Why you mock me blank page?!

I walk around almost every day with a blog topic in my head. It gets written and edited in my head before it hits the page. The moment I sit down in front of a blank screen, it disappears. All I am left with is a vague idea of what it might have been about. Family? Shoes? A family of shoes? So I will give you "Things Currently Occupying my Noodle." And maybe, just maybe, I will get my brain back to blogging:

1. Garden, version 2 - Due to crappy soil in our garden area, I decided on raised beds this year. Our garden wasn't terrible, but it took a lot more work than I was willing (and able, especially after surgery) to put in. This year, we will also have smaller sections and more vertical structures (but more produce).

2. Crafts - I swear I am in the middle of a craft crapstorm. I have 5,476,392 things I would like to do...and I have started about half of them already. I thought about detailing them, but then I realized it would exhaust me just to write them out. I have learned that any project without a set finish date will likely not get completed.

3. Vacation - we haven't been on vacation since 2006 (excludes anything in the midwest). I have been wanting to go somewhere - anywhere - other than our neighboring states. Preferably some place warm. With or without the kid.
Finally, I got ShankRabbit on board with the idea. We will have a small getaway (without the child) sometime soon and another one toward the end of the year with the kid (at a place with a kingdom of magic...).

I am about as shocked as I can physically be. Yay for vacation!

* * *

My brain has officially checked out, so here are some random pictures for you to enjoy (sorry to anyone on Twitter who has already seen these):


Gluten free thin mints. Yes, they can be done (om nom nom nom...)


Jacques, our new dishwasher. I love him so much.


A non-deviled egg. Part of an elaborate "welcome" gag played on a friend's boyfriend. He hates deviled eggs. So I made some out of meringue, yellow cupcake frosting, and red sugar. Heh heh...


My kid. My almost 3 year old.

My cup runneth over.

2011 - it's only just begun

Nintendogs has entered this almost-3 year old's life. She's completely self-sufficient with this game. I fear I'll never get my DS back.

What has happened in the last month or so?

1. We all eventually recovered from the stomach plague. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. We didn't regain normal activity and eating until 2 weeks after it struck.

2. Now that I've paid for my registration, I shall announce it to the intarwebz: I am training for a sprint triathlon in July. There's more to the story of why I'm doing it and I will share that as the training progresses.

3. Because of #2 (heh...), I have been working out almost every day. And I enjoy it.

...

No really, I do! I think it's because I love our gym - great facility, great atmosphere, great people.

4. A gluten-free store and cafe opened up over the summer. I didn't realize their true significance to my life until I found they do carry out and take-and-bake pizzas. Tried our first ones on New Year's Eve. Heaven help me.

Yes, it's a good thing I enjoy my gym so much.

5. Our family Christmas present this year is a dishwasher. We are finally getting around to picking one out. I now know way more about dishwashers than I ever thought possible.

6. Speaking of Christmas, it was fantastic. There was a moment - a few days beforehand - that we thought my in-laws would be trapped in Nairobi for the holidays (due to terrible weather in Amsterdam that they needed to connect in), but they made it back safe and sound. Slight panic ensued when we heard there was a bombing at a bus station while they were supposedly still there. They left the day before.

7. At some point this month, I got so frustrated looking at our terribly inefficient, standard reach-in closet that I tore it apart to make a new one. I had every intention of making this a "me" project - showing that anyone can build their own custom closet (Califor.nia Closets be damned!), but ShankRabbit (and Peanut for a while) was intrigued and offered help. Projects are so much quicker when you have help.

I will have a post up when all is completed. Here's a sneak peek:


Before (ugh)


Current state (still in progress). Can you see the double closet rods on each side?


8. Got the chance to attend both Bears playoff games. At one point during the second one, we noticed a couple of F-16 fighter pilots* sitting at a table near us in the United Club. I told ShankRabbit, "hey, we should go over and say hi. I'd like to meet them." So, he tells me to follow him, taps their shoulders and says, "Hi. My wife has a thing for guys in uniform...can she take a picture with you?"

(Enter completely mortified expression and bright red face)

One of the guys responds with, "well, how can we say no to that?"

So, this picture was taken:


Pretty eventful December/January. A little scared and excited to see what February brings.

_____________
* - Despite what my husband said, I really wanted to meet them because what they do is so friggin' cool! Thanks to the power of the internet, here is the information on the fighter pilots that did the flyover after the National Anthem. I believe I met the two that coordinated the timing from the ground.

Thanksgiving Recap

Overall, our first hosted Thanksgiving went well.

Positives
1. We didn't have to travel

2. ShankRabbit had the day before Thanksgiving off, so he could help me clean the house and prep the food.

3. Each dish we made turned out fantastic (recipes below).

4. We ordered an all natural turkey from our local health food store. Fantastic flavor, wasn't frozen, and only cost us about $2.69/lb.

5. I deligated the desserts to my mother-in-law, who showed up with 8 (!) pies and a tray of pumpkin bars. We only had 9 adults and one child.

6. We're still eating pie.

7. A wet kitchen sponge was thrown at my head. That's how you know your kitchen is the fun place to be.

8. On Friday, we packed up our Thanksgiving leftovers and went to my brother-in-law's house. Another fantastic meal followed by some Kinect playing, where my sister-in-law tried to pull one over on my husband. Little did she know that he is super-competitive and knows how to drop it like it's hot.

The not-so-positives
1. The turkey took over 4.5 hours to cook, as opposed to the 2.5 our recipe claimed. My entire food timetable was thrown off. Boo! But hey, it was a darn tasty turkey.

2. We ran out of clean - and dry - dish towels, so by the end of the night we had to just leave the dirty dishes on the counter. We don't have a dishwasher (or a dryer), so we resorted to doing a drying-rack full of dishes and waiting for them to air dry.

And here is who made our Thanksgiving possible...the recipes (all gluten-free):

Roast Turkey
We mostly used Alton's brine, with some added tweaks from Gluten Free Girl's brine recipe. Also, we used butter to coat the bird instead of canola oil. BIG MISTAKE. The butter sizzled and smoked through the whole 500 degree portion of cooking (we had to make some temp and time adjustments...which may have been the reason why our turkey took so long to cook).

Udi's Gluten Free Stuffing
We stayed true to the recipe and it came out beautifully. Because our turkey was taking so long in the oven, our stuffing did dry out a bit waiting for a final warm up in the oven. I think next year we'll add a bit more moisture.

Gluten Free Dinner Rolls
I can't begin to describe the amazing flavor these rolls have. Yes, they are a little dense in the middle, but not at all like the hockey pucks most GF folks are used to. These were a big hit with everyone!

Biggy's Sweet Potato Casserole
The only change we made was to cook it in the CrockPot. About 20 minutes in, we added the mini marshmallows so they could melt. Yum.

Honey Glazed Carrots
We used regular carrots and cut them up into circles. A simple, yet flavorful dish.

Green Beans Almondine
Perfect as is.

Mashed potatoes were made by my sister-in-law. I don't know what she did or how she did it, but they rocked!

Random Thoughts: November Edition

1. When I was a kid, I remember learning proper letter writing in school. I was taught when it was OK to have a more casual correspondence and when a more formal letter was required.
Now that email is part of our daily lives, do they teach proper email etiquette? Are future employers going to receive an email like this from their employee:

Yo,
so i was all lolz cuz i thought OMG i forgot the deadline! but DOOD...totes dun!
:D

I think the intricacies of forwarding and cc/bcc should be covered as well.

2. I saw some brand new (in the bag) halloween costumes at Goodwill today for 75% off. I wanted to grab all the cute baby ones - ladybug, bumblebee, football - but my 2.5 year old is no longer a baby. And she's a 4T. Maybe I can put the bumblebee one on her leg and dress her up as a beekeeper next year? Though a giant bee attacking the leg of a beekeeper might be more of a beekeeper FAIL.

It's a good thing Peanut tells me exactly what she wants to be for Halloween.

3. ShankRabbit brought up the baby topic last week. I think we're rounding the corner from "ohgawdnowaynobabiesanytimesoon!" to "well...it wouldn't hurt to revisit the topic...in 6 months..." It's all about progress, right?

4. My grandmother had a funny quirk. Whenever we'd sit down for a family meal, our forks would mysteriously disappear. Turns out she would grab the nearest fork to serve dishes, cut meat, etc. and not notice which one she grabbed. We'd all laugh when she'd say, "goodness, how did I get 3 forks?"

Why do I bring this up? Because I have developed a similar flatware-related quirk. I use so many knives during the day that I can easily use every single one we own in a day. Putting butter on toast, making sandwiches, cooking...by the time we sit down for dinner they are all gone.

I've secretly started using disposable plastic knives on occasion. Shh...don't tell ShankRabbit. He thinks I've gotten better with my knife usage.

5. I had a very introspective September/October. Mostly, I was thinking about family (probably a post for another day). Blah blah blah...I decided somewhere in there that we should host our own Thanksgiving.

...

Did you catch that? I am hosting one of my all-time favorite holidays. I will be cooking. For other people than the husband and the daughter.

If you've never cooked a full turkey before, do you make a practice one a couple weeks before or do you just hope for the best the day of Thanksgiving? I did find helpful tips from a couple of "never let me down" sources - Alton Brown and The Gluten-Free Girl.

6. I'm so happy November 2nd is over. I don't mind the political ads (yes, annoying...but whatever). You know what bothered me? The "AAAARGH! GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!"
"I VOTED AND THERE WAS NO ONE WAITING IN LINE! SO SAD!"
"IF YOU DON'T VOTE YOU'RE THE WORST PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE!"

Did I vote? Yes. But I didn't make a big deal out of it.

7. Medical update: still broken. The doctors have no idea what's wrong...still. I think I'm done trying to figure this out. I've been on a gluten-free diet since August and this seems to help with most of the problems I'm dealing with, but no concrete answers.

8. 2010 seemed to be the year of "frustration." Can 2011 be "contentment," "love," or even "unicorns?" Let's make it happen.

You want more...what?

Waaay back in the day (OK, like 1.5 years ago), we were trying to find healthy, tasty, baby-friendly finger food options for Peanut. We were avoiding products with gluten until her first birthday, so the choices were rather limited. We happened upon something called Veggie Booty.

Observe:

photo courtesy of amazon.com.

It's perfect - gluten-free and full of veggies like spinach, kale, broccoli, and carrots. The texture is just like a cheesy poof, but better.
The veggie flavor is not too common around these parts (the cheese ones are made with "Wisconsin aged cheddar," so of course that's the one you find everywhere), but we've found a few places that always carry them.

Peanut LOVES them...and has ever since that first bag entered our household. Given any snack option in our house (no longer restricted to gluten-free), she will always choose these. We've tried the other flavors, but the family favorite is Veggie (even ShankRabbit gobbles these up).

[back to the point of this post]

Peanut is at an age where she verbally truncates her requests. For example, if she wants string cheese, she'll just ask for cheese (and is very clear with her displeasure if you pull the wrong cheese out of the fridge). If she wants a banana, she'll ask for a nana. Basically, asking for whatever the last word (or portion of the word) that comes out of your mouth.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

So, Veggie Booty...

"More booty?"

Uh...

At times, it sounds like she says "more buoy?" but she is working very hard on perfecting her pronunciation. 99% of the time her t's are crystal clear. I've tried changing the name to "veggie puffs" or "veggie nummies," but no such luck.

Someday soon I'm sure we'll be in a large, public place and she'll announce "more booty?" And in true toddler fashion, if it's not provided in .005 seconds, she'll repeat her request louder and clearer, "MORE BOOOOOTY?"


And what will my response be? "You mean, 'more booty, please.'"

Pie!

I do not recall ever making a true* pie before. You know - cutting cold butter into flour, making pretty edges on the crust, prepping the filling, etc.
I love a good piece of homemade apple pie, but I would never attempt to make it myself. No culinary desire to do so. Until this past weekend...

I asked ShankRabbit what kind of dessert he would like for his birthday.

"Pecan pie. Man, I LOVE pecan pie," he said, practically drooling.
My look of confusion must have signaled further explanation.
"It's my dad's fault - it's his favorite as well. Wait...you didn't know my favorite pie is pecan?"

I've known this man for 9 years, been married to him for almost 3, and I would have never guessed pecan pie as his favorite. The only pie I've ever seen him consume was pumpkin (this man makes a kick-butt pumpkin pie, I must say).

My first thought was "maybe I could find a pre-made GF pecan pie?" Before you laugh at me, there is a place in Pewaukee known as Molly's Gluten-Free Bakery. They make excellent GF bakery items (I have a great story about this place, but I'll save it for a later post). Unfortunately, I was not within in their 2 day notice time frame and didn't see "pecan pie" on their list...so I was definitely stuck making my own.

If you have never attempted baking something gluten free, try it sometime. It will humble you. Bland and brittle are just two words that describe the majority of my GF baking attempts.

After a lengthy online search, I settled on combining this GF basic pie crust recipe (from Glutenfreeda.com) with this pecan filling recipe (from Pillsbury.com)

So, I was set to make the pie...except there was a catch. We were having dinner with friends (and their parents) that night, so I had to finish baking it there.

...

Did you catch that? Not only was I bringing them a GF pecan pie that I had never tried before, but I had to finish baking it in someone else's kitchen (a.k.a. an oven I was not familiar with).

[Cue minor freak out]

After I calmed down a bit, I figured, "hey, if this pie sucks, at least we'll have a funny story to tell" and I would have a great blog post.

Pie was eventually baked and consumed...with delight. I've never had pecan pie before so I can't give a true comparison, but I can tell you that it did not taste GF at all. It was darn tasty.

There were quite a few people at dinner that night, so the pie servings were pretty small. I decided to make another pecan pie a few days later...you know, to see if I could make it just as good.

My stomach says yes.

____________________
* Our Thanksgiving Pumpkin pies don't count because we use a simple cereal pie crust. Very easy, very yummy.

Thank you, Chex

I am in the process of writing up a recipe post about homemade refrigerator pickles (for those that follow me on twitter, this is old news). In the meantime, I thought I'd share a picture of what I woke up to yesterday morning:



8 boxes of Chex cereal (8th one not pictured as it is on the counter, already opened).

Why do we have so many boxes?

1. Buy 8 boxes of General Mills cereal, get $10 off and 2 coupons for free gallons of milk ($3.25 value each).
2. Up until recently, only their Rice Chex were gluten free. Now, they offer Honey Nut, Chocolate, and Strawberry Chex...all gluten free. For my husband who is stuck eating bland cereal all the time*, this is a major breakthrough.

So, we'll be eating a lot of cereal in the days to come (I've been told that a bowl of Chocolate Chex makes a nice dessert option).

___________________

* Yes, there are flavorful gluten-free options out there for cereal, but they require a trip to the health food store and cost more. It's nice to have a mainstream option.

If you're a Celiac, I hope you're not Catholic

As made evident by my profile message to the left, my husband has Celiac disease. Simply put, he cannot have wheat (and many other grain) products. We are not sure if Peanut has a gluten intolerance yet or not, so we are holding off introducing gluten into her diet until well after her first birthday. Anyway...

I am part of a discussion board for "gluten-free" families. One mother brought up an issue - her daughter, who is gluten intolerant, wants to take part in communion in their church. However, they are Catholic and they were told that a gluten-free alternative could not be provided...only a "low-gluten" option. End of story.

I found this odd. Why on earth would the church not be accommodating to people with this disease? A gluten-free communion wafer is still a bread product...it's not like she's asking them to bless and administer a Snickers bar. Our church is happy to provide a gluten-free option for our family, but we are Lutheran.

I won't bore you with all the research I did (it certainly fascinated me, though). I will tell you this - apparently, in order for it to be "valid" Eucharist, the bread must be made from wheat. You can read about it here.

You take gluten out of the communion wafer and *poof* it's not suitable to be used as the body of Christ?

Wow. Is there anyone out there that understands this?

I used to be Catholic...and with as much as I know, I still don't get it.