Fun Fall Weekend!

 

Most of you know that Josh is currently working a hellish amount of hours.  He has been in a cycle of working 28 days straight and 2 days off for two months now.  He will be on this schedule for another two months probably.  So when we have a weekend together we pack it with as much fun as possible.  This time it included a trip to the zoo and apple picking. 

We wanted to see the new sea lion exhibit at the zoo, so we packed in the car and headed out early.  It was a beautiful day, you could feel that crispness in the air that said fall is coming.  We had a blast!

So happy!

I had to pry her away from Daddy for this pic :)

ChooChoo Train ride

Smooch

At one train stop I heard what I thought was a recording of a roaring tiger...nope it was a real tiger!  He was so loud. Awesome!

Kisses

Olivia's favorite, the penguins.

Sunday it was time for apple picking.  We were meeting our good friends Nate and Jen and their little one Conner (Our handsome Godson).  We went to Braeutigam's Orchard.  It is awesome.  If you can go there rather than Eckert's I would highly recommend it.  All the bang for much less buck!  Unfortunately Conner was under the weather so they had to leave early, but we still had a blast!

My happy girl!

Baby Conner

Nate, Jen and Conner

It's how they roll

The boys

Sweet Conner

Feeding the chickens and turkey

Feeding the goats

Tractor ride!

Apple time!

Picking with Daddy

Reaching high with Daddy

My little farm girl in her bibs :)

We had an amazing weekend.  When you have so little time together it makes you appreciate the little moments more and more.  I'm lucky to have a husband who works so hard to provide for his family!  I appreciate everything he does for us.  I love my little family!!

The First 5 Days

I'm now 5 days into my gluten free adventure.  It hasn't been as hard as I expected it to be.   I'm already feeling better and have a feeling it will only get better with time.  My energy is up and my tummy is getting better little by little.  I have lost some weight and feel like exercising, which hasn't happened in forever! 

I have been taking photos of most everything I eat since I started doing gluten free.  I have found lots of things that I can make that are already gluten free.  Thanks to the produce co-op we have lots of fresh veggies and fruits on hand that has made it much easier.  Some have been much better than others, but all have been edible.  I guess I mostly want everyone to know that I'm not going hungry.  I can still eat a lot of delicious foods.  Here are some examples...

Garlic Ginger Chicken Ramen

Baked Penne Pasta (Corn based pasta)

Taco Salad (made from leftover tacos)

Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos

Gluten Free Baking Round 1!

I decided after my first few days of being gluten free that I should attempt to bake something.  I can't see myself living without some sort of baked good every once and a while or a bun for my burger.  After doing some research I found a great site that has recipes that don't use 14 different kinds of gluten free flours and a bunch of other junk I have never heard of.  She uses almond flour and Coconut flour in most of her recipes.  It was not easy to find these either.  I went to Trader Joe's and found almond meal (a close relative of almond flour) but no coconut flour.  After heading to a health food store nearby I was able to find the coconut flour.  I came home with two pounds of flour for $14...seriously.  This had better be good!!!!  I found a site online that sells almond and coconut flours in bulk and I can get them for about $4/lb so that will be my route from here on out.

I started with a cheddar and onion bun/biscuit recipe that sounded good and flavorful.  It was pretty easy to put together.

See the small amount of flour I got from each bag...bummer!

Threw everything into my Ninja to combine...LOVE my Ninja!

Biscuits complete...they are soft in the middle with a little bite to them

Buns fresh out of the oven

Used my biscuit to make a chicken breast sandwich for lunch :)

    I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I'm not going to lie and say it is exactly like a biscuit made from wheat flour, but it is tasty.  I was excited that my first effort wasn't a total flop and yielded a tasty result that I actually can eat!  You can find the recipe here if you want it.

Since my first attempt went well I decided it was time for something sweet!  Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins!  This came from the same site and is actually flour-less so any of you can make them and they are awesome!!

Super easy and awesome!

As always when chocolate is involved my little helper is close by!

Hail to the Chocolate!!!!!

Time to enjoy the fruits of my labor

Josh, Olivia and I have all been tearing these up.  If they love them you will too.  Here is the recipe, enjoy!

Gluten Free's the Way To Be?

Most of you know that I have battled stomach issues since I was pregnant with Olivia.  I had my Gallbladder removed in September of 2010.  For a while I felt great and could eat anything I wanted until what I believe was a clogged bile duct (the docs couldn't figure out what was wrong) landed me in the hospital for three days in September of 2011. Since then I have had issues with the big D (and I don't mean Dallas) chronically.  For the last three months or so it has gotten worse and I'm fed up!  I started to google my symptoms and I now think I may have developed either Celiacs Disease or just a gluten allergy.

So what does this mean? No more wheat, barley or malt in any form or fashion, and it hides everywhere!  As a woman who is married to an Italian, and does all the cooking, I hope this blog doesn't include a post about the day I receive my divorce papers. So today is day one and I figured if I blog about my adventure and find some humor in it, it might make it a little easier.  I just have to say that I love bread and I'm very sad that it will take me a while to figure out how to bake gluten free.  I'm hoping to get there and I think I will.  If any of you out there are in the same boat let me know I would love to swap recipes!

Comedic Relief Compliments of a Two Year Old

Those of you who know my daughter know she is a complete ham and has been for quiet some time.  She may look like a D'Atri but she has the Garland sense of humor for sure!  As she learns to talk more and more she loves to make others laugh.  I actually first knew she was a comedian before she could talk.  One night while in the tub when she was about 11 months old she farted, I laughed of course, because nothing is better than potty humor.  She decided to force another fart (for the laugh) and proceeded to poop in my tub.  Over the past two weeks she has cracked me up on several occasions and I wanted to document them so I wouldn't forget years from now.

Potty training has been the source of several laughs as of late.  On day two of potty training Olivia was having a hard time producing her number two and in her best baritone voice said "Hard work!".  When she still couldn't get it out she looked at me and said, "I can't reach it".  I could barely catch my breath I was laughing so hard.

During dinner with a friend this weekend she decided she needed to go potty.  We are in the stall taking care of business when a lady walked into the stall next to us.  Olivia saw her feet under the stall door and in a not so quiet voice said, "Mommy she is hiding!".  I tried to stifle my laughter as I explained that we all like to have privacy in the potty.  I could hear the lady laughing as well.

Olivia woke from her nap after only sleeping an hour yesterday (much to my dismay!).  I went upstairs to retrieve her and asked why she woke up.  She said, "My Hoonie (our name for her lady parts) woke me up."  I asked why and she said, "it needs to go potty".

Though we have our moments of terrible twos lately I'm so loving this stage with my little character.  She has so much personality and makes me so proud!  I just love her to bits!

Feeling Saucy!

Most of you know that I have been an Italian in training for almost 7 years now...wow time flies!  Josh's Dad is an Italian immigrant and brought with him some amazing recipes.  I have spent many years trying to perfect his pizza and I'm getting very close (or Josh just likes to humor me).  I have made his sauce twice before with little success getting it to taste just right.   

We have a huge garden going this year and had a large picking of tomatoes so I knew it was sauce time.  I decided not to try to replicate Gaetano's sauce and instead take my own path.  I found a recipe online and decided to make my own tweaks to it.  The first hurdle was seeding and dicing the tomatoes, all 42 of them.  You probably wouldn't have to seed them but I hate tomato seeds!

Fresh basil from the garden along with our tomatoes!

Seed, seed, seed all day long...

The final product, worth every second!

Time for chopping onions...1/2 an onion in and I was dying so I had to equip myself with an onion gas mask!

  Now for the big show!  I coated the bottom of my deep soup pot with EVOO and sauteed my onions until they were translucent then added my garlic.

Next add in about a cup to cup and a half of red wine.  This wine was left from a gift we got from Chris and Kelly.  I added most of what was left of the bottle, probably a little more than a cup and a half, but you can't have too much of a good thing :)  I saved the last few swigs for the chef! (insert Julia Childs voice here)

Simmer the wine till reduced by about half and then dump in all the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 2 hours.

I had some extra help in the kitchen from my assistant.  Sorry she is naked but we are potty training so it goes with the territory.  At least I made her sit on a kitchen towel!  LOL!!

After two hours of glorious smells and a few taste tests from me it was done, I'm pretty happy thought I think it is a little sweet.  I whizzed it with my immersion blender a few times to smooth it out a little.  I may reduce the brown sugar to 3 tablespoons next time.  It made me enough for 3 large servings, two of which I froze in ziploc bags. 

Sweet Tomato and Basil Sauce


Ingredients (add in this order):
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Minced Garlic
2 Large Onions, Minced
1 Cup Red Wine
3 Tablespoons Italian Seasoning
4 Tablespoons of brown sugar
5 Lbs of tomatoes seeded and diced (or three cans diced tomatoes and 3 cans tomato sauce)
1 Cup Chopped Fresh Basil

Enjoy!!!

The Best Zucchini Bread Ever!

I'm channeling my cousin Amanda Metternich today and her blog Whistle While you Whisk.  Since she is spending her summer scooping Elephant poo rather than cooking/baking I had to post this in her honor : )

I was given some zucchini from Larry Kraft's garden and wanted to make some bread with them.  I did some searching on allrecipes.com and found this recipe.  After reading some of the reviews I decided to make a few tweaks to the recipe.  I substituted the white sugar for brown and cut it down to 1 cup and added 1/2 cup of honey.  I also added an additional cup of zucchini.

My Mama taught me to sift my ingredients onto a paper plate (who wants to wash another bowl!)

When you combine the ingredients it resembles cookie batter but once the zucchini is added it thins out a bit from the moisture

This produced the most moist and sweet bread I have had in a while...yummy!

Here is my updated recipe.  Enjoy!!  I baked mine for 50 mins and it was perfect!!   

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add these)

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.