A brief update

It's been so long since I've been able to just sit and write! Oi!

Life has hit yet again with it's full schedule, and boy, are we feeling the effects of it! Nothing like a full calendar to keep one constantly running around, staying busy, and yet so busy that they rarely get fully filling meal and never get to the gym. Yay for snacks-healthy snacks, but snacks. Often enough to keep hunger away, and also often enough to make one wonder if the jeans fit better yesterday than today.. Current favorite snack? KIND bars. Nuts to help hold hunger at bay, enough honey and sweet to raise blood sugar so dizzy hunger goes away..tasty, and gluten free to boot. Yeah, many lunches have consisted of those!

Another simple lunch when by a microwave? Sweet potato. Just toss in the 'wave, hit the baked potato button, once it's tender inside, split open add some salt and any butter you have..so yummy! Simple and filling and soo good!

I've heard alot of people discussing allergies to eggs, and how when they keep eating eggs, they develop allergies to them. Soo TBG and I have been shaking up our breakfast routine. One morning we had butternut squash with nuts and maple syrup and a slice of beet bread. Another morning was oatmeal with blueberries and yogurt on the side. I experimented and we enjoyed brown rice with brown sugar, sausage and apple another morning. For being a girl who never liked oatmeal growing up, it's really funny how much I like it now! Oatmeal with crunchy peanut butter and cinnamon mixed in. Oatmeal with maple syrup, diced apples and pecans. We had rice, chicken and veggies another morning. (Japanese style breakfast) It's been rather fun to break out of our typical morning routine. This morning we had eggs with breakfast-a simple, yummy, breakfast pizza. That pizza crust I mentioned in another post? I had made several small, 'personal size' crusts, baked them and then froze them. This morning before church I pulled one out and thawed it, and then added my toppings! Scrambled eggs, sausage, bell pepper and goat cheese were amazing toppings on that pizza! Simple and yummy and filling. Mmm... Haven't yet decided what tomorrow's breakfast will be yet. We'll see what happens there..

I'm making myself hungry again. *facepalms* I think the gym is starting to call my name...

But I haven't yet mentioned the best thing I've found yet! Lasagna.

I have pictures of it while it was being made-but no pictures of it done! But that's ok, since I'll be making it again this Friday for Bible study. Hopefully I'll remember to take some pictures then... >_>

TBG and I are in love with this lasagna. Creamy, rich, delicious. Filling-and yet light enough that we can go back for seconds if we want. Veggie heavy, so it's healthy, and yet half the time no one notices just HOW veggie heavy it is! On Friday I'll be making a vegetarian version to accompany our loaded lasagna. If you're allowed dairy, you can add more cheeses to it. For us, being cow dairy free, we used goat cheese and almond cheese to get amazing results! We'll be sticking with those for now.

It's a very simple recipe. And you can always make it in advance and pull out for later! (just remember to extend the cooking time as needed)

•1 package. gluten free rice lasagna noodles
•1 jar pasta sauce (I like tomato chunks and garlic)
•1 tub olive tapenade (Trader Joe's)
•1 bag spinach
•1 can artichoke hearts (cut lengthwise, to open them up easily)
•1.5 pounds hamburger
•2 cloves garlic
•2 bell peppers, diced
•1 onion, diced
•1 can olives
•1 chunk goat cheese, grated
•1 chunk almond cheese, grated
•extra cheese ^_^
•bunch of basil

How to make yummy:

1. Cook noodles as directed, but pull them out and cool them before fully cooked. They'll cook more once they're in the pan with everything else
2. Toss the onions in a pan with some butter, and cook until they smell heavenly and turn a lovely golden color. Put aside.
3. Cook the meat with the garlic. You can mince the garlic, or if you have a PC garlic press, cheat and use that. ^_^ It'll save you time and sanity in the long run, I promise!
4. Pull out your 9x12 pan and prepare to layer!
5. Start with the noodles. A single layer is beautiful. Spread the olive tapenade over the noodles. (if you want to add more veggies, dice up some olives and sprinkle over this too)
6. Rip apart some of the artichoke hearts, and spread around in a thickishly thin layer.
7. Layer spinach and basil. Sprinkle bell pepper and onion,  and add a layer of meat.
8. Spoon pasta sauce over this now. If you like cheesy, add some chese now.
9. Again with the noodles! Spread the last of the olive tapenade and olives, the last of the artichokes, the greens, the veggies, the meat. Drown it in sauce, and give it all the cheese you got!
10. Bake in an oven at 350 for about an hour, or until fully heated through.
11. Serve with some french bread and devour!

(French bread recipe can be found on this site)

A bit of the ingredients

Before going in the oven. I hope to get a picture of it OUT of the oven to post later!

A week of yummy!

On Monday, I weighed myself. I then decided to start a little purge and avoid as many carbs as possible and eat healthy for the next couple weeks. My only exceptions to making and eating anything would be for special occasions, ministry events or if someone asked me to make something specific. I figured those would be safe exceptions, because nothing was on the calendar. So I could do my best to lose the holidays that are sticking with me, ya know? Sounds great, right?

It could have worked. It really could have.

But then, to our great surprise and joy, my little sister in law got released from the hospital and was free to return to home! Huzzah! The two catches-she is now gluten free, and no one would be home to stay with her from Thurs-Sun, because they were going on a pre-planned vacation. (planned since last Summer, and we all agreed they should take a brief break) Sooo...TBG and I came over to hang out with her and make yummy foods she could eat. Which constitutes as a special occasion-she's out of the hospital- it's a ministry-helping take care as needed- and she's asked me to make a few specific gluten free foods.

Even when I try to eat healthy and do what I can, I fail. I'm stuck in a house with my hubby and my awesome sister in law, making delicious foods for several days. Oh darn.

^_^

Thursday night we had pizza. For a post-lunch snack yesterday we made brownies. Last night we had soup. This morning we made and inhaled caramel nut rolls and cinnamon rolls. Tomorrow we're having lasagna. What a hard couple of days! I think I've gained about 3 pounds already. Gonna be hitting up the gym every day for the next couple weeks! *laughs*

The pizza and the rolls are amazing. Plain and simple. The pizza was superb-we didn't know what to expect, and we three ended up finishing the two pizza's ourselves! And the beautiful thing? We could eat all of it without getting sick. Life is grand!

It has been such a lovely time, all of us together, hanging out, enjoying each others company and eating good food. We've sat around and chatted, watched movies, played video games, we've made foods together and eaten together. Gluten free in the kitchen has never tasted so sweet!

The pizza crust recipe I used is from a new cookbook that I recieved for Christmas. A great cookbook! Dairy free and gluten free! I highly recommend this book-it is so great! It's called 'Cooking for Isaiah' by Silvana Nardone, the ISBN is 978-1-60652-165-6. I used her pizza crust recipe and her all-purpose flour mix, so I'll list her flour mix and her crust recipe for those who don't have it yet. ^_^

Silvana's all-purpose flour mix
6 cups white rice flour
3 cups tapioca starch
1 1/2 cups potato starch
1 TBSP salt
2 TBSP xanthum gum

Pizza Crust
2 cups Silvana's all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 large egg whites, room temp, beaten
2 TBSP EVOO
3/4 cup warm water

1.  Whisk together flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add egg whites, olive oil and water. Combine well.
2. Divide the dough into two equal-ish pieces. Roll both into rough balls, and place on two lightly floured parchment papers. Cover with plastic wrap, and roll the dough to about 1/4" of thickness, keep the plastic wrap on and let it sit for about 30 minutes.
3. If you have a round baking stone, put in the oven and preheat both to 450. Choose one of the rolled out doughs. Remove the plastic wrap carefully and slide it into the oven. Bake for about 8 minutes-when the crust gets puffy and crisp, it's ready. Repeat with the other crust.
4. These can be made and frozen for later if desired-good for about 1 month in the freezer.

Now there's an alteration to this original recipe. This is what I used, the alteration. And it was GOOD.

Replace the water with 3/4 cup rice/coconut/almond milk, room temperature and with 1 tsp apple cider vinegar. Use 1 3/4 cups plus 2 TBSP all purpose flour mixed with 1/2 cup cornmeal instead of the 2 cups flour, and mix as before.

For the pizza itself, I used a generic pizza sauce, added some red pepper flakes to the sauce and then grated goat mozz. cheese and grated cheddar almond cheese. Top it with pepperoni's and bake it at 450 for 8 minutes. The second pizza I added pepperoni's and flakes on the sauce directly and sprinkled the cheese on top. Both turned out great! We'll be having this recipe again soon.

We had two breakfasts-the first breakfast was the healthiest. Scrambled eggs, bacon and a fruit smoothie. (Lizzie had a great idea for the smoothie's, we add a handful of spinach to the fruits and juice in the blender, then add whey protein. You can't taste the spinach, but it helps make it a more balanced and healthy. And it tastes so good!) So that was our first breakfast. Second breakfast was MorMor's caramel nut rolls and Shauna's cinnamon rolls.

1 1/2 cups water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons active-dry yeast
4 ounces almond flour (1 1/4 cup)
4 ounces corn flour (3/4 cup)
4 ounces sweet rice flour (3/4 cup)
4 ounces potato starch (2/3 cup)
4 ounces tapioca flour (1 cup)
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk powder
2 large eggs, at room temperature

Cream Cheese Frosting
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 tabelspoons cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

MorMor's Carmel Glaze
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP corn syrup (or brown rice syrup)
2 TBSP coconut milk

1. Prep the yeast in 1 cup of warm water. It will take awhile, roughly 15 minutes-ish.
2. Mix all the flours, salt and xanthem gum together, and if you have a blender, food processor or stand mixer, whisk them in that. You want them to be light and airy. Add the sugar and milk powder.
3. Warm the last of the water to about 110 degrees.
4. Add the yeasty water, and add the eggs one at a time. If the dough seems dry, then add more water as needed. Let it rise.
5. It's best to roll the dough in two batches, and try to shape and roll it into a rectangular shape. Before you roll it, place it on a silpat or or wax paper. Put plastic wrap on the top and then roll it out to about 1/2" thick or so. Take off the wrap.
6. For MorMor's caramel rolls, sprinkle on cinnamon and a tiny bit of sugar. Roll into a log and cut into rolls.
7. For cinnamon rolls, add butter chunks, cinnamon and sugar. Roll into a log, cut into rolls and place in a baking dish that has a lightly buttered bottom. Cover with a warm tea cloth and let rise for an hour or so.
8. Make the caramel sauce! Melt the butter, sugar and corn syrup. Stir together and after it's boiled, stir in the coconut milk. Pour into a 9x12 and sprinkle in chopped nuts if desired. Lay the rolls in. Cover with a warm tea cloth and let rise for about an hour.
9. Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.
10. Make the cinnamon icing. Cream the butter and cream cheese in a food processor or blender. Add the vanilla slowly. Bit by bit, add in the powdered sugar. It will most likely take all 2 cups of sugar, but bit by bit is best for the consistency. Frost the cinnamon rolls once they've cooled suffiently.
11. ENJOY!

Gluten connected to Itchiness-makes sense to me!

http://health.yahoo.net/caring/10-things-your-skin-says-about-your-health

This article made me so happy! Now I know I'm not crazy! Before I got put on my purge diet, I had these horrible, dry, itchy patches on my shoulder, mid back, and thumb/wrist area. HORRIBLE. I would literally rub the skin raw by scratching it myself, rubbing it on my jeans, the carpet, anything textured enough to make it stop even temporarily. Then, when I wanted to lose weight and I saw my nutritionalist, he said I'm sensitive to wheat and should avoid it for 90 days. (I thought my carb love affair had ended, and spent several weeks moping around the house, depressed over missing bread and cookies. Ha! How things have changed!) Well, I discovered that to avoid wheat, it's easiest to find things that are gluten free. So everywhere I went, I told people I'm gluten free. Those 90 days, after the first couple weeks where my system was purging, I had no more itch! Not thinking of this significance, I had some Christmas cookies at a friend's house. They tasted good-sat in my stomach like lead-and after my gluten hangover the next morning, I realized my shoulder had itchy, rashy bumps again!

Well, well, and the article draws a link to the two. If only I'd been bright enough to connect those dots awhile ago!

Thankfully, since I've been back on avoiding gluten again, my shoulder and thumb are slowly lessening their maddening itchiness. Now I know though, if I want to go crazy, sure, I can eat that cookie my friend made, I can have that soup from the restaurant, I can have a bread sample in the store. But I will pay the price with my sanity later. If that piece of gluten-infested-food is really worth my sanity, then sure, I can have some. But I better make sure it's worth it!

And on that note, now that I'm thinking about foods, I think I'll make some cookies while I wait for my sis-in-law to get home. TBG and I are helping out this week with her at home. I have a valid excuse to make breads, cookies, muffins, foods that are high in carb! She's craving them now that she's on a gluten free diet, and I'm more than happy to fill that nasty gluten void! ^_^

Slow down. Breathe.

Breakfast has a tendency to be tasty around here...

Friends are such a gift! We have some friends visiting from Washington this weekend. Such a lovely break for us-and a break for them. It's been so wonderful to just sit back and chill with like-minded friends.

I love being a hostess. It's so much fun! And they're wonderful guests to have over. It's hard to believe it's been a year since we last saw them. They've come down to visit everyone in the area twice now-each time during January-so we've become spoiled. (hear that? we're going to be expecting you two to come down next year, same time too!) I love having an excuse to clean the house major, to make yummy foods, to play taxi driver, it's just so much fun! And it's just a great time to relax and bask in each other's company. ^_^

Before they came down, I asked what breakfast foods they'd like. One told me Cheerio's with banana's. Ok, not too bad, whatever is left of the bag will go to my parents when they leave. The other said blueberry muffins. Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! I could just opt out, go to the store, get some gluten-full muffin for him to eat while here and I just won't eat any. But...it's me. So while she's eating her Cheerio's, the rest of us will be chowing down on yummy blueberry muffins full of goodness and joy!



And we have enough muffins for us 3!

 These are soo good! I'm thrilled that they think these are moist and flavorful. That means I'm not completely biased with my tastes-they really ARE that good! TBG got approved for the rare yogurt in baking, so this recipe is safe for us, despite it having dairy in it. You can also use coconut milk with a bit over 1 TBSP of lemon juice in it.

Blueberry Muffins-

10 TBSP unsalted, soft butter
1 cup coconut sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp lemon zest (or orange zest)
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup white rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used plain Greek yogurt)
1 cup or more blueberries
2 TBSP+ raw sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl-including zest!
3. Barely cream the butter and sugar. You want it just mixed enough to be mixed. But if you leave the mixer running while adding things, these babies won't rise that much. Add the eggs one at a time, and just enough to be incorporated.
4. Add about 1/3 of the dry mix, and then about a 1/3 of the yogurt. Mix. Add another 1/3 of each, mixing fully, and then the last of each. Now add as many blueberries as you want! I used almost 2 cups of blueberries in my muffins.
5. Oil the mufifn pans, and lightly dust the bottoms of the pans with white rice flour. Fill the muffin cups about 2/3 full, and then sprinkle some of the raw sugar on the tops.
6. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Makes 24 muffins, 145 calories and 22 carbs apiece