Friday DIY- Yummy Choclate Chip Zucchini Bread!

Wow it's been awhile since my last post! Since then i got a new job, had my booth over at Greenfest Philly and helped out with my friend Tiffany's (she has a company called RePlayGround) recycled crafts booth among other things keeping me super busy. : )

My new part time job is pretty exciting, I'm working for the 400 Showroom. It's a showroom for several really great sustainable clothing and accessories designers including Bahar Shaphar (one of my bosses :) ), Del Forte, Lara Miller and Ashley Watson just to name a few. I mostly work with the materials library so I get to find out about how all these amazing sustainable textiles are made, including some really innovative materials such as Ingeo and Milkofil. This weekend we're getting ready for D&A so it's been ca-razy busy over there.

Oh and in other news, I'm trying make a shift to being vegetarian. It started out as a bet with my boyfriend to see who could go the longest without eating meat. It wasn't quite fair because he went to visit his mom and grandma three days after we started and his grandma (abuelita Goya :) ) cooks some amazing and meaty dishes. So he lost right away. I haven't had the chance to visit them in awhile, I know when I do it'll be tough to pass up her awesome lomo saltado!



So anyway, let's get to this week's Friday DIY: Choclate Chip Zucchini Bread!


I got this recipe through a link on lime.com.





Ingredients

* 3/4 cup sugar
* 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 2 large eggs
* 1 cup applesauce
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
* 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 cups finely shredded zucchini (about 1 medium)
* 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
* Cooking spray




Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at low speed until well blended. Stir in applesauce.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 4 ingredients (through salt), stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture, beating just until moist. Stir in the zucchini and chocolate chips. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out almost clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, and remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.





































Nutritional Information

Calories: 161 (29% from fat) Fat: 5.1g (sat 1.6g,mono 1.4g,poly 1.7g) Protein: 2.9g
Carbohydrate: 27.3g Fiber: 1.4g Cholesterol: 27mg Iron: 1.2mg Sodium: 145mg Calcium: 12mg

Yield
16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

Friday DIY- Spring Cleaning!

It's a beautiful spring day today in Brooklyn! : ) and it's my birthday! yay!

anyways, lately I'v been cleaning my apt like crazy, so I felt it was appropriate to to do a DIY cleaning blog. I've been trying out recipes for eco-friendly cleaning substances, because what good does a cleaning spree do ya if your house ends up smelling like clorox in the end? It just seems counter-productive to use something as unhealthy as bleach to "clean" up.

I found this website: http://www.ecocycle.org/hazwaste/recipes.cfm and it's full of recipes for eco-friendly cleaning stuff. Here's the recipes I've tried so far:


Drain Declogger
Pour together:
¼ c baking soda down the drain, followed by
½ c. vinegar
Cover drain and let sit for 15 minutes. Follow with 2 qts. boiling water.

Mildew Remover
Dissolve together: ½ c, vinegar
½ c. borax in warm water.
Apply with sponge or spray bottle.

I kept an eye out for borax and didn't happen to find any until I popped into a Met grocery store the other day.

I was most impressed with the the drain declogger. It worked just as well as regular draino and definately better than the CVS-brand rip off of draino I tried awhile ago.

The mildew remover recipe worked pretty well, I tried it on my shower curtain. I think I'll have to give it one more go for it to be really completely clean. On the plus side, it always takes awhile to scrub the whole curtain and I tend to get whatever cleaner I use for that all over myself and the entire bathroom, so it was a much pleasanter experience to be covered in vinegar, borax and water than the usual nasty chemicals.







...and now for something completely different. I cranked out a few new stud earrings, this time using a leftover netted fabric. I like how the yellow ones came out because the texture reminds me of honeycomb.