zucchini cheddar biscuits!

do yourself a favor....and make these today.  I came across the recipe through thepioneerwoman.com, which led me to tastykitchen.com, which led me to acozykitchen.com.  They looked yummy and I was in an odd mood to bake, and had 2 zucchinis to do something with.  So if you like Red Lobster's biscuits, and who doesn't...so if you are a true blooded American, make these today :)

first you'll need to shred/grate up about 1 cup of zucchini, which is basically one larger sized zucchini.
Zucchini is a glorious food, it can be sauteed, fried, grilled, baked, mashed, shredded, stripped, sliced...ANYTHING!
anyways...back to this....

after you shred the zucchini place it into a cheesecloth and squeeze the juices out of it.  There is a lot of juice in those babies!  Place them aside and sprinkle 1/2 tsp of salt and a dash of flour over them.  Make sure they are dry or the world will indeed end.
Next you'll want to realize that your infant son smells ripe and change his diaper.  It's nasty so you'll need to wash your hands too.  Then get totally pre-occupied in following this recipe and watching your baby, and waking up your toddler because if she sleeps too long she'll never go to bed tonight, and take no more pictures of the mixing process like you had planned on doing because WAHLAH!  They are done!

easiest recipe EVER right?!
 ok but no really the whole recipe is taken from this site...
I made some slight changes shown below...
http://acozykitchen.com/

Makes 15 biscuits

1 cup zucchini, shredded (about 1 large zucchini)
2 teaspoons salt, divided
1 cup grated cheddar
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 stick butter, warm and cubed
1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).

Shred the zucchini. Using a cheese cloth, add the zucchini to the center and squeeze all of the excess water out. Transfer to a small bowl and add 1/2 teaspoon salt and a dash of flour. Mix and let stand for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt. Working quickly, add the cubed butter and break up with your hands until they’re the size of small peas.
Add the milk, zucchini and cheddar until moistened. Drop batter, using two tablespoons, on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Serve warm with pat of butter.

I made 2 pans worth at one time and i think it took closer to 20 mins for mine to bake up....so just watch 'em!

sneak peak behind the camera

alright here is a peak behind my lens.  The picture of Kenzie that i got yesterday wasn't exactly one that I had time to focus on and compose correctly since Xander was about to walk into our neighbors yard and Kenzie only looks at me for about .126937309 seconds.  I snapped the photo right as she looked at me and it captured her eyes in their gorgeousness well enough, but it just wasn't quite what i wanted.  So here is a before and after edits.

I cropped to the rule of thirds to focus on her eyes.  Then I upped the exposure a little.  I tinted the grass behind her with some slight orange and brightened it up so it sorta faded into the background.  After that I exposed the entire photo slightly more and brought up Kenzie's skin tone so that her skin wasn't washed out.  Then I tinted everything with a light red to give it the ethereal feel.  Once that was done i fixed the focus onto her face and blurred everything else ever so slightly.  So hopefully the pic doesn't look over editted, but there is definitely some work behind the scenes. I normally try to do more of this before I even take the photo but with these two movers and scooters, who has time!? 

:::sigh:::

I haven't taken any really GOOD pictures of my children in a while.  This was brought even more to my attention by my dad...I know i know....you come here to see the kids.  LOL.  So i decided ok, i can do this...no problem.  With Alexander walking now i figured it would be easy to get a few cute shots of him and his sister without having to pull grass and leaves out of his hands.  I was wrong.  I was very very wrong.  With walking being so new to Xander he has to explore anything and everything.  It's like the boy has never been outside of the living room and thus he must explore everything like it's a newly discovered planet.  This child...i swear he is going to give me a run for my money.  Kenzie as usual never looks at the camera.  She will smile and say cheese and look up, down, left, right, but NEVER at me.  When she does...it's a fluke.  So needless to say the session was a major FAIL. 

MOM! LOOK AT THIS NEW AND FASCINATING CREATURE THAT I HAVE NEVER SEEN EVERY DAY BEFORE!  IT IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND THUS I MUST EXPLORE FURTHER!!!

I did get one good one of Kenz.  So until I can have someone on 'posing' duty and I can just snap pictures...this is the best I could do.