Life In The Fast Lane Again

I’m happily speeding along, and this time I don’t have to worry about getting a citation from a Pennsylvania state trooper.  I am zipping from destination to destination along the interwebs, without any lags or stopovers in between.  Now I know how Middle Son J felt, hitting triple digit speed along the German autobahn in his rented Mercedes.  Mama’s flying, and it feels so good.

Yesterday, we replaced the memory in my turn-of-the century computer.  Oldest Son was glad to see that I actually remembered where the new memory goes.  I still let him do the actual replacement, though.  He took out the old memory, replaced it with the first new memory card, and said, “You now have double the memory you had before.”

Then he slid the second memory card into an additional empty slot.  That gave me 4x the memory.  Still, I could hardly be sure this would actually make a difference.  I don’t know why I had any doubt.  He has built his own computers, repaired and rebuilt others, but I’ve lived in the land of lag for so long, I just could not picture myself sitting behind this computer without having to watch the hourglass of death turn and tumble everytime I tried to venture off a site.  If you knew the torture I went through waiting to arrive at my favorite blogsites to read, or even waiting for it to catch up with my typing when I tried to post something, you would realize how truly hooked I am on this blogging thing.

I can save so much time now that my computer is “up to speed.”  And it happened in the nick of time.  I have discovered I could never be a farmer’s spouse.  It’s like a full-time job just trying to keep up with my little garden.  I only planted one tiny package of green bean seeds.  And every day I go out I end up with this:

The beans are terrific, but you have to wash each and every one of the little suckers and snap the ends off.  Wash.  Snap.  Snap.  Wash.  Snap.  Snap.  It’s mind-numbingly boring.  And even my chow-hounds can’t eat all these veggies, so on top of finding different and tasty ways of cooking them, I have had to freeze some and give some away.  Not a big problem.  But it does take time.

Here is what I had left over from our two zucchini plants after giving two to my mom and also making this casserole yesterday:

Next month I should be elbow-deep in home-made salsa.  If only Oldest Son knew a way to speed up all this food processing!

Zucchini Burnout–Here Are Some Recipes!!

I’m trying to use up the rest of our zucchini from the garden. It grows and produces like a weed for us, which is why I quit growing it for a few years when the kids absolutely did not like it. But now they actually will eat it. They don’t crave it or anything, but cooked like we do in the following recipes, they actually like it–and Big Daddy and I looove it. We decided to grow two separate mounds this year, each planted about 2 weeks apart, so that we didn’t get the whole harvest at one time. And always pick them when they’re small–like cuke size. Torpedo zucchinis are tough and lousy. Here’s the recipe I’m making tonight. It tastes like pizza–and it’s simple to make.

Zucchini Bake

• 1 cup pepperoni, sliced thinly and quartered
• 3 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup Bisquick mix
• 1/2 cup canned grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp dried or 1/2 Tblsp fresh oregano
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• 2 tsp parsley
• 1/2 cup diced green pepper
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 2 Tblsp oil
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl (except for the mozzarella). Bake in a 9×13 pan at 350 degrees for 35 mins. Halfway through baking time, sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top. (I use extra cheese). Serves 6.

Our favorite is grilled zucchini. We cut two zucchini lengthwise down the middle, and put cut side down into the following marinade for about 2 to 3 hrs. Cook on your grill (on high I believe on our gas grill) for about as long as it takes to grill chicken breasts (about 20 mins.) basting occasionally with marinade. Then slice the cooked zucchini halves crosswise into serving pieces. It’s sooo good!

Ingredients for Marinade

• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup vinegar (preferably balsamic)
• 1/4 cup minced onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper