My Little Gourmet

Last week I attempted to ignore celebrated my 30th Birthday. 🙂 Actually, it was a good day and I am really thankful for all of the great people in my life. Yes, the majority of those people are halfway across the world, but still I am thankful that they are somehow in my life. The very best present I received that day though, came from my little guy. In order to explain this amazing present we are going to have to rewind a little and go back a few months. If you are reading this and don’t have any children, may I suggest going on to the recipe portion of this post…there is about to be a lot of potty talk. 🙂 No, not that kind of potty talk, I mean actual talk of the potty.

So, a couple of months ago (feels more like years) I started potty training Arik.  I hadn’t planned on starting this early on, but he was giving me some of the signs of being ready, so I thought, why not. Things were going great and we got so far as to no longer wearing diapers during the day. The only problem was, I had to constantly tell him to go to the bathroom because he would never let me know when he had to go. And this is where we got stuck….

After numerous weeks of the same old “Arik, do you need to pipi?”, “No”, followed by much fidgeting, “ARIK, do you need to PEE?”, “NO!”, “Alright, just let me know when you do”, “Mom, pipi” as a puddle starts to form around his feet. To top it off, we had to go somewhere for a week, which included a 5 hour road trip. I ended up just putting him in diapers for this because I knew my nerves would not be able to handle it. As soon as we got home, I went back to no diaper and it was as if we were starting at the beginning again. I was really close to just giving up and trying again a few months down the road, but something inside me just couldn’t throw in the towel. So I started the whole process over. And then, a few days later, my birthday came…

The day started as usual; I put his underwear on him and said (like I always did), “Now remember, you only have underwear on so be sure to tell me when you have to go potty”, and I got the usual response “yeah, yeah”.  After about an hour, I hear, “Mama pipi” and I immediately run over to start cleaning up the mess…but there wasn’t one. So I take him to the bathroom, still a little confused about what is going on, and low and behold he pees in the potty. This, of course, was followed by about 10 minutes of cheering, hugging and clapping. A few hours later he did the exact same thing. I didn’t think I would ever be saying this about pee, but it was pretty much the greatest present ever for this mama. Now, about a week later, we are without diapers during the day and have had no puddles on the floor. And, this, my friends, needs to be celebrated with some Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars…

*Update: I wrote this post yesterday and Arik must have been aware of this because just this morning he decided to wet his pants…not once, but twice. I don’t care, I’m still eating those bars…

He ate his bar so fast that I could only get some pictures of the aftermath. I’m thinking he likes them. 🙂

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

45 mins

 

Ingredients

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars:

• ½ cup/100g sugar
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup/240 ml applesauce, unsweetened
• 1 ripe banana, mashed well
• 2 cups/280 g all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 medium zucchini, shredded finely (makes about 1¼ cup)
• ½ cup/75 g semisweet chocolate chips

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 6 oz./175 g cream cheese
• 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars:

1. Preheat the oven to 350℉/175℃.
2. Grease a 9 x 13 in baking dish and place a piece of parchment paper on the bottom.
3. Place sugar, oil and eggs in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on low speed until well-blended.
4. Stir in the applesauce and mashed banana.
5. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir well with a whisk until combined.
6. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, beating just until combined and moist.
7. Stir in the shredded zucchini and chocolate chips.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake in pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
9. Allow bars to cool and top with the frosting (if desired).

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:

1. Combine ingredients in a medium bowl and beat with a mixer until smooth and creamy. Add as much or as little sugar until desired taste and texture is achieved. Spread onto the cooled bars.

Notes

As you can see, I use very little sugar in my frosting, so if you like it sweet be sure to add more until the desired sweetness is reached.

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