks, carrots, and apples and sauté over medium-low heat until the onions are translucent, about 15 minutes
Add the curry, spice sachet, and the remaining veggies. Pour in the broth and bring to a gentle simmer, for about 45 minutes, until the veggies are very soft.
Remove spice sachet and puree the vegetable mixture in food mill, blender, or use immersion blender (best thing ever!! :))
Add coconut milk (original recipe calls for heavy cream, but the coconut milk brings out a great flavor, in our opinion)
Serve with chives garnished on top if preferred.