the friday feed: zucchini!

It's that time of year.

Zucchini...it's full-force producing! 

Last weekend, August 8, was Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day, a playful, unofficial holiday inspired by gardeners with an overabundance of summer squash. The idea is simple: covertly leave some of your extra zucchini on a neighbor’s doorstep and let them figure out what to do with it.

My neighbor has shared quite a bit of zucchini from her garden, and so far, I have managed to use every one she has gifted. We were traveling home from Ocean City on August 8, and she was kind enough not to leave any zucchini on our doorstep. But there was a plot twist waiting in my own garden. A small zucchini on my plant had grown into a huge squash during the week we were away.

Zucchini-zilla.

I put that enormous squash to good use, making three different dishes and freezing some for future meals. It was a delicious reminder of just how versatile zucchini can be.

Zucchini fritters: First, I salted the shredded zucchini and squeezed out as much moisture as possible. To help keep the fritters crispy and add a little extra flavor, I mixed in Parmesan cheese. They turned out really tasty.

Stir-fried vegetables: Next, I used some of the zucchini in a stir-fried vegetable medley seasoned with sun-dried tomato oil and a little salt. Stir-fries are quick, easy, and so flexible. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand, toss them into a pan, add a favorite sauce or flavored oil, and voilà!

Zucchini soup: The final dish was zucchini soup, and thanks to spinach and cilantro, it was very green. This was a hot soup, which I was actually glad about. Because of the cyclosporiasis outbreak, I wanted to make sure the spinach and cilantro were cooked to at least 160°F, so I used my candy thermometer to check the broth temperature. The soup was delicious, especially topped with shredded Parmesan and roasted cherry tomatoes.

From crispy fritters to a quick stir-fry to a bowl of very green soup, zucchini can take on an impressive number of roles in the kitchen. It can be shredded, sautéed, simmered, frozen, or added to countless other dishes. So if zucchini arrives anonymously on your porch or grows into a garden giant while you’re away, there are plenty of ways to put it to good use. Zucchini-zilla was enormous and its culinary possibilities were even bigger!

signs of autumn

It’s mid-August, and the first signs of fall are beginning to creep into the landscape. This tree is a perfect example, half red and half green. Both colors are vibrant, but soon the green will give way to brilliant shades of red, and the tree will be transformed to its autumn glory.

My coneflowers are also showing signs of the season changing. Their petals are fading and falling, leaving behind seeds that the goldfinches have discovered. I’ve tried many times to capture a photo of the little finches perched on top of the flowers, but they do have a sixth sense about my camera. Just as I get close enough for what I hope would be a perfect shot, they fly away.

There’s something beautiful about these small changes. Summer isn’t quite finished, but fall is quietly announcing its arrival with its subtle color changes.

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

The last beach day in Ocean City. Both Owen and Hallie loved playing in the ocean. The bigger the wave, the bigger the smiles.

One last photo of the Cleveland crew before they headed to Somerset, PA to spend the night. With the weekend beach traffic, their drive took two hours longer than planned. 

It took us a while to reach the Bay Bridge, too. As we approached Annapolis, Todd said, "Let's stop somewhere for lunch." Yes! We ended up at McGarvey's in the Colonial Historic District and I couldn't leave Maryland without having one of McGarvey's jumbo-lump Chesapeake crab cakes. It was all crab meat and seasoning. So fresh and tasty. The real deal. Midwestern crab cakes have too much filling.

As we drove into the Historic District, we drove past the Naval Academy and saw a lot of young men and women in white uniforms with their parents. We found out that it was Plebe Parents' Weekend. The Naval Academy Plebes had been in their six-week indoctrination period and were now allowed off campus before the academic year begins.

We took a stroll around the neighborhood. The historic homes have been beautifully maintained. This is a place we would like to visit again. The East Coast is so full of history. It's where our country began.

Back home for a pumpkin update. Four nice-sized pumpkins are in my yard. These vines are on their way out, the pumpkins are ready to be picked, and a few new vines are showing up. Unexpected fun!

With my empty, clean refrigerator my first trip for filling it was out to the farm. In the week that we were away, the sunflower field burst into bloom. The first planting is on its way out and the second planting is filled with tall blooms reaching to the sky. 

Monarch butterflies are beginning their migration. The sunflower and zinnia gardens are the perfect place for them to find some nourishment and take a rest.

Severe storms are moving through Ohio and the Miami Valley this week. Yesterday Dayton received 2.07 inches of rain. According to the National Weather Service, this rainfall set a new daily record for the date, breaking the previous record of 1.86 inches set back in 1915. We're going to have a lot of rain all week long.

walk it out

Now that vacation is over, it's back to real life.

The car shopping has started, and I am overwhelmed. I am not a car person, and some of this car-speak is a foreign language to me. Todd keeps asking, “What do you think about this car?” or “What about this one?”

I DON’T KNOW!

Then, Monday morning, we had a new front door installed.

It was the wrong color.

Todd went round and round with the higher-ups, explaining that it was not the color the salesperson had represented to us. In the end, it worked out. We’re getting a new door in the correct color at no charge.

But in the meantime, the question, “Are you sure you don’t like this door?” kept coming up.

I DON’T LIKE IT!

After dinner, I was a ball of stress. Todd was cutting the grass, and I needed to get away from the house.

Time for a walk.

A couple of houses down from mine, I could already feel myself relaxing. The rhythm of one foot in front of the other. A four-count breath in time with my steps. I was physically walking away from the stress.

And then I began to notice.

The buzz of the cicadas.

The sounds of children playing on their next-to-last day before the new school year begins.

Cars accelerating as they made their way up the hill on David Road.

The cloud formations.

The occasional breeze.

Summer flowers beginning to lose their vibrancy from the heat and with the approach of autumn.

Car shopping and the color of the door disappeared from my mind.

And when I got home, those big thoughts that had taken over my brain didn’t come rushing back.

That one hour walk around the neighborhood was all the therapy I needed.

monday's mulling: does this happen to you?

Last week we vacationed with our son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren and stayed in an Airbnb. Andrew, Jen, and the kids traveled from Cleveland, we traveled from Dayton, and met in Ocean City, Maryland.

Traveling with little ones fills a car quickly. For our stay in the Airbnb, we had to supply the sheets and bath towels and I told the kids not to worry about those items. We packed those along with a variety of supplies from home: laundry detergent, dish soap, dishwasher detergent, plastic storage bags, aluminum foil, paper towels, dinner napkins, and a big cooler for beach days. Bringing those things meant fewer items to buy once we arrived and went grocery shopping. Our car was full, but not packed to the gills like Andrew and Jen’s!

We arrived home Saturday afternoon around 3:00 p.m. Todd promptly began unloading the car and I promptly began unpacking. Apparently, the post-road-trip adrenaline was running strong because I launched right into six loads of laundry: sheets, towels, and dirty clothes. 

While doing laundry, I started a grocery list. The week before vacation I made sure to use up the perishables. All those open shelves and drawers showed every speck of food residue that had spilled. It was the perfect time to clean the fridge.

Back to the laundry. All those clean, folded sheets and towels led to a little assessment of the linen closet. And this “assessment,” led to emptying the entire thing. 

By Sunday morning, the reorganization was underway. I found quite a collection of old towels, which moved to a basket in the laundry room to become our new cleaning-rag supply. I also found things to donate and rearranged the remaining “stuff.”

And now... there’s space in the linen closet!

Vacation is over. The laundry is done. The linen closet has been conquered. The refrigerator sparkles. And now, I’m finally sitting down to finish the grocery list.

the importance of proofreading

A missing letter can turn a perfectly good sentence into a very memorable advertisement.

Proofread. Then proofread again. Because sometimes the smallest typo is the thing everyone notices.

 

the friday feed: orange crush (the adult version 🧡)

As a child, I loved Orange Crush, the carbonated soft drink with its sweet, tangy, bold citrus flavor.

This past week while vacationing in Maryland, we went out to dinner a couple of evenings. On both nights, I noticed an Orange Crush on the adult drink menu. After a day of pool and beach time with the grandkids, an adult version of that familiar orange flavor sounded refreshing.

This Orange Crush is definitely more adult than the one I remembered as a child. It’s a popular Maryland beach cocktail made with orange vodka, triple sec, freshly squeezed orange juice, and Sprite, served over crushed ice. It was a very refreshing drink after a day in the sun.

This drink was invented in 1995 at Harborside Bar & Grill in Ocean City and was officially designated Maryland’s state cocktail in June 2025.

From the soda I enjoyed as a kid to the cocktail I discovered on a Maryland beach vacation as a grandma, the Orange Crush turned out to be a refreshing little taste of nostalgia.