Dark and green

What's dark and green and intensely chocolate all over?

This one-egg chocolate zucchini cake, which used some of our last zucchini harvest. Moist, tender, and deeply chocky. The grated zucchini melds with the chocolate and the batter so that you won't even see it after!

There are loads of zucchini cake and zuke&chocolate cake recipes on the Web and I based mine on that motherlode of information -- with one change: I was sure with that much zucchini in the batter you wouldn't need two eggs. And I was right.



One-egg chocolate and zucchini cake
Makes 3 loaves if you use 8x4 pans; also excellent as muffins

1 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup yogurt or buttermilk
2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium), most of the water squeezed out
About 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour your baking pans. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Beat sugar, butter and oil in large bowl until well blended. Add the egg and beat well. Beat in vanilla extract. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with yogurt or buttermilk in 3 additions each. Mix in grated zucchini, chocolate chips and nuts. Pour batter into prepared pan.* (You can also sprinkle more chocolate chips and nuts over the cake before sticking it into the oven).

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool cake completely in pan.

*Tip: Try to get the nuts and chips to the sides of the batter. I didn't do it this time but this extra step will increase the oohhh factor!

PS I know, I know. There are pumpkins in the background again. They're from our garden, a dwarf variety that probably is good only for show. I am excitedly waiting for true pumpkins to arrive in the market. Next year, H and I plan to have a real pumpkin patch.

Plum coffeecake

We had some plums (the prune plum kind) that were past their best and demanded to be used. They became the centerpiece of this easy to make coffeecake, which shows off their juicy, tart sweetness beautifully. I loved eating this cake -- each chunk consisting of comforting cake, sweet-crunchy streusel, and the juicy baked-up plums.

Behind the photo you can see the remaining plums, and a couple of the dwarf pumpkins that we harvested last week.

Recipe inspired by this.

Plum coffeecake with streusel

For streusel
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

For cake batter
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

8 plums, halved and pitted
Optional: confectioners' sugar for sifting over cake

Preheat oven to 350°F. and butter and flour a 9-inch round or square baking pan at least 2 inches deep.

Combine streusel ingredients and process in a food processor (or do it by hand) until combined well and crumbly.

Make cake batter: With an electric mixer beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, and vanilla. Sift in flour with baking powder and salt and beat until just combined.

Spread cake batter in pan, smoothing top. Arrange plum slices over it, slightly overlapping them. Sprinkle streusel over the cake and bake in the middle of oven 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool cake slightly on a rack and sift confectioners' sugar over it, if using. Serve coffeecake warm or at room temperature.

Late summer walk

This is where H and his friend M run, most Saturdays. I joined them last Saturday for a bit of fresh air. Normally I would have loved to take Patsy but having a dog makes it a bit complicated to find a suitable coffee shop after the run/walk.

As far as I can tell the dike/park is named after a local official. To go by the inscription on one of the memorial benches lining the running path, Jerry Sulina died relatively young, before he was 60. The dike walk is part of the Blue Heron Loop which in turn is part of the Trans Canada Trail.



The Loop runs along the North and South Alouette Rivers through some wetlands, so there is plenty of bird and wildlife to be seen.









This was one of the first places in the area I visited soon after I met H. In the summer the ponds are alive with ducks and frogs, and you can see various birds flitting from tree to tree. With autumn coming it's a bit quieter, but the air is so much cooler and fresher it is a joy to be out on a fine cool morning, walking with H and occasionally breaking into a run (Ahem!)



There are farms and houses bordering the walkway and it's fun to watch the chickens that sometimes come running when you pass by.





Back at home the sunflowers are ginormous. They're pretty much the last hurrah of this glorious summer.



There is a blue flower that recently started blooming in the front yard, delicate and lovely.



The tomato leaves are brown and drooping and aren't putting forth any new fruit.



The zucchini made a prodigious effort and gave us a foot-and-a-half long zuke last week. But today, just two new ones. However, I enjoy looking at the dwarf pumpkins that have come up, they're so teensy they are probably best reserved for our autumnal interior decor. The news in BC is some of the pumpkin harvests are early so that explains why these ones turned orange so soon.



A snap of H with his inevitable cup of coffee. These coffee mugs occasionally litter the garden because he likes walking around with a cup. Then he sets it down and forgets to retrieve it, which is why we sometimes don't have enough cups to go around. Darling man (grrr)!



Ah, fall. The season has turned. We are wearing more layers now and the sky gives us more overcast, drizzly days than not. My thoughts are turning to pecan pies and warm sweet cobblers, fleecy bed linens and cosy woolen blazers, my adored boots collection and scarves and mufflers.

Today is Labor Day. H has to work, the house is quiet and the gardens are...kind of muffled, waiting, quiescent. H tells me this is the first time he has had a real (i.e. planned) garden. We have had a magnificent summer harvest. Scratch that, we've had a magnificent summer. Full stop. Long, golden, baking hot summer days and glorious ease. Time now for the mellow, brisk days of September and October.