V-day at Home

I can't believe last year was my first GF Valentine's Day. I feel like I've been GF for years, so for any newbies out there: it definitely gets easier.

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to tutor after the class Valentine's party today. (What was I thinking? candy + cupcakes + soda = a not focused tutoring group.) I waited around for kids to be picked up. Then I prepared sub plans for tomorrow because I have some training all day. I knew I would be home late and told Justin I just wanted to eat something at home. My hubby is seriously the best!

I came home to roses!

I also received a card and a special dessert. Can you guess what the dessert is?

A (small 6") Sweetheart cake from Little Aussie!

 Justin made some tortilla chips from left over frozen corn tortillas.

He also made some homemade humus! Both recipes are from the Simply Sugar & Gluten Free Cookbook. A perfect treat to fill my hungry belly while the rest was being prepared.

Then he made a Greek salad with fresh tomatoes, red peppers, cucumbers, red onion, feta, olive oil, oregano, and some lemon juice. It was so fresh, light, and flavorful.

Finally he made some baked tilapia with fire roasted tomatoes, garlic, and onion.

There was dessert too! Doesn't it look so decedent?

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, and oh yeah gluten free too. Got to love Little Aussie's cakes!

Served with a little ice cream and more left for later.

Xmas

Justin and I spent Xmas in Texas this year; Christmas day we saw his grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousin, brother/wife, and kids, so it was nice to see some family. My parents are coming to visit tomorrow for a week too! We spent Christmas Eve at our house in San Antonio and were heading out to the hill country on Christmas day. Since we'd be going out to Wimberley, we decided to open presents on Xmas eve.

I must've been a good girl this year! Here are a few highlights of some of the gifts I received this year.

Pink shoes!

New watch with changeable straps.

Jingle bell charm for my charm bracelet.

I received the book, The Help, from Justin's family Xmas exchange from his cousin Jeanette. I finished it today and couldn't put it down!

So Justin bought me the movie, The Help...I'm interested to see how they compare.

I not only bought Justin Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, but the gift to play it most of the day on Xmas eve. I read The Help most of the day; it was nice for both of us to relax together.

Of course Iivana had her fill of gifts as well. These next several pictures are her opening a bone from Justin's parents. Iivana opened the bone all by herself from wrapping, to plastic, to bow, to consuming. I thought it was pretty commical.

On Christmas morning we had cinnamon rolls, it has sort of become a tradition of ours. Our first year of marriage we had gluten filled ones that you pop out of the Pillsbury can. Last year, I made them from scratch and it was my first GF Christmas. They were okay...I know a lot more about baking GF than I did a year ago. This year I took the easy route and bought Udi's Cinnamon rolls. I love Udi's bread and Udi's cookies, so I figured I'd give the cinnamon rolls a try. (While I was taking this photo, someone ehem...Iivana...decided to counter surf and check out what we were having for breakfast.)

I had kept them in the freezer and pulled them out Christmas morning. I looked at the box and was surprised there were no directions for how to heat them. Do people tend to not heat them up because they are already cooked? To me, I need warm cinnamon rolls, so I again took the easy route and used the microwave. I popped one in for about 30 seconds.

I warmed each and covered it with the cinnamon glaze that was provided. To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the cinnamon rolls. I must have high expectations for Udi's products. I thought they were a little dry and I wasn't a huge fan of the glaze. I prefer a strictly vanilla flavored icing. Justin and I wondered if they were meant to be more like muffins and just kept in the fridge when ready to eat. Did warming them up, dry them out more? I'm not going to say I hated them, because I still found room for two. I guess I was just hoping for a more comparable GF version.

After breakfast we headed over to the squadron to serve Christmas dinner to basic trainees. We sported aprons and cool chefs' hats. It was fun volunteering, even if I did work up a sweat serving the potatoes, stuffing, and yams.

After lunch we stopped home to pack up the car and drove to Wimberley. We had a nice linner (lunch/dinner), gave the kids their presents, played games, and spent time chatting. For some reason, I always forget to take many pictures when we're there. I must be in the zone of relaxation!

I did get a few of our niece and nephews opening some gifts.

Lovely Labor Day

An extended weekend is always respected and enjoyed. Of course, with a holiday on a Monday; Monday is not a typical day. We had Justin's troop over along with his wife and daughter for lunch. I was also able to sleep in and of course, do some homework and check papers.

For the last eight Mondays, I've been attending cake decorating class. This Monday I didn't have one, last week was my last one. Unfortunately, I won't be at one again for a while. It is something I enjoy, but don't really have the time for with work and class two nights a week.

I just finished up my second class, which is the gum paste and flower class at Michael's. Each week we weren't required to make a cake, since we worked on making different types of flowers. For the final week, I used most of the flowers I made each week to help decorate my cake. 

I picked the ones that were pink and yellow.

I didn't have time to make all new flowers, so I thought I'd be able to make something work out of the hodgepodge of flowers I had created each week.

I think I made them look good together too!

We also learned how to do the basket weave.

For the inside of my GF cake, I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Amsterdam's Gluten Free Cupcake book. While I'm not sure if I should use a specific cupcake recipe for a cake, I did it anyways and just doubled it. My cake was still tiny, even with doubling the recipe.

I made a lemon flavored frosting and used a blueberry jam filling. The cake was alright, it was a little dense, definitely not as fluffy as the cupcakes from Williams Sonoma. In all honesty though, I picked it for that reason. I knew it would be easy to cut in half and decorate if it was a little more firm of a cake. Everyone at Justin's work still gobbled it up too.

Happy Labor Day to all, and here's to a short work week!

Ninja Blender

About a month ago, while we were flipping channels we came across an infomerical for the Ninja Kitchen System 1100. At first, I thought it was the infomerical for the $500 blender, the Vitamix which I've seen demonstrations before at Costco. But Justin noticed it was a different because the price was way cheaper! While this is not the infomerical we saw, here is a short clip about the Ninja.

We do have a working blender, but it's not the best nor top of the line. But I still couldn't justify spending money on a new one. I was sold when I saw the food processor attachment, because we had been just talking about investing in a food processor to help reduce chopping time. I didn't instantly jump on the phone and order one though. We debated for a few days, and I was determined to find a promo code to get a discount. After several tries I finally found a coupon code good for almost $24 dollars off. So I bought ours for $135 instead of the $159 price!

Shortly after I placed the order, I received a confirmation email. I didn't even realize the company that makes the Ninja Kitchen System. It is made by Euro-Pro. Not ringing a bell? They make Shark products! Remember my love for my Shark mop? (found here)

Today I organized our tiny pantry shelves to make room for our Ninja Kitchen System.

So far we've tried a few things in the blender. We've made a smoothie, some salad dressing and fruit salad. Unfortunately we haven't tried the food processor attachment yet, but when we do I'll definitely let y'all know how it works. I bet it will make the guacamole process a breeze! There is also an attachment to make dough. This part may require some extra work to find a good GF recipe for bread.

The system even came with a cookbook. The first recipe we tried was the apple, cranberry, and gorgonzola salad. Of course I couldn't throw a whole apple into the blender, so I had to cut  up the apple and cucumber a little first.

It finely chopped/minced the apple and cucumber.

Then I added some dried fruit mix of cranberries, blueberries, cherries, and prunes. It also calls for walnuts, but we decided not to use any.

I rinsed the blender and made the dressing mix. It was composed of 1/2 cup gorgonzola cheese crumbles, 1/2 cup of sour cream, 1/4 cream cheese,  2 tablespoons of milk, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

The apple mixture gets served in a cucumber thinly sliced the long way. A dollop of the gorgonzola dressing tops it off! Doesn't my presentation look superb? It only took me the whole cucumber to cut two good slices for our meal. We served this as a side with some tilapia. 

The recipe says it serves four but it seemed like it made way more than that! We ate up the left overs, but just served them in a bowl. 

I Baked!

Remember how I was avoiding baking, well last night I was feeling rather inspired. I ordered "Gluten-Free Cupcakes" by Elana Amsterdam and received it in the mail over this past weekend.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't normally have tried this specific recipe first. But when you look at my overstock of bananas left from my presentation party for class, you can understand why I picked Chocolate Banana Cupcakes.

This extra banana was a good prop to hold open my brand new book. I liked that there weren't many ingredients. Usually a lot of the recipes for baking GF call for numerous flours. This recipe only called for coconut flour with a handful of additional ingredients.

I only had one problem...I was out of cupcake holders. So I improvised with cut up pieces of parchment paper. The dough had a normal consistency of wheat flour cake batter.

They baked well and rose a little, I know it's a little difficult to see in my make-shift paper holders.

I did cheat on the frosting though. The recipe suggested a mashed banana flavored frosting, which I opted out on because it would only stay good for about a day. I knew we couldn't eat all the cupcakes right away. I didn't want to see these wonderful cupcakes in ugly, browned banana frosting. But don't worry it was gluten free.

They were really moist, the bananas made them almost muffin-ish. They would be delicious with some mini chocolate chips and wouldn't really need any frosting then. I liked them and was proud of myself for a successful baking experience.

Yesterday was a high of 95 and today the high was probably about 62. Today actually felt like spring and I loved it! We made some tortilla soup for dinner tonight that complimented the weather perfectly. Here's a sneak peak at the final result.

G-Free Diet

I just ordered The G-Free Diet by Elisabeth Hasselbeck.  I don't really know much about the book, except that Elisabeth Hasselbeck has Celiac Disease.  Hopefully I'll be able to fit some reading into my schedule with class starting up again this week.  Luckily I'm only taking one class this semester, so some night time reading seems probable.  I ordered my paperback copy from Chegg for $13.99 because I had some money credited there for selling back a book. With shipping and tax though it was a little over 20 bucks.  Once I receive it and start reading it, I'll post about it.