Dana Marie's Country Living Blog

Here's my recipe for orange zucchini bread. I like to dress it up with an orange-flavored cream cheese frosting and some fresh orange slices. You can freeze the loaves for up to 3 months, and you can also freeze the frosting. It's nice to have it already made when you pull a loaf of the bread out of the freezer. Enjoy! ~Dana Orange Zucchini Bread Ingredients 3 eggs 2 cups granulated sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon vanilla extract juice and zest from 1 orange 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 2 cups grated zucchini Makes 2 loaves Instructions 1 . In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, oil, vanilla, orange juice and zest. 2 . In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Add this to the wet ingredients, one cup at a time until combined. 3 . Grate your zucchini onto a thick pile of paper towels or a clean tea towel. Squeeze as much liquid out of the zucchini as you can. Fold it into the cake batter and mix it in ...

It's that time of year when everyone has an abundance of zucchini, so I have been in the kitchen all day making zucchini bread , cupcakes and zucchini garlic bites. Fresh from the garden For me, it's the best way to use them up because you can freeze the loaves, cakes, etc. It's so nice later in the year to just go to the freezer and grab something to eat!  The first recipe I'll be sharing is my Zucchini Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. So good!! ~Dana Zucchini Cupcakes Ingredients 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup dark brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/3 cup vegetable oil 2 eggs 1-1/2 cups grated zucchini Instructions 1 . Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. 2 . In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugars, vanilla, oil and eggs. 3 . Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, one cup at a time until well mixed. 4 . Grate your zuc...

The feeling of autumn is in the air where I live in Washington State, which puts me in the mood for getting back into the kitchen. With the summers being as hot as they are, I don't cook or bake much. I stick mainly to salads and fruit. While I was lying in bed the other morning for whatever reason, I was thinking about fall recipes and what sounded good. This is what I came up with. It turned out so delicious! I decided to give it an autumn name, but this recipe would be good anytime. If you are not ready to think of fall yet, be sure to save this recipe for when you are ready. I also highly recommend that you use the biscuit recipe by itself when you want to serve biscuits with your dinner. They taste great with a dollop of butter on top. Enjoy! ~Dana Autumn Biscuits with Turkey Filling Biscuit Ingredients 4 to 5 large mushrooms, chopped fine 8 bacon strips, chopped 1/4 cup finely chopped celery 1/4 cup finely chopped carrots 1/4 cup chopped onion 2 cups bread flour 2 teaspoons b...

Cooking up your own fruit syrups makes the kitchen smell soooo good! You can use them as concentrates for fruit drinks, on top of vanilla ice cream, or on your pancakes. They last up to a couple of weeks in the refrigerator and about 3 to 4 months in the freezer. To use these syrups for making drinks, mix about 1/4 cup of the syrup with cold water to make a full glass. With ice it's delicious! All three flavors!  And if you're using yummy fruit, don't throw it away after you have cooked it down in the syrup. It makes a great topping for ice cream, and you can also use it as a filling between cake layers. The swing-top bail bottles I like to use can be bought online or at dollar stores, and they are perfect. I love them! For the cute labels, there are free printables on Pinterest®. I just use regular printer paper to print them out, and then I glue them on the bottles with a glue stick. It works great, because when you go to wash the bottle it comes right off after running i...

I want to share what you can do if you decide you want to make a batch of cookies but open the fridge and realize you are out of eggs. To replace the eggs, add a nut butter or applesauce to your cookie recipe.   For example, my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe already has 1/2 cup of peanut butter in it, so you can add another 1/2 cup of peanut butter to total 1 cup overall. They come out great, but with a texture all their own - a little more crumbly and with a kind of a melt-in-your-mouth feature. I quite like them.   Another example is oatmeal cookies. Instead of the egg you can add a cup of applesauce. And again, they turn out great.   Oatmeal Cookies Without Eggs As you can see in the photos, these cookies look great too! This is a tip that didn't make it into my new cookie cookbook coming out shortly, so here are the recipes.    Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Without Eggs   Ingredients 1 cup salted butter, softened 1 cup peanut butter 1...

Homemade crackers are so delicious and taste much better than store bought. I like to serve them with summer sausage, chicken salad, cheese and olives - a small charcuterie, if you will. You can also serve them with a soft cheese spread to take them to another level of yumminess. It's so worth it to make homemade!! Homemade crackers with summer sausage & olives Homemade Crackers   Ingredients 4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons garlic powder 1/2 cup shortening 2-1/2 cups water, room temperature  fresh herbs such as oregano, thyme     rosemary, chives (opt.) fresh-ground Himalayan or sea salt for tops (optional) Everything Bagel seasoning (optional) Instructions 1 . With a pastry cutter or two forks combine the flour, salt, garlic powder and shortening together until the dough resembles small peas. 2 . Slowly add the water and continue to cut through the dough with forks or a pastry cutter. Once it starts coming together, remove the dough from ...