Bouquets and Bundt Cake

Good thing I woke up before six this morning, because despite having sessions, today turned into quite the productive day with two “firsts.” Earlier this week, David’s mom let me know that a friend of hers who was organizing a memorial service for their mutual friend would love for me to provide bouquets for the memorial service. Apparently, their friend was a huge gardener, and she never liked purchased flowers — only those fresh from the garden and a bit wild.

After doing a vase drop off on Monday, we made arrangements for a 2:30 bouquet pickup today. I felt quite honored to be part of a memorial service for someone I’d never met, and being able to provide the gift of flowers always makes me so happy. My garden’s not just about the food, although I gave away a huge amount of that earlier this week, too. Can you say, “Produce explosion”? I can and did, calling non-gardening friends, and my mulch and cardboard deliverers to come pick up bags of their favorite fruits and veggies.

But today was flower day:

 

All packed up and ready to go:

Meanwhile, after a dinner of spiralized white scallop squash and garden fresh pesto with Black Cherokee heirloom tomatoes, another meal of curried white scallop squash soup, 16 cups of shredded squash now frozen, many given away and many more on the bush, I still have shredded white scallop squash to use. We have a neighborhood picnic on Saturday, so guess what’s in the “Brown Sugar Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread”? If you guessed none of the above, you’d be right. Oh, and I didn’t use an oven either. Well, not a normal one. I used my Sun Oven.

I took this recipe, which that blogger found here, and proceeded to sub out every single ingredient except the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. It looked and smelled good before baking:

But would it work? I almost never bake, and when I do, it’s only for potlucks or classes, usually with so many substitutions, it’s amazing I continue to consult my phone for the “recipe”! For those particularly interested in how I made this original recipe gluten-free vegan with half the sugar, here’s what I did:

I subbed white scallop squash (an ancient ancient Native American heirloom) for zucchini — not necessary, but it’s what I have. I will continue to grow this instead of zucchini, too. Way, way tastier and pretty!

I subbed Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour for the whole wheat flour.

Coconut oil for room temperature butter.

Olive oil for vegetable oil.

Half birch sweetener and half organic cane sugar, plus a tablespoon of molasses for brown sugar.

Ener-G Egg Replacer for the egg.

Two drops of citrus blend essential oils for the lemon zest. (I had lemon from our Meyer lemon tree, but, yes, I was too lazy to zest it.)

Real Salt for the salt.

1/2 pecans, 1/2 walnuts for the walnuts, because I ran out of walnuts.

Oh, and I doubled the recipe and put it in the bundt pan, as per the Sun Oven adaptation. My first bundt pan experience, btw. I begged it off David’s sister when she went through their mom’s kitchen supplies, because I had a feeling I’d use it sometime for a Wheel of the Year celebration. Or a potluck. 🙂

Sooooo, did it work?

Uh-huh! Here it is baked and turned over:

I actually finished it for about 10 minutes in our convection oven to brown the top once I flipped it over and let it cool. I had sessions this afternoon and thus took it out of the Sun Oven a bit prematurely. They say you can’t burn anything in a Sun Oven, but some charred gf vegan brownies spoke otherwise. If I hadn’t been on the phone this afternoon, I could have flipped it over and babysat it to desired brown in the Sun Oven. It was just easier to finish it off inside rather than running back and forth during my little breaks.

Besides, I had a pot of soaked garbanzo beans waiting for their turn, because in addition to white scallop squash bundt bread, we’re also bringing chick pea “zucchini” “burgers” to the potluck. And pickles. Basically, we’re in curcubit heaven here. We’ve got cantaloupe, watermelon, three types of cucumbers, green striped cushaw squash, and Fairy Tale pumpkins all going gangbusters here. Oh, and did I mention we’ve got a bumper crop of white scallop squash?!

If you live in Goshen or Elkhart and you need squash, don’t be shy. 🙂