Last week featured the hottest days of the summer, as far as I have noticed. The Boobie Monster and I really stuck together during mealtimes. I had to do a lot of jiggling and foot-tickling to keep her awake enough to ingest her soporific diet of warm milk so that we could split up and let the fan blow us dry. My knee pits dripped sweat.
Then we had a thunderstorm. It blew and boomed and rained and when the sky cleared it was fall and I was sad.
TBM’s first summer is over. It seemed far away for so long and then WHAM! She was born and everything was green and hot. Now just as suddenly the nights are cool and we need to use the duvet again. She can blow spit bubbles and what’s next? Leaving home? I am desperately clinging to the image of her fitting on RRTT’s forearm.
I can remember being 8 and feeling like age 12 was impossibly far away, and now I am a growed-up and I’m having anxiety about our 7-week-old morphing into an emancipated adult and ditching us.
If anyone else is feeling a little bit melancholy about the strange yet familiar smell of the new season drifting in, here is a recipe for a moist and deliciously chocolately zucchini cake. RRTT used yellow summer squash instead of green zucchini because my parents have these yellow bad boys coming out their ears, and they worked delightfully as a substitute. The return of the smell of baking in the kitchen, where the oven is likely to have sat dormant because of the summer heat, will hopefully help you to embrace the change in the air. Or you can just drown your sorrows in some nice cake and pretend you are eating vegetables.
Sleeping in her 2nd favourite spot.
Yellow Summer Squash Chocolate Cake adapted from this recipe from Living the Frugal Life.
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp.salt
1 1/2 cups sour milk (or buttermilk)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter (room temp.)
3 eggs
2-3 cups shredded summer squash
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
A sprinkling of walnut pieces for topping
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease 2 bread loaf pans, or 2 9″ cake pans, or any kind of pan that strikes your fancy.
Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add milk and vanilla.
Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa) in a bowl.
Mix dry with butter mixture. Pat shredded squash dry and stir it into batter by hand. Stir in chocolate chips.
Pour batter into pans and sprinkle walnut pieces on top.
Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Take a bite.
bender
RRTT
DO IT YOURSLEF! 