Goodbye Summer, Goodbye August

The past week was the first week of school! At night, I also managed to attend a cake class, clean, go grocery shopping, and had the first day of class at main campus which is far from home. I had little spare time, which resulted in no recent blog updates!

I took my yearly first day of school photo.

Iivana's birthday was last weekend, we celebrated by buying her a mini pool. She was unsure about it at first.

But eventually was splashing and jumping in! 

After, she was covered in mud, so that meant it was bath time. She also received a brand new red leather collar.

Blogger, is being extra difficult tonight. So I won't go into complete detail tonight about our fried feast we've been having lately. Stay tuned this week...hopefully I'll have a little more time to update this week.

I also came across this article about the rise of celiac disease featured on Yahoo. 

Not Satisfied

Over the summer, I've some how acquired some terrible habits.

One of those being -  snacking.

My night time snacking has often left me feeling unsatisfied. I first usually try something healthy like a piece of fruit. Then I usually move on to some cheese whether string cheese or cottage cheese. Through out the whole thing, I'm still craving something sweet!

Recently, Justin was craving some Oreos. I told him he could buy some, but he insisted on getting some GF chocolate sandwiches.

The commissary carries Gluntino brand cookies. While they don't have the cool packaging like Oreos do, they actually taste decent. I'll take my double bagging in a gallon Ziploc to be able to eat something comparable.

They taste like an imitation Oreo, as if you were buying a generic store brand of Oreos.

 The ratio of cookie to cream filling was pretty equal.

I can eat them my favorite way too! I twist them in half and lick the cream center, then eat the cookie.

I ate the serving size, 2 cookies, and felt satisfied! Two cookies isn't too bad either, 6 grams of fat and 140 calories. Just be sure to not eat the whole row at once.

Weekend of Relaxation

In a way, I feel like I experienced my last summer weekend, even though summer technically goes until September. We were able to go to Wimberley for the weekend to spend time with grandparents, aunt Jeanette, and uncle Bud. To me, it seems like my final summer weekend because I didn't have any papers to check, lessons to plan, or homework to complete. 

We packed everything up Friday after work and hit the road. Iivana wanted to drive, but Justin wouldn't let her.

We needed some dinner, so we decided to pick up a GF pizza from Boston's restaurant. 

We're classy people and ate devoured the pizza in the truck on the way up. As you can see, I couldn't even control my hunger enough to wait to take a picture of our barbecue chicken pizza on gluten free crust.

The crust was rather thin, but had a great dough flavor. The toppings of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, red onions, chicken, and cheese were awesome! Between the two of us, we finished the entire small pizza. The pizza was less expensive than the ones we get from Little Aussie.

We didn't arrive until about 8:00 p.m. but had enough time to chat the night away, play a few games, and enjoy some chocolate wine. Jeanette and Bud introduced us to a new quite possible favorite red wine, Apothic Red. It's not too sweet, not too dry. It's a good in between red wine for mine and Justin's palette. They even gave us a bottle for home!

Saturday morning Justin went golfing and I was able to sleep in. In the afternoon we experienced our first game of nine pin bowling. <--Read this link to see all the rules, because I know I won't explain them all.

Do you see the pin setter, the actual person?

The captain who sits in the chair, picks which person will bowl next. It's my turn!

The score is kept on chalk boards. If you find my name and see all the "x"s they aren't strikes! All the pins must be knocked down to score points. If you don't get them all, then the next person on the team has to knock them down.

But if you keep the red pin up, you get 12 points!

Saturday night grandma made us a naturally GF meal that consisted of baked potatoes, ham, green beans, and cottage cheese! For dessert I made some GF rhubarb crunch. I followed my mom's recipe, but used some GF replacements.

 

Here's the recipe for a 9 x 9 pan.

• 3/4 cup of oatmeal (I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free oats)
• 1 cup of flour (I used a mix of GF flours I had stored in my fridge. Any all purpose GF mix will work).
• 1/2 cup of butter melted
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

You mix these all together. Use half of the mixture for the crust, just press it to cover the bottom of the pan. Save the other half of the mix for the top.

Then cut up rhubarb and fill until the pan it's pretty full.

On the stovetop, mix:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

Thicken on the stove and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, then turn off. Pour the sugar mixture over the rhubarb. Then sprinkle the rest of the oatmeal mixture on the top.

Bake in a glass pan at 350 degrees for 40 min. (375 if using metal)

Iivana loves the country! She's free to roam and examine everything.

I think she had a little too much fun though. Her pad stops (carpal pads) sort of blistered from running really fast and stopping quickly. We've applied some neosporin to help them heal.

All three of us had a weekend full of relaxation and fun!

Pluots

By pluots, I mean dinosaur eggs.

Still confused?

A pluot is a cross-pollination of a plum and an apricot. 

They are also called dinosaur eggs because they sort of resemble dinosaur eggs (or what you might think a dinosaur egg looks like).

However, they come in a variety of colors!

Made by Dinosaur Brand Fruit

Naturally gluten free items like fruits and vegetables are so easy to incorporate in our GF lifestyle. I usually rag on the commissary's produce, but tonight when we went to the store for a few items we couldn't pass these up! The Dinosaur Brand has always produced excellent produce. We used to buy the pinkish ones all the time at Sam's Club. This is the first time I saw a variety of pluot flavors. So far I've only tried one, (the yellow looking one) but it was juicy and ripe. They are sweet and packed with vitamins.

Justin tried this mottled (spotted) dinosaur egg. It was juicy, sweet, yet sour, he commented.

These pluots will be great for lunches and snacks for work. 

Which will work out perfectly, since I can officially say goodbye to summer. 

Wednesday was back to work and I've been exhausted! What a difference it is waking up 3 hours earlier. This kids aren't even back yet. Hopefully I'll adjust by the first day of school. I'm excited for a new year, even though it will definitely be a busy one.

Hers and His

Did you know leather is the gift of the third anniversary? Justin suggested we buy a leather couch for our anniversary which was in July. But when we went to look at them, we decided on the original one I had spotted which was made from a microfiber. 

No worries though, I made sure we had a leather remembrance piece. I found these his and hers leather wine charms on Etsy. I gave them to Justin on our anniversary staycation.

Hers

His

They managed to stay hidden in the suitcase, until Justin found them because he had to empty the suitcase so we could pack for a night over the weekend. So the wine charms were finally emptied out of the suitcase. We had our niece and nephews for the weekend and took them to El Tropicano for one of the nights (remember the Groupon!)

We stayed at our house Friday night and went to the hotel Saturday night. This picture is one of my favorites from the weekend! Notice the bowl sizes, corresponding to the size of the person.

Back to the wine charms...

Lately we've been enjoying a glass of wine before bed and these wine charms are working perfect! I've also started collecting all the wine corks. When we have enough, I see a new project in the future.

Back to the weekend...

It was tons of fun spoiling our niece and nephews but we were exhausted. We definitely enjoyed a glass of wine last night and tonight!

Roses are Pink

I had my last cake class at Micheal's on Monday. I've spent the last two days working on a research paper for my survey of writing research grad class that ended today! Now I finally have a moment to update.

Last week I made cupcakes to decorate for cake class. I had an epic failure! I'm not a huge fan of the frosting recipe they want us to use because it is too sweet for my liking. My teacher mentioned we could use cream cheese in the recipe. I made red velvet cupcakes, which would be perfectly topped with cream cheese frosting.  The problem: the cream cheese frosting wasn't stiff enough and the heat from my hand when decorating only made matters worse! All of my designs drooped down and melted together. Apparently the cream cheese frosting should be used to ice the cake. The frosting for decorating needs to be stiff. Lesson learned.

When I decorated this cake, I was lazy and used Betty Crocker GF cake mix. The cake was dry and left a lot to be desired.  I was determined to make a moist cake that resembles its gluten counterpart. Many of the Little Aussie cakes we love are sponge cakes, so I searched the Internet for a GF sponge cake recipe.

I came across this coconut sponge cake recipe. I only used the cake recipe, not the frosting (although it sounds yummy). The cake was definitely more work than the box one. I had to separate the whites from the yolks in 10 eggs! Then I had to beat the egg yolks until fluffy. Later I had to fold in the beaten egg whites. I love that the recipe called for almond flour and coconut flour. While there were several steps to the recipe, I was able to follow it along. The batter was super light and fluffy, which I suspected to be a good sign.

When the cake came out of the oven, it reminded me of angel food that my grandma always makes. The cake did sink a little when it cooled. Since it was so soft, it was hard to level the cake. Frosting it was impossible to keep crumb free, a few snuck in.

We learned how to make roses on the last day of class. I think they look like flowers! If only it was centered on the cake.

A closer view of the roses.

Check out that border.

This cake not only looked fabulous, but it was a huge improvement! It was flavorful, moist, and spongy.  It did cause some problems when frosting it, but I was able to get it to work. I used some of my left over cream cheese frosting from the previous week for the center filling. I mixed in some strawberry jam and fresh strawberries as well to create a sweet, yet creamy filling. I would definitely make this recipe again.

But I want to try some others out too, that might be easier to level and decorate. Good thing, I signed up for the next set of cake classes. Stay posted for more GF cake baking and decorating...

Series of Related Events

I'm not sure where to start with this post, I have so many starting points for this story. So I think I'll try to keep it simple for y'all. A series of related events led to a trip to IKEA. 

Iivana's bed broke, so instead of buying a new one, Justin decided to make her one. Upon drawing out plans for her new bed, I suggested we turn the TV stand into her bed.

Iivana's original bed.

Our TV stand (which has evolved itself, originally free from the Airman's Attic was at one time brown and held our old TV which was a boxy-one with a huge back...this might lead to a future post on the history of our TV stand)

The combination of both to create the ultimate bed.

• I attend cake decorating class at Micheal's and before the first class I was killing time at nearby stores. One of those stores was JCPenney Home store, where I found a couch I liked. 

Remember my first cake, as seen below.

• Long story short, we decided to buy the couch!

Notice the old pink couch in the background. (This was also free from the Airman's Attic and we had it for 3 years!)

New Couch

With a new couch, and our TV stand repurposed...we needed a new TV stand. We saw a few online that we were interested in at Ikea. Unfortunately, there is not an Ikea in San Antonio; we had to drive to Round Rock which is about an hour and 45 minutes away. 

Along the way we decided to stop in Austin for lunch. Justin's instructions were to find something close to the expressway and semi-fast (of course it had to accommodate gluten free eating as well.) Thanks to my smartphone, I came across an Asian restaurant, Koriente. Not only was it close to I-35, but it also offers healthy food and was quick!

Justin ordered Obake bowl (B) with shrimp which was served with rice medallions. He ordered his with the gluten free sauce so I could try some too! Everything in his bowl was tender and fresh. 

I ordered the mix mix bibimbap with tofu and avocado (and GF sauce). They call it the mix mix, because you have to mix everything yourself. It was incredibly satisfying and I didn't feel guilty at all. All of the flavors came from the fresh vegetables. The tofu wasn't fried, but still tasted incredible. Justin said, "I didn't know tofu could taste this good and not be fried."

Probably the best part of the meal was the green tea that Justin ordered. The taste lingered in your mouth, long after your sipped it. We kept saying it tasted like dandelions, yet neither of us have ever tasted dandelions. The way it was made, you didn't want to chug it or drink it fast. We would savor each drink. It was so yummy, that Justin got some to-go for the rest of the ride to Ikea.

I want the recipe for this!

We roughly spent 3 and a half hours navigating through Ikea. We decided on a TV stand, and picked up some things for some other projects. Hopefully we get to all these projects, then I can show you all them too. Here's Justin working on the TV stand. The worst part about Ikea is constructing everything!

The finished product! I know this isn't the best picture because I was taking at night and couldn't get any decent light. I figured if I didn't post a picture, the story would be senseless!