Zucchini - Fruit or Vegetable?

While the answer I was seeking in last week's poll was zucchini, I was reminded by a friend that botanists would classify zucchini and green beans as fruit, not as vegetables. The only actual vegetable on the list was arugula... so if you answered arugula you were also correct (I've never tried to make a tea bread with arugula, but it might be quite tasty).

That, of course, led me to wonder why there is a disconnect between culinarians and botanists over what goes into the vegetable category. For a botanist zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, green beans, etc. are fruits because they are part of the reproductive process of the plant. Culinarians seem to be okay with calling things that grow on trees and bushes fruits, but most things that grow on vines or ground plants we call vegetables (well, except for grapes and berries). We also think of sweetness as part of our fruit vs vegetable classification. We consider the sweeter ones fruit... but then what about vine-ripened tomatoes? Oh well, making sense of it seems pretty hopeless.

Poll Winner
Elda Rudd was last week's winner. I shared the second loaf with this cute little Starlight mouse. Fortunately he didn't eat much. But we did. This is a good recipe, no pineapple, but lots of zucchini and some pecans. I also use a little wheat flour. If you'd like a second chance to win one of these tasty loaves, answer this week's question and email me to let me know that you participated.

Challah Mice
I've been making various pastries with our vegan challah dough in preparation for some upcoming events. The challah mice are yummy. They have a bit of semisweet chocolate inside and a sprinkling of crystalized sugar on top. I'll offer them to you as well this week. They look very cute perched on a plate of salad, a cheese plate, or a fruit platter. You never know where one will show up!

Ingredients: Organic unbleached spelt flour, all purpose flour, and bread flour, Bob’s Red Mill egg substitute, soy milk, Earth Balance butter substitute, agave nectar, salt, yeast, chocolate, crystallized sugar, almonds, cloves.

Breads of the Week

Rustic White Bread is our specialty bread this week along with Rosemary Focaccia. This is the bread made with an added wild yeast starter to increase flavor.

Rustic White Bread Ingredients: Organic bread flour, water, barm (wild yeast starter), yeast, salt.

Rosemary Focaccia Ingredients: Organic flour, yeast, water, olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Prices on this Week's Items

• Rustic White Bread - $5.00
• Rosemary Focaccia- $6.00
• Vegan Challah Mouse with Chocolate Heart - $1.30

Tuesday Pickup
You can pick up your orders from the our kitchen at Crumbs 5392 Hollister on Tuesdays from noon to 5 pm (usually it's 6, but we need to get home in time for the debate). We also offer Tuesday morning delivery to your place of work if that is more convenient. Feel free to stop by for a visit on Tuesday afternoons. We usually have some extra loaves of bread if you suddenly realize you really can't wait another week without a loaf of Starlight bread.

Thanks!
Nancy and Dave Oster, Starlight Bakers

Finding Solace in Chocolate

After listening to far too much news this week, I've decided to buy myself some really good chocolate. If you haven't been there yet, the place to go is Chocolate Maya at 15 W. Gutierrez St (that's down near Santa Barbara Roasting Company). Maya carries local chocolates as well as chocolates from around the world. I'm planning a little chocolate tasting tomorrow night, sharing some origin chocolate (made exclusively from one region) with some friends.

Challah Mice Winner
Last week's winner of 8 challah mice was my friend Laura who won them just in time to share them with her grandchildren this weekend.

This week's poll question will win you a tea bread made with the item in question. Email me when you've selected an answer and I will enter you in our drawing.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies are on the baking schedule for this week. Baked cookies and pre-portioned frozen cookie dough are both available. The portioned cookie dough can be baked one cookie at a time in your toaster oven. My friend Lucy recently had an out-of-town guest who mentioned she was hungry for something sweet in the evening. When she went to bed, she found a plate on her pillow with two freshly-baked Starlight Bakery chocolate chip cookies. Now that's friendship!

Ingredients: Organic unbleached flour, chocolate chips, butter, brown sugar, eggs, cane sugar, walnuts, dried apricots eggs, crystallized ginger, vanilla, baking soda, salt.

Breads
This week's breads will be Rosemary Focaccia and Rosemary Potato Bread.

Rosemary Focaccia: Organic flour, yeast, water, olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Rosemary Potato Bread: Organic unbleached flour, olive oil, water, potato flakes, yeast, fresh rosemary, salt, and pepper.

Prices on This Week's Special Items

• Rosemary Potato Bread - $5.00
• Rosemary Focaccia- $6.00
• 4 Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies - $3.00
• 12 Unbaked Chocolate Chip Cookies - $8.00
  

Tuesday Pickup
You can pick up your orders from the our kitchen at Crumbs 5392 Hollister on Tuesdays from noon to 6 pm. We also offer Tuesday morning delivery to your place of work if that is more convenient. Feel free to stop by for a visit on Tuesday afternoons. I have some carrot cakes and a few other delights you can buy from the freezer.

Thanks,
Nancy and Dave Oster, Starlight Bakers

And the Winners Are!

Yes, the correct answer to our vacation quiz was Cayucos, but the foggiest place on earth and somewhere with no phone were true as well. Jo Duffy and Denise Frey won the two carrot tea loaf cakes we had available this week.

Since I still have a lot of carrots, I think I'll make more carrot tea loaf cakes available this week for anyone who would like to order one. I freeze them and use them when I have friends over or I need a last minute special dessert. I've defrosted them after several months with no apparent loss in quality. The wheat germ, carrots, and pineapple make this a healthy treat... right?

Ingredients: Organic unbleached flour, butter, cream cheese, heavy cream, sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, carrots, pineapple, wheat germ, eggs, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and vanilla.

This Week's Drawing

I've been busy working on vegan breakfast pastries this week. That includes challah mice with chocolate hearts. As you can see, they are taking over my freezer, so I'd like to share some with one lucky winner. Answer the poll on the upper right and email me that you've entered your answer. I'll add you to our drawing for 8 challah mice. (hint: Starlight Mouse Sightings)

We had a friend over for dinner last night. Each of us had a challah mouse sitting on our plate, next to the salad. Challah mice cute and they taste good too! The entry deadline is noon on Monday.

Breads of the Week

Anita's Black Bread and Rosemary Focaccia are this week's offerings. Anita's bread is a hearty flavorful mix of rye, wheat, and white flours with chocolate, coffee, and molasses.

Anita's Black Bread Ingredients: Whole wheat flour, rye flour, bread flour (all flours are organic), raisins, butter, unsweetened chocolate, coffee, molasses, sugar, yeast, fennel seeds, caraway seeds, salt.

Rosemary Focaccia Ingredients: Organic flour, yeast, water, olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Prices on this Week's Items

• Carrot Tea Loaf - $10
• Anita's Black Bread - $5
• Rosemary Focaccia - $6

Email me your order Nancy@StarlightBakery.com by noon on Sunday. Pickup or delivery is on Tuesday.

Thanks and have a good week!

Nancy and Dave Oster, Starlight Bakers

Back from Vacation

Yes, we are home after spending a relaxing five days on the coast. Taking along some Starlight Mice added a bit of whimsy to our trip.

Drawing

This week's drawing will be for a Carrot Tea Loaf. This is a carrot cake baked in a loaf pan. We add a little wheat germ instead of nuts and top it with a lightly sweetened cream cheese frosting. This cake freezes nicely, so you can save it for a special event.

To enter our drawing answer the poll on the upper right of this page. Hint: the answer is in my Starlight Mice blog at http://www.StarlightMice.blogspot.com.

To be entered, you must email me to let me know that you have participated in the poll. We will choose two winners.

Cracked Wheat Bread

Dave plans to make the cracked wheat bread again this week. It has a bit of wild yeast starter in it and a light wheatiness. Last time he made it into baguette shaped breads. This week he will do it as a boule. We ate all the samples before we found the camera last time, so I still don't have a photo. But it will look like this.

Ingredients: Organic whole wheat flour, natural yeast (barm), organic unbleached bread flour, cracked wheat kernels, ground flax seed, agave syrup, canola oil, yeast, salt.

Rosemary Focaccia

We'll also be baking Rosemary Focaccia. This bread is great with eggs for breakfast, soup for lunch, and pasta at dinner.

Ingredients: Organic flour, yeast, water, olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Oatmeal Orange Zest Cookies

I'll be replenishing my stock of Oatmeal Orange Zest Cookies this week. You can buy them baked or unbaked frozen. The frozen cookies are formed and ready to put into the oven or toaster oven one or more cookies at a time.

Ingredients: Organic unbleached flour, butter, raisins, sugar, honey, egg, oatmeal, pecans, cinnamon, vanilla, baking soda, salt, orange zest.


Prices on This Week's Special Items

• Cracked Wheat Bread - $5.00
• Rosemary Focaccia- $6.00
• 4 Baked Oatmeal Orange Zest Cookies - $3.00
• 12 Unbaked Oatmeal Orange Zest Cookies - $8.00
  

Tuesday Pickup
You can pick up your orders from the our kitchen at Crumbs 5392 Hollister on Tuesdays from noon to 6 pm. We also offer Tuesday morning delivery to your place of work if that is more convenient. Feel free to stop by for a visit on Tuesday afternoons... visiting with friends is our favorite part of having the bakery.

Thank you!

Nancy & Dave Oster, Starlight Bakers

Rosemary Mouse Sightings

We are finally on vacation. But reports of Rosemary Mouse sightings are coming in to us by email. To stay up-to-date on the spread of Rosemary Mice throughout the state, check our Rosemary Mouse sightings blog at http://www.StarlightMice.blogspot.com.

Two-Week Break

Our plan at the moment is to take a short break and go somewhere. So we will not offer any special items for the next two weeks. However if we run into some interesting food stories on the road, we'll post them.

This is your chance to diet for a couple of weeks so that you can order something really yummy when we get back.

Speaking of yummy, Carol Carter won this week's apple pie. She was at the bakery in a flash to pick it up. She said she's never won anything... up until now. She emailed me to tell me it was the best apple pie she'd ever eaten in her whole life. Whew, the pressure. Can I ever make one that good again? What exactly did I put in that pie? Oh yeah, it's those apples from Ladybug's apple tree. Our dog Ladybug looks like she weighs 350 pounds after this apple season and now she's picking the fig tree. Sigh.

Kathy's Rosemary Mice

You may recall The Story of the Rosemary Mice I shared a few weeks back from my friend in Ojai. Well guess what? I discovered one sitting on my cutting board this week! I think they are breeding.

Actually, I've been making vegan challah for the co-op (an egg bread without eggs...), and using the scraps to make challah mice, birds, and hedgehogs. This week when Dave and I were forming the Rosemary Potato Bread and Buns, we had some leftover dough so I made Rosemary Mice!

When I made a delivery yesterday to the Breast Cancer Resource Center, they were just putting together a platter of cheese and fruit. We added a Rosemary Mouse. Now who could look at that and not laugh? I can visualize these mice spreading to cheese platters across town.

Since we always have a little dough left when we loaf the breads, we may find our freezer filling up with Swedish Rye mice, Anita's Black Bread mice, Rustic White Bread mice, and Multigrain mice as well as Rosemary mice. Be sure to ask us if you are preparing a cheese platter

Rosemary mice meet to discuss breeding plans.

So off we go to places unknown. Start dieting. We'll see you in two weeks.

Thanks!

Nancy and Dave Oster, Starlight Bakers

Grandmotherhood and Apple Pie

Congratulations to Lucy Thomas and Dale Taylor who won last week's drawing for Starlight Sticky Buns! Both winners left smiling.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm a grandmother?

Well, since my apple tree gave us a crop of sweet tasty apples this year (and I became a grandmother), I'm going to do a drawing this week for one ready-to-bake apple pie. My streusal topping includes homemade almond paste (made with real almonds and no artificial almond flavoring). To enter your name, you must vote in the Starlight cookie poll on the upper right of this page and email me (Nancy@StarlightBakery.com) to let me know you voted.

Your pie can be kept in the freezer until about an hour and a half before baking. Defrost, then put it into a 375 degree oven for about 1-1/2 hours. Our apples are really good this year.

Rosemary Potato Bread or Hamburger Buns

There are two options for our specialty bread this week. You can purchase it as a Rosemary Potato Boule or as hamburger buns. The buns come in groups of 6. We just used the last ones in our freezer so it's time to make more.

Ingredients: Organic flour, potato flakes, olive oil, water, rosemary, pepper, yeast and salt.

Rosemary Focaccia
Our fragrant and lovely Rosemary Focaccia will be available as well.

Ingredients: Organic flour, yeast, water, olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Ready-to-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies
We have a good supply of Chocolate Chip Cookies on hand, so let us know if you need some. My friend Anita had her granddaughter visiting from France this summer. She says her granddaughter enjoyed baking up these cookies for special treats.

Ingredients: Organic unbleached flour, chocolate chips, butter, brown sugar, eggs, cane sugar, walnuts, dried apricots eggs, crystallized ginger, vanilla, baking soda, salt.

Prices on This Week's Special Items

• Rosemary Potato Boule (1 lb) - $5.00
• Rosemary Potato Hamburger Buns (6) - $5.00
• Rosemary Focaccia - $6.00
• 12 Unbaked Chocolate Chip Cookies (what, no Rosemary?) - $8.00
  

We've Added Tuesdays for Pickup!
Now you can pick up your orders from the our kitchen at Crumbs 5392 Hollister on Tuesdays from noon to 6 pm. We will continue to offer Tuesday morning delivery to your place of work if that is more convenient. Feel free to stop by for a visit on Tuesday afternoons... visiting with friends is our favorite part of having the bakery.

Thank you!

Nancy & Dave Oster, Starlight Bakers