Simplicity by Sabrina

The first time that Travis made this recipe I think I ate an entire loaf myself! This stuff is good! I could probably eat this everyday of my life and not get tired of it. Because of the amount of sugar, it comes off pretty sweet, but the moistness (is that a word?) is balanced perfectly between the oil, zucchini, and carrots. We love to make a few loaves of this and take it on car trips to eat or plan to eat for breakfast when we camp.

I am always so impressed with Travis's ability to make up recipes. He usually likes to just throw things together and when it is amazing afterward, I ask, "How did you cook that?" And he will say, "Oh, I just added this and this together." I will ask for a recipe (I love a good recipe) and he will say, "Oh, I don't know exactly how much of everything I added, I just sort of did it." But, he has been kind enough to start writing down the things he is making so that I can recreate them.

I am definitely a recipe maker when it comes to cooking and baking. I like being able to recreate the same thing every time and be confident that it is good. On the one hand this is great because most things I attempt can be good when following the recipe, but on the other hand, if the recipe is bad, I don't catch it until it is too late because I don't have that intuition.

Travis is a recipe inventor. He loves to make up recipes and try new things. He takes recipes he has never made before and changes them as he is cooking and knows by looking at a recipe if it will be good or what he can do to make it better. This means that sometimes he makes AMAZING food! But, when he gets too adventurous he sometimes makes some interesting food...haha. So I guess there are some trade offs to our respective cooking styles.

Travis would only give this recipe 4 stars because he thinks he can improve it to be even better and to come out more consistent every time, but I think it is 5 stars! Like I said before, I could eat all three loaves by myself!


This recipe takes a little bit longer to make because you have to prep the zucchini and carrots. Two and a half cups of zucchini usually comes out to 2 medium-sized store bought zucchinis. For the carrots, I usually use 2 medium sized carrots and peel and dice them. I put 3 or 4 teaspoons of cinnamon and 5 or 6 teaspoons of vanilla extract because we usually love cinnamon and vanilla in all of the things, but you can choose what your preference is.


Tips and Tricks:

Use a mixer on the wet ingredients and add dry ingredients a half a cup at a time to get even mixture before adding zucchini and carrots.

When we use our mixer after adding zucchini and carrots, it really fills it up! So, use a rubber spatula to make sure everything is even throughout the batter before pouring into the bread pans.

When I say grease those pans, I really mean grease them! I use Crisco and just lather it on and put a little flour in to help the bread come out easy.


Be vigilant while baking! I usually start checking every five minutes after 55 minutes in the oven. Make sure a toothpick comes out completely clean before removing from the oven. I usually poke a few different spots because it has happened that I thought it was evenly cooked throughout only to cut later and see part of the top wasn't cooked all the way through!

Allow time to for breads to cool on their sides in the pans before trying to remove them.


Enjoy!

Since it is always birthday season for someone, I thought it would be a good idea to share what I usually do for coworkers, friends, and children.


For my coworkers and friends I usually get lotion, soap, bubble bath, or bath salts. It can be so simple, but very cute. When I was younger, my mom, sister, and I kept a basket full of lotions and soaps and when it was someone's birthday that we knew and wanted to give them a quick gift (because we lived far away from any sort of store you can get those things in, even Walmart) we would just reach in the basket and grab one or two things and wrap it up cute. The tradition has carried on today and I have a basket of lotions and soaps in our house and it is one of the best things when I need a gift or when I want some lotion myself!


For kids ranging from ages 1-5 I always give them something that is so simple (not to mention cheap!): BUBBLES! Travis and I were called as nursery workers for our church last year for a few months and we always had "bubble time" at the end of class while we finished cleaning up and waiting for parents to come pick kids up. I was amazed at how much fun the little toddlers in our class had at chasing bubbles. Then I went to Walmart shortly after that in their party favor aisle and saw that they have so many bubble options, so I bought up some bubbles and whenever a child I know has a birthday, I go to the bubble drawer and wrap some up!


For kids ranging from ages 6-11 I usually like to give books. I find tons of used books at garage sales, library sales, and second-hand stores. When I was a teacher, I would have the students pick from a bucket of used books for their birthday and they were always so excited to get a book that was new to them that they didn't even care they were used!


Another idea is to make a homemade coloring book and give crayons with it as a gift. As a teacher, there would always be kids every year who would beg me to stay in from recess so they could color. Here is an example of an ABC coloring book for free!


What are your favorite gift ideas?

Since my husband is a budding economist, I decided to branch out from my usual book preference and read this book. I actually think I might have "borrowed" this from my sister, who is also studying economics. I say "borrowed" because sometimes I look in my closet and at my bookshelf and realize that I had every intention of borrowing these items from my sister, but somehow they became mine. She is such a good soul for sharing, even if it is unknowingly. In most families it is the younger sister who borrows, but in ours it is the opposite. Summer always did have better fashion, music, and taste in books than I did.

I did start this book almost two years ago and I just could not finish it. As I started to read this book again, I realized something about the way that I read: I like to understand EVERYTHING that I read. If I don't, it is hard for me to get through it because I can get bogged down by grammar structures, semantics, vocabulary, syntax, etc. Hence, I did not finish it the first time I attempted.  I also realized that I had not taken an economics course since I was in high school (I know, very ironic that I married someone that wants to be an economist yet I never took entry level economics in college, let alone advanced courses.) However, Travis and I do talk about economics--a lot, actually. I just like how Travis talks about it to me. Because I know him, I understand the concepts he talks about with me. He also doesn't address the high level math that is required to understand the nitty gritty (although, I do like math).

In this book, the format is pretty informal as well. However, I had a hard time understanding what I was reading. From marginal costs to cost-benefit analysis to the Indifference Principle, I was having a hard time grasping it all. I think I felt this way because the author seemed to be writing his opinion as if he was speaking for all economists. For me, it was sometimes hard to know what was opinion and what was applicable economic theory since I don't have the background. I think that if I had approached this book a little differently (not caring if I understood every single little thing he was saying), then I probably could have enjoyed it more instead of thinking I was reading a textbook.

Surprisingly, Steven Landsburg, an economist that from the sound of it in his writing is a macroeconomist, writes in an informal style that has more of an air of conversation than lecture. His grammar and syntax are informal, although he throws around some pretty hefty ideas like: Do government deficits matter? Which rich people should be taxed? Who should bear the cost of oil spills?, Why can unemployment be a good thing?, etc.  He also tackles some more fun questions, such as: Why is popcorn so expensive at the movie theater? and Why are seat belts deadly?

As I kept reading, I realized that certain parts of economics really interest me, like when he was talking about funding resources in education. I have felt for awhile that funding in education is a sticky problem and I don't really know the solution. Most everyone would say that more money in schools is a good thing, but what I liked about this book is that it questioned this notion, asking, "Is it better to have more money in schools?" "Would that make it more efficient?" Steven Landsburg addresses the issue of illiteracy more so than education of the illiterate in his book, but I have always wondered why so much money in education is petitioned for the teachers to use in their classrooms and even when that money is received by teachers in the classrooms, do they spend it wisely? Do they even know what to spend it on to actually help with student success? Does buying more books actually help? Or maybe there is the possibility to consider that there are too many books and maybe the money is needed in another way to be more efficient? Since I do not have access to the randomized experiments that could give answers to these questions, I don't know the answers. Instead, teachers are given money and use it on whatever they think is best (and I am not undermining teachers' opinions, because I know their wisdom and experience is important), and somehow test scores still don't improve.

I also realized that there are parts of economics that really do NOT interest me: like taxes (boring...), politics, and price discrimination. For me, those parts were hard to get through. I knew this before I read this book, but it amazes me how much of our lives involves economics, sometimes without our knowledge.

Here is a brief summary of each chapter. Sometimes I have written only a sentence that is a principle of economics taught in that chapter. This might be the boring part for you, especially if you want to read the book, then skip to the end where you can see my short breakdown. If not, then keep reading:

PLOT SUMMARY (as much of a plot that there is in a nonfiction book :)

Chapter 1: People respond to incentives. Likewise, people that have cars with seat belts in them drive less carefully, thus nullifying the safety feature. There are just as many accidents with or without seat belts.

Chapter 2: Economics always assumes that human behavior is rational.

Chapter 3: Smoking may not be such a bad thing; it is probably keeping your insurance rates lower. The best way to choose a movie (or anything) between spouses is to express your preference in dollar terms. (Travis and I have done this frequently in our marriage and it seems to work for us).

Chapter 22: Beware of great thinkers who advertise their conclusions without revealing their assumption.

Chapter 23: When making a model to analyze data, it is important to consider hidden variables that would make the data look different if the rules change.

Chapter 24: Environmentalism targets childhood specifically. (The author is highly opposed to environmentalism, i.e. recycling, conserving resources, etc. He does not like the fact that it is taught in primary grades, and therefore, he has a very snarky ending).

In short, here is the breakdown of The Armchair Economist:

Genre: Nonfiction
Number of pages: 231
Reading endurance: I would say medium-high endurance required. It depends on what kind of reader you are. I am the type of reader that likes to understand everything I read, so it was harder for me to get through.
Good Moral: Somewhat. Some of the "morals" of economics don't really jive with my personal morals, but nonetheless it is interesting to learn more.
Favorite Quote: "When Peter chooses to work 80 hours a week and get rich while Paul chooses to work 3 hours a week and get comfortable in other ways, who is to say which choice is the wiser? I can find nothing in economics, morality, or for that matter my personal instincts that says we should approve more of one than of the other. Unemployment, or a low level of employment, can be a voluntary choice and a good one." (pg. 130)
This quote totally reminds me of my husband, Travis, who has told me on multiple occasions when he was getting his undergrad that his economics professors would not care if he went to class or not, believing that each student optimizes his time according to what he thinks is best and therefore trusting each individual to do so. I was an education major and all of my professors put a BIG emphasis on class attendance because school is life when you are in education. I just thought this quote was funny because you can see maybe the beginnings of the differences Travis and I have and I am happy to be able to understand him a little bit better.
Recommend? Yes. I would recommend this if you want to branch out and read some nonfiction that you normally wouldn't and if you have any interest in economics.