Fried Zucchini

One of the difficult things about moving to a new location is that you miss what you've left behind: friends, places, the beach (sniff) and favorite eateries! A few of my SoCal favorites are- (in no particular order)

• In 'n Out
• Panera Bread
• Steer n' Stein
• Cielito Lindo (on Olvera St in LA... yummy taquitos)

The first one, In n' Out has finally appeared here in Utah and Salt Lake Valleys, but, sadly, I have to live without Panera Bread and Steer n' Stein.  (I've got taquitos covered!) My favoritest thing about Steer n' Stein is their Fried Zucchini... ON MY YUM!! There are times I just crave it! But, sadly, I am out of luck. I've begged several local restaurants to serve it, but none of them have... sniff...

OK here's where the long part of the story comes in...
SO Tuesday I stripped all of my tomatoes off the vines since it was going to freeze. I have 3 BYU ice cream buckets (3 gallon size) full of green to somewhat-ripe tomatoes. Then on Thursday I thought I'd give Fried Green Tomatoes a try (since I've never had them and love the movie by the same name.) I went to my "go-to" resource- Google (BTW- what did we do before the internet?), found a recipe for said fried green tomatoes, made them, shared them and decided that they weren't my favorite.

But that got my little brain to thinking (duh, what took me so long??). Why don't I just make my own fried zucchini? (again with the DUH). I knew that the batter at Steer n' Stein was similar to a tempura batter, one of my favorites; as opposed to bread crumbs or cornmeal. I Googled my-little-Joanie-girl-self up a tempura batter recipe that looked right (I knew it needed to have cornstarch), bought some zuc's and decided to give it a try.

Oh! My! Stinkin'! Heck! (You'd think I live in Utah or something!) I think I've nailed it! Camille and Kevin, Stuart and Anna* were here to partake and all agree that I've succeeded in bringing Steer n' Stein to Utah Valley.

NOT THE GREATEST PHOTO... BUT, OH WELL... IT TASTED YUMMY

So I will share my secret with you. I hope you enjoy them.

FRIED ZUCCHINI

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 egg, separated
• 1 cup flour, for dredging
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 1-inch diameter zucchinis
• Parmesan Cheese (the shake-a-shake kind, not shredded)
• BYU Creamery's Buttermilk Ranch Dressing (ok... I guess you don't HAVE to have it from BYU, but that is the best!)
• cooking oil

DIRECTIONS

Wash zucchini.  Cut in half lengthwise then cut each half into long spears, usually 4 per half, but you can make them smaller.  Place 1 cup flour to a plastic bag (I just used the produce bag I had the zucchini in). Add salt and pepper to taste (I like the grindy-grindy kind). Dump in the zucchini spears and shake, set aside.

Tempura batter
Sift together 3/4 c flour, cornstarch, and baking soda.  Beat together cold water and egg yolk.  Stir into flour mixture.  Beat egg white until smooth and frothy.  Stir into batter.

Heat about 3/4" of cooking oil in a heavy pan (I love to use my enamel covered cast iron  Dutch oven for frying, it has wonderful even heating and the high sides eliminate the spatter mess!) to 350 degrees.

When oil is hot give the bag of zucchini spears another shake, dip the floured zucchini in the tempura batter, carefully add to hot oil. Don't crowd your pan.  (I can fit 6 in my 6.5 quart Dutch oven). Fry 3-4 minutes until golden brown, turning once.  Remove to paper towels to drain.  Place fried zucchini on serving plate, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  Enjoy them plain or dipped liberally in Ranch dressing!  It is a true taste treat.


* Bet you thought I forgot about my asterix!  Anna is Stuart's Canadian girlfriend, here for a visit.  We like her a lot.  I'll keep you posted...

Virginia Creeper

I know that there are some who consider Virginia creeper to be a weed.  One to be stamped out, uprooted, and banished. But I don't happen to one of them. I love the happy leaves and purple berries. I love the way it enfolds a home, fence or chimney.

I grew up hearing my mom talk about Virginia creeper but I don't remember that we had any around our place. The first time I truly appreciated it was in the fall of 1974. We were living in Priest River, Idaho. There, on the west side of town, was a house that had an enormous fir tree growing in the front yard- you know the kind- it dwarfs the house in the yard it is so huge! That fall I saw the Virginia creeper, which had previously gone unnoticed, glowing in shades of vermillion and crimson, purple and scarlet! What a beautiful sight.



So when Virginia moved into my yard of her own accord I encouraged her. Frankly it's been a slow process. This is the third year since she appeared growing along the fence. I'm sure that having a new fence built (18 months ago) knocked her growth back a little.  I finally feel like not only is she going to make it but she is thriving!

And, as you see, I've been rewarded with a beautiful fall display.

Last Day...

(boo-hoo-hoo-hoo... sniff!)

The weather-guesser is predicting our first freeze for this evening... sniff, snuffle...

That means that my beautiful fall flowers are going to be a thing of the past. I just love what happens to my flowers in September and October! The heat of the summer is over and they rebound with an extra wave of color. I had no idea that these petunias and mums would make such a beautiful combination when I planted the petunias back in May!



So, sad, sad, SAD... tomorrow these will be all wilted and sorry... sniff...



kk_and then some- color burn 62%
kk_dream- darken 100%

Fall Projects

You know that one of my favorite sayings is, "It's another job for another day!" The problem is that 'nother day has to come some day. So the last few weeks have found me tackling that 'nother day job! This is what my shed looks like THIS-day!



But back 4 weeks ago much of my shed looked like this...



And this too... (I know they look like the same kind of sprinkler-induced damage... good eye!) There was similar rot on the front of the shed, particularly the trim on the bottom of the shed and around the doors. I pulled that off with my crowbar... no sanding there! It makes me wish that I'd been more diligent in getting some before and during photos... sadly these are the only two I have.



I started with some scraping (yuck), but soon found out that I was facing a much bigger job than what a little bit of scraping would take care of. So one Monday morning we borrowed Kevin-son's truck and rented a power-washer. OhMyStinkinHeck!... did that ever blast! **

I got off much of the flaking paint with the power washer but, just as my research had predicted, I would still need to do more scraping and then sanding. Again with the "OMSH"... did that ever stress my poor hands and wrists (good thing I can get Ibuprofen in the giant-economy size at Sam's Club!) On one of my days in the pre-painting stage I decided it was time to clean out all of the junk: old wood, dead fruit (from my neighbor's trees) etc, that has been between the shed and fence since before we moved here. ICK! There was a whole wheelie-bin-full of rotten wood, and not-so-rotten fruit that had lived there for I-don't-know-how-many-years!



Kevin came one day with his know-how and circular-saw and replaced the two pieces on the side of the shed that were rotted. (Bet you can't even see the patches!)  I got cedar this time to replace the trim pieces. I saved some of my big paint chips from the shed and took them with me to Home Depot to custom match the paint. I don't know if it is the same color that the shed was originally, but it is a perfect match to the color the shed is now! I am so pleased with the results.



And as if the whole shed wasn't enough of a 'nother day (try 'nother month!) job. I knew that our poor east-facing French doors on the house needed attention before the winter storms started to blow. I'm not sure what paint the previous painter used... all I know is that it wouldn't sand off (but somehow would peel off all on its own!) so I ended up having to resort to the chemical paint stripper! Again with the "OMSH"! I spent the better part of this last week stripping the paint on the doors and trim and then repainting and chalking.



Ah... but it all came to an end on Saturday! I put up the last pieces of trim on the shed doors, chalked a few places on both the shed and the doors, did some touch-up paint, mowed the lawn, washed my car, raked up more fallen fruit, did some basking AND THEN went to dinner with Gordon.  Whew!  That's all I have to say!

I'm always so grateful for my strong and healthy body!  I can't work as fast... but I can still get the job done.


** OK Funny story-  Ages ago when we still lived in Palmdale I borrowed Auntie P's home-sized power washer to clean my windows and siding.  Ummm... I cleaned the bathroom screen so well it was non-existent when I was finished!  Power-sprayer beware!

Search Engine for Blogger

My friend Anke, asked how I got my search engine. I told her briefly what I'd done and she wrote back,

"Oh my goodness, I am so computer stupid. I don't even know what that means LOL. What do you type in there???? Yikes"

I remember asking those very same questions from others (especially my niece, Cindy) out there in the blog-o-sphere. I was always so grateful for a step by step tutorial... So I'm going to do the same here.

• First off- Go HERE to let Google do the hard part for you- write the HTML code for the search engine.  Follow the directions on that page and then leave the page open so you can refer back to it later on.
• Now go to your blog (I will use my blog for the demonstration).
• Click on the "Design" link at the top of the page (screen shot #1)

• Click on the "layout" link (screen shot #2)

• Click on the "Add a Gadget" link (screen shot #3)

• This will open a new window.  Scroll down until you find the "HTML/JavaScript" and (you guessed it!) click on it! (screen shot #4)

• Now go back to the page from the beginning of the tutorial, where you created your custom Google search engine. Highlight and copy the HTML code (ctrl+C or Command+C on mac) (screen shot #5)

• Now paste that *party* code back into the Configure HTML/JavaScript window.  If you want to give it a title type that in the title box.
• Get excited... we're almost finished!
• Click "save".

• Yay!  Reload your blogger page and you will find the search engine there (and happy).

I hope all of this works for you. I was thrilled to get a search engine on my blog. I don't know if anyone else will use it but I USE IT! My blog has so much info that I like to refer to.

BTW you don't have to have tags for this to work. 

Joanie's Pinto Purse

I bought the cutest new purse online at Target (this one is not sold in stores)! They fished me right in with their "buy 1- get 1 50% off"! I actually went looking for this purse... but as soon as I saw THIS ONE I knew I had to have it too. (See how well that works out... buy 1 get 1?)



Look at the darling detail work!



Now I know that they say that this is a cow purse (which in never bad in my opinion) ... BUT it looks just like a pinto pony to me! So that's what it is!

I just want to go somewhere so I can carry my new purse... silly girl!

(On another funny note- when I was tagging this post I found that "shopping" is no where to be found in my tag cloud!  I guess that's a good thing!)

There's Your Trouble!

Recently I was looking for my recipe for Cowboy Salsa and couldn't find it. I knew I'd made it AND blogged about it... but I couldn't find where it was. I finally tracked it down by date because I knew that Debra and Jared served it at their wedding reception! OK... that was too much trouble!

SO... today I added a search feature to my blog. Yay! Hooray for little Joanie!

Now it you want to find something you have lots of options:

• Search Engine (duh, that's the purpose of this post),
• Click on any of the tags, it will pull up all the posts that tag is on,
• OR have fun and just dig around...

Maybe you'd like to just use the new search engine.

Now we can all stay out of the thorn bushes (or in this case, Locust tree thorns)

TT- the Red eDition

My niece, Cindy, got me hooked up with Kim Klassen (yeah, I've blogged about her before). Kim has a feature on her blog called Texture Tuesdays. This week I decided to play along as it was the Red eDition- your photo needs to have something red. I only had one problem! What "red" photo to choose as my subject. I thought about red gerbera daisies, my red Japanese maple, Beatrix (of course!), and even a red dahlia but what won out this day was...

RASPBERRIES!



I used so many fun things on this image.

• first- DP Mom's Perfect Workflow action (I almost always start here!)
• then I ran CoffeeShop's Grainy B&W action (and deleted the B&W conversion layer... I just wanted the graininess!)
• added lots of texture layers
• kk_autumn burst- color burn 39%
• kk_and then some- color burn 91%

I love the results!

But, having worked on Beatrix, my friend of almost 12 years, I had to post her here too...



I'm not as happy with my results on this one, but this is what I did-

• first- DP Mom's Perfect Workflow action
• then I ran CoffeeShop's 2-Minute Miracle action
• kk_autumn burst- hard light 40%
• kk_and then some- overlay 49%
• kk_stained linen- multiply 42%

You should go over and check it out...

Snow in October?

I know that we have unpredictable weather here in Utah... but this snow storm took me by surprise. *Fritz* said the snow was only supposed to be down to 6000 ft... but he was wrong! We got it here at 4800 feet. I think I may have gotten a little discouraged except they are predicting temperatures back in the 70s next week.

I loved the heaped up snow on my potted plants.



I started to get worried about my trees, but by 2pm the snow let up...



But, BUT doesn't this look beautiful?

Alpine Loop

I love traditions! This-day was the 7th Annual Alpine Loop Drive for Joanie and DeLoris! Yes, we've done this every fall since I moved here in 2005. One year I even "sprung" DeLoris from rehab (the broken hip kind, not the drug kind) so we could make our trip.



We always start in Provo Canyon and head north around the loop. But this year, at DeLoris' request, we started at the other end- American Fork Canyon. It's amazing, but it is a whole different drive. The AF side of the mountains are mostly conifers and aspen with a few maples thrown in. But as soon as you crest the summit it is aspen all the way!





DeLoris is an oil painter, she has such a good artist's eye. She pointed this shot out to me... the lone spot of color on the conifers.



I like this one lone naked aspen standing sentinel over all of his fully-clothed friends...



Another of my favorite sights is this one...



I love how the fern change color too and create this fern-colored-carpet under the aspen



Towards the end of the loop I caught the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.  We live in such a beautiful world.