I've been away too long (and Myyyyyy zucchini plant)

It could get too long to explain to you why I had to take leave from blogging. It was unexpected but the reasons are gone now, unfortunately. That was another reason why I didn't feel like coming back as I was in no mood to do anything. Since last month I have been thinking of coming back, but somehow during my absence here a lot new happenend and I also realised that I had been neglecting a lot of other important things.
So, today I want to show you what all I have been up to in the last few months. I started working in my tiny kitchen garden a bit late this year but just about managed to plant some plantlets and just about managed to start the tomato seeds, but I don't know if it won't be too late by the time the tomatoes come. Though this time the sun had the mercy of showing up more often this summers than last year so, they almost seem to have made up for their small size. I hope i get atleast one round of tomatoes.
This time I even planted potatoes for the first time with hubbys help. They have been growing like wild. I have planted one zucchini plant and one Hokaido pumpkin which I bought from a local small groccery shop. They have come out very nicely. Now I have sown carrot seeds, a bit late, I feel, but lets see. And also seeds of radishes and a lettuce called 'pflucksalat' which are salads from which you can pluck just the leaves and new ones keep coming.
The Zucchini plant has been producing zucchini endlessly, but so far we haven't gotten bored of eating them.



I have made very many different things with it. Here are a few examples:
You see I wanted to post about it last month but I'm getting the time now. Sunny boy actually ate Zucchini. Yes! the biggest wonder of this year happpened on the day I served this dish , Zucchini with chickpeas. These were his words: "this is the best zucchini of the world". He was as happy and proud of the zucchini from his own garden as me.
But, don't worry, his enthusiasm went as soon as it came! :(




My zucchini plant, still going strong....
Although hubby loved all the things I prepared so far, but this was his favorite, Gobi manchurian a la PG, with zucchini and a lot of other veggies. The basic recipe came from the awesome blog of Sailu's Kitchen.

So that you know I will be writing but it will only be every now and then. Time has made me change priorities. I loved each and every moment of food blogging and I have been wanting to post so often but to no avail. I still keep taking pictures hoping to post about it. :D Maybe one day I will have more time for this hobby of mine.
I'm sorry for not replying to your emails and querries immediately. And thank you so much for your concern! I hope to post a couple of more posts soon.

Zucchini Bread

Last weekend I realised that I had a packet of fresh bakers yeast which waas getting old and I needed to use it to make something or I may have to throw it away. So, I decided to make something with Zucchini and since I also got to know about the World Day of Bread, I thought it fits perfectly.
And how perfect it fit...! The bread was just perfect, it rose perfect, it smelled perefect, it looked perfect (well... almost!), and it was a perfect dinner for us, which we -sunny boy, hubby and me - enjoyed with some butter and my home made tomato-apple-onion chutney, which I had made on the same day. Now my list of jams and chutneys which I want to post about is getting bigger, but somehow I am just not getting the time for it. But, I plan to do it this month for sure.


Now coming back to the bread, I used a recipe from the book I talk about a lot. These were just guidelines for making a bread with vegetables, but good enough for me to be able to make my own proportions and I was happy that it turned out good. And I must say that I had actually planned to make a whole wheat version, but when I started collecting the ingredients, I realised that I had no whole wheat flour anymore, but enough of type 1050 and 550. So, I thought " well....that's even better", as that was like a guarentee that the bread will rise well. But, I will try it out with whole wheat flour too.

Zucchini Bread

Recipe from "Backen Köstlich wie noch nie (GU)"

Baking temp. : 200 °C (180 °C Convection oven)
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Proofing time: about 2 hours in total
Baking time: 40-50 minutes**

Ingredients:

300 g wheat flour type 1050
200 g wheat flour type 550
1/2 cube (21 g) fresh yeast
1 tsp sugar
50 ml lukewarm water
200 g Zucchini, grated coarsely
1 tbsp coriander seeds, freshly ground
1 tsp cumin, freshly ground
1 level tsp salt
150 ml yoghurt or buttermilk


Method:

• Mix both the flour types in a deep bowl and make a deep well
• Add the sugar in the well and crumble the yeast over it and mix with sugar
• Wait for 3 -4 minutes before adding about 50 ml lukewarm water to the yeast
  
• Dissolve the yeast gently with the water, sprinkle with some flour
  
• Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and keep at a warm place for 15 minutes
• Add the remaining ingredients unless using buttermilk, add it slowly, and mix everything quickly and knead throughly
• When using buttermilk, add it in small portions while kneading the dough
  
• Make a round ball in the bowl, cover again with a kitchen towel
  
• Let it rise at a warm place for an hour or until the dough doubles in volume
• Punch it down and and knead it again throughly and place in a rectangular bread tin or simply over a baking tray
• Let it rise again for about 30 minutes
• make a few slanting cuts or one long cut on the bread surface
• brush with some olive oil
• Place in the preheated oven at 200°C (180 °C Convection) and bake for about 40 to 50 minutes**

** If the bread is baked in a bread tin, then bake for 50 minutes or
if put directly on the baking tray, for 35 - 40 minutes

As I already said, it was a delicious bread and we enjoyed eating this warm bread that evening fully and on the following days as well. And this is by far the best bread I have made so far. The crust was so good to bite into, which surely got the good flavour from the olive oil which I used quite generously on the bread. But, my journey with bread baking has just begun, which can only get more interesting. And I'm looking forward to some more experiments.

This is my entry to the event World Bread Day being hosted by Zorra of 1x Umrühren bitte.



Update: by mistake I had published the post yesterday itself while I wrote the post. So, if you were here just aroud that time and were wondering then I'm sorry for the confusion!