This is my first blog post of 2015, so Happy New Year everyone!

Last post I talked about how to strategically write your New Year Resolutions by following some
Psychology tips. Hope you found it somewhat helpful. One of the tips I mentioned was Sharing it with Others. Now you don’t have to share it with everyone in the world, but I want to share it with you all, my readers. The top half is from one of my co-workers, and the bottom part (following “Steph”) are mine.

I’m also going to start a new challenge where I’ll pose a question every post and you can write your answers in the comment section. So here’s the question for today – What are your New Year Resolutions?

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Maintaining Long-Distance Friendships

It’s now 1:30pm. After Skyping with my friend in HK and chatting on the phone with my friend in NYC, I have to buckle down and write my post for today. Which is only fitting because I’m going to write about keeping good long-distance friendships.

There are many reasons why you might end up in a different city as your friend – perhaps you two were originally from different cities but had the opportunity to meet in college, or they moved to a new city for their first job, or started a family somewhere different from yours. Either way, it is a privilege to have long-distance friendships (and people you can talk to 24/7 – best way to deal with insomnia).

My college friend, Jenny, moved to DC after graduation and I am now in Chicago. We’ve took quite the extreme route to try to keep up with each other’s lives, for example, through wine and cheese Skype dates. This time, we both baked Zucchini Muffins together over Skype.

Zucchini is one of the more versatile vegetables I know – you can turn zucchini into pasta, chips, breads, etc.. but I’ve never had the chance (or guts) to really use it in my cooking yet, but we’ve decided to change that.

It’s mostly your usual ingredients – flour, sugar, oil, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon…with the only special ingredient being zucchini.

The recipe was from Smitten Kitchen, which is a food blog Jenny showed me and I’m loving it so far. Always nice to learn from other experienced bloggers!

Grated the zucchini and mix it in with the eggs. At this stage, I could still skip the sugar and turn it into an omelette?

I only made 12 muffins when the recipe is for 24, so I just halved all the ingredients it called for.

Zucchini Bread
Adapted from several sources by Smitten Kitchen

Yield: 2 loaves or approximately 24 muffins

3 large eggs
1 cup (235 ml) olive or vegetable oil
1 3/4 (350 grams) cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons (10 ml) vanilla extract
3 cups (375 grams) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon (6 grams) table salt
1/2 cup (55 grams) chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1 cup (115 grams) dried cranberries, raisins or chocolate chips or a combination thereof (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease and flour two 8×4 inch loaf pans, liberally. Alternately, line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Mix in oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla.

Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt, as well as nuts, chocolate chips and/or dried fruit, if using.

Stir this into the egg mixture. Divide the batter into prepared pans.

Bake loaves for 60 minutes, plus or minus ten, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Muffins will bake far more quickly, approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

I bought these muffin paper liners from Michael’s craft store, and it matches with my sparkly nails!

Lastly, I put it on the muffin display cup that my co-worker got for me for Christmas! They were done in exactly 20 minutes when I checked on them. They turned out pretty nicely but Jenny and I both agreed we’d add more baking soda and baking powder next time for more fluffiness.

Establishing good long-distance friendship doesn’t mean you need a baking buddy living in another time zone, but it means maintaining good communication. After the frustrating phone tags, the many moments of “i wish you were here”, and the virtual XOXO-s that don’t do real hugs justice, it’s worth it to know that you have a great friend regardless of where you are in the world.

Anyhow, this post was a combo of New Years Resolution, maintaining good long-distance relationship, and making zucchini bread. Whatever you found interesting, hope you enjoyed today’s post!

-S