While you were out...

Jake and I went to a wedding in Pittsburgh this weekend. We left on Friday and returned Monday night. On Tuesday morning, when I went out to my garden, still in my pajamas, I made the following beautiful discoveries:

Two baby delicata squash

Lots of new dahlia blooms

Two huge zucchinis

The biggest zucchini in the picture above weighed 2 1/2 pounds! Just to put that in perspective, the small zucchini in the picture was about the size of an average zucchini, weighing just under 1/2 a pound. While I love this picture of this morning's harvest, I didn't think it accurately showed just how big those zucchinis were, so I had to take one more:

Wondering how I know how much they weigh? I've got Jake's kitchen scale and I'm discovering that it is a pretty handy kitchen tool to have. Many recipes, like the ones I love in Local Flavors and Super Natural Cooking, call for certain amounts of vegetables by weight, rather than cups. The scale allows me to weigh the vegetables I pick from my garden to see if I'm using the amount that it calls for. 

I officially crossed over to the food-nerd world this morning when I weighed out the flour I needed for the bread I was making. Until today, I had been scoping and leveling the flour I used. This strategy works just fine, but I keep getting the message from multiple sources (i.e. Nancy Baggett from Kneadlessly Simple, Molly Wizenberg from A Homemade Life) that weighing your flour is the way to go. So, today I gave it a whirl. I actually tested out the method by weighing one cup that had been scoped and leveled. According to the Kneadlessly Simple Bread book, 1 cup of flour is equal to 5 ounces. When I weighed my scoped and leveled cup, I discovered that it was a little under! Not by much, but when baking, a little of anything goes a long way. I think either way, my baked goods would turn out just fine, but as long I have Jake's scale in my possession, I think I'll keep baking the foodie way.