Monday Miscellany

I couldn't get it together yesterday for a Sunday Sundry post, so here I am with some miscellany, a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes.  

There has been minimal sewing going on, because other things have taken priority.  Final Christmas shopping and other retail therapy, for one.  Work, for another.  I did buy a sewing aid, of sorts, while I was shopping—a new pair of bifocals.  My other pair seemed to be a little weak.  So I indulged what there is of my girly-girl-ness with some ruby red, swirly star embellished jobs.

The only sewing that has occurred lately has been of the mending or altering variety.  I know, boring but necessary.  I fixed a pair of pants for Pa, and then I let the hems down on three new pairs of "ultra tall" jeans/slacks.  Yep, I had to let it all out, even on those.  Gangly would be an understatement.

 Greta Von Riding Crop still wants to know

if you've been naughty or nice.

Also?  She knows from gangly.

Also too?  She would like 

something red for Christmas.

Hey, who likes fruitcake?  You know what, I do!  Or at least, I used to back when I could eat my mom's homemade fruitcake, which was the bomb, and I'm not talking about what it felt like in my stomach after I ate it.  No, not the sickly-sweet brick with neon green candied cherries not found in nature.  I'm talking about just a good, dense, fruit and nut inspired cake. The kind you eat a small slice of at a time with a steaming cup of coffee.

As you may know, I have been trying to stay on track with my diet (no gluten, no dairy, no refined sugar), but my craving gave way to caving this past week and I broke down and baked.  I can't call it a fruitcake, really, but I can call it good.  It is a minimally sweetened, dense, flavorful cake that seemed to hit all the right buttons.

I started with a gluten-free zucchini bread recipe and added a few other things.  Here is how it came together:

Mix together dry ingredients in a medium bowl:
1 c. teff flour
1/4 c. sorghum flour
1/4 c. brown rice flour
1/4 c. tapioca flour
1/4 c. sweet rice flour
2 t. xanthan gum
1 t. cinnamon
2 pieces of crystallized ginger, chopped fine
2 t. baking powder
1 t. egg replacer

In mixing bowl, mix together:
2 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. melted coconut oil
1/3 c. freshly squeezed orange juice 
Grated lemon zest (of about 1/2 lemon)
1 c. grated yellow summer squash
1/2 c. pumpkin puree

Add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined.  If necessary, add 1/4 c. water (or more orange juice ~ or even rum, maybe?) until mixture is the consistency of thick cake batter.  Stir in about 1/2 c. dark chocolate chips and 1/2 to 3/4 c. chopped walnuts.  Spoon batter into a greased and floured (with rice flour) Bundt pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.  Cool for 10 minutes, then invert and remove from pan to continue cooling.  Slice when fully cool.   

And here is where I wish I had taken a photo of the result.  I suppose I could break out the hunk I froze for sharing later, but between you and me, I feel safer with it stashed away in the freezer while I try to recover my willpower.  It looked a lot like this though.  This is the basic zucchini bread that I've made in the past.  Just imagine it studded with chocolate chips and not quite so green with zucchini.

I've been listening to a German musical artist named Clueso lately, whom I discovered by happenstance while perusing YouTube.  I don't pretend to know what he's saying, except for the simplest words, but I like the music a lot, which transcends translation.  The gist of this song is that he doesn't want any more space, not a single centimeter, between he and his love, "ein Fleck ohne Kontur," or a spot without shape, to put it rather poetically.