We’re Getting Back to Work (Making Feta & Zucchini Bread)

Working through kitchen mishaps, clearing out old freezer stock, and getting back into our weekly flow.

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June broke us. And not because we’ve been running ourselves ragged, although some might say that is true. We had a string of lovely visitors that filled up our cups and we got to see the fruits of all our labor. We had always planned that the beginning of July would be a time for us to take a break and recover from guests and big projects, but what we didn’t plan on was acquiring a sickness that would last for weeks.

Today we are finally in a place where we can ease into “work” again, but we are still taking it slow. A lot of places where we are usually present (like this newsletter) we were not for a while, but when you are sick, you just can’t even think about responsibilities. You just want to be better. Hopefully we are getting back into our routine- a new Youtube video every Sunday & a newsletter every Monday. But, let’s not set that in stone.

Some of our first projects back will be in the garden, because even though everything has been pushed back a couple weeks, we still have things to plant and build. Casey will be hosting her Master Gardener group in a couple weeks, which means we have high hopes for what the garden will look like when they come. It feels like we’ve been working on our garden forever, but we had been saying all winter that this was the year we would really get the garden going, and by golly we are going to see that through.

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This week in the kitchen…

We’ve started our first preserving projects with things that are coming out of the garden and things that have been in our freezers from years past. We are thinking of challenging ourselves to take one thing out of the freezer each week to process. If our harvests come this year (things have started out pretty slowly) we will need space to put them. Every year we put produce in the freezer and plan to preserve it in the winter, but we don’t always get to everything. We have all kinds of things in there from meat from our pigs in 2024 to goat milk and all kinds of fruit, so we will have to get creative! We would like to pressure can meat which is something we’ve never done. Canning is very laborious but it’s also the ultimate meal-prep.

If you are interested in the things we are preserving already, definitely watch this week’s Youtube video.

Watch here!

We FINALLY tried our hand at making feta. We’ve been meaning to, the stater culture came in a few weeks ago, but the stars just haven’t aligned until now. We still have a few days before we can try it for the first time, so we will keep you in the loop.

Speaking of starter culture… This is the brand we use and we’ve been using their product for years now. It all started with gluten free sourdough starter, but we’ve also used their kefir water starter and yogurt starter and everything works so well! So if you are looking into fermenting, they have a lot of products and resources that make it much simpler for beginners.

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Gluten Free Zucchini Bread Muffins

Every zucchini bread recipe I’ve ever made has had dough that was too wet. I’ve squeezed all the water out of the zucchini and still had the bread be gooey in the middle. This recipe was no different, but I did make some alterations on my second batch and it seemed to fix the problem. I think the key is knowing what the dough consistency should be like before baking, but I haven’t quite nailed that yet.

Ingredients:

• 2 ¼ cups white sugar

• 3 eggs

• ½ cup vegetable oil

• 1 cup applesauce

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups shredded zucchini

• 3 1/4 cups gluten free flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 flour)

• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (can just use cinnamon)

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Directions:

1. Mix first 5 ingredients in a bowl until combined.

2. Add the zucchini and mix until incorporated.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients to the same bowl and mix until combined.

4. Stir in the walnuts.

5. Spray bare muffin pan or the insides of cupcake liners and then scoop batter into pan.

6. Bake at 325 F for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Notes: I originally started out with baking for 20 minutes and the muffins weren’t even close to being done. We do use a tiny convection oven so you may have different result. I ended up baking 12 muffins for 40 minutes and then adding flour (this is the recipe above) to the next batch, as well as walnuts.

Thanks so much for sticking with us while we disappeared for a little while. We always miss being here when life pulls us away, but sometimes slowing down isn't a choice. We're excited to get back in the garden, back in the kitchen, and back to sharing it all with you. We hope you have a wonderful week, and we'll see you on YouTube this Sunday!

-Savannah (& Casey)