Call me 'picky' but for a long time now, I've been hunting for the one go-to zucchini bread recipe to call my own. This recipe has it all: a generous measure of grated zucchini, bright color from grated carrot, spice-forward from pantry spices. Most of all, this zucchini bread stays moist and fresh for a long time.
Some times? It pays to be picky.
TESTIMONIALS
"This is wonderful! ... I followed the recipe to the letter and it was dead on perfect." ~ Anonymous
“Just so you know,” she warned as we walked into the mall on a summer Saturday, “I’m a really picky shopper.” ‘She’ is Kerrin, the almost-21 chemical engineering student who visited for the weekend a couple of weeks back. ‘She’ is the daughter of my dear friends from way-way back, Gary and Lisa (yes, that would be Lisa of My Own Sweet Thyme). ‘She’ is the confident young woman who somehow remains, in voice and energy, a grown-up version of the girl I last saw, then eight years old and a wild risk-taker at far…

How to survive a steamy summer: Brew coffee in the refrigerator, creating a smooth and low-acidity coffee concentrate for making iced coffee and coffee smoothies. This recipe is so quick and easy
that I'm adding it to a special collection of easy summer recipes.
Watch for new 'summer easy' recipes all summer long.
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How can we get up in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do, put one foot after the other, open the window, make coffee, watch the steam curl up and disappear.
- Excerpt from poet Barbara Crooker
via Writer's Almanac It happens every summer, some years during an unseasonably hot June, some years in always-steamy July.Predictably, even if the timing is inexact, one morning hot coffee suddenly offers no pleasure. On that morning’s dime, I switch from hot java to iced coffee. For years, I brewed hot coffee, then chilled it in the fridge. Last year, praise be and thanks to Dinner with Julie, I …

This recipe won first place in my town's peach pie contest and oh my! what a pie! Imagine no blanching and no peeling, the secret to unforgettable peach sweetness. This is a blue-ribbon pie, for sure. “Baby don't you cry, gonna make a pie
Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle
Baby don’t be blue
Gonna make for you
Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle
Gonna be a pie from the heaven above
Gonna be filled with strawberry love.”
~ Quincy Coleman song from the pie-inspiring film Waitress
(To listen along as you read, open this page in another window.)In 2008, I judged my town’s first-ever peach pie contest. What a kick! The organizers expected local grandmas to appear bearing pies oozing peach juice, filling the air with the scents of cinnamon and nutmeg and hmm, would anyone choose a pinch of ginger? Instead, there were seven entries, including yes, a nice grandma or two. But then the young pie bakers arrived. A mother-daughter team was inspired by the movie Wai…