2012 Twin Cities Celiac Walk/Run!

We had such a good time today!  The weather was great, the walk was fun, we had lots of fun, and ate yummy food!

The shirts we created.  Go Team Holly!!

Henry, Kelly, Goldy the Gopher, and Brian!

Getting high-fives from Goldy

This was hilarious.  A giant colon (inflatable) with different diseases (sadly, no celiac, since that's the small intestine).

Kelly, Brian and Todd IN the colon.

"Exiting" the colon!  Ok, being pooped out.  Brian's not so sure about the whole thing.

Cherry Dilly Bar from DQ!  Mmmmm!  (Also, FREE)

Chocolate Dilly Bar!  Yummy!!

Holly and Kelly getting their faces painted!

Team Holly 2012!  Go Team!

Showing off the pretty face paint--complete with glitter!

Can't wait for next year!

It's that time of year again

The Twin Cities Celiac Walk/Run is on Saturday (the 19th) already!  I can't believe it's been a year.  We've been a little lax about getting the word out this year, but we do have some friends and family joining us.  It should be lots of fun!

If you are interested in joining us or just donating (the proceeds go to celiac research--hopefully a cure will be found one day!), here is the link.

http://www.twincitiesceliacwalk.org/register.html

On behalf of our family, and especially Holly, thanks for your support.  It means so much to us and millions of other people all over the world! 

Thanksgiving

Now that it's almost time for Christmas (19 days!), I am going to share a little bit of our Thanksgiving with you.  It is, really, a very little bit.  We were busy cooking, eating, and watching the parade, dog show, and Miracle on 34th Street that day. 

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Homemade cornbread for stuffing and cranberries to make homemade cranberry sauce (first time this year, and it was good!):

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Beautiful cranberries, ready to cook.  I couldn't capture the red very well.  They were stunning. 

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 Homemade pumpkin pie--Grandpa's recipe, of course--and the finished cranberry sauce (YUM!):

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We're now busy getting ready for a big Christmas celebration here at our house.  We've already got one more person in the house, and when it's time to celebrate the holidays, we'll have three more people staying here and a few more visiting, at least!  I think it's going to be a good Christmas.

Yummy stuff

Remember the chicken fingers I mentioned earlier?  And those great cookies I baked?  I got the recipe for the chicken fingers (I still can't even think of that term without wanting to wiggle my fingers in someone's face while saying/thinking it) and the fantastic flour blend I've used for our baking from this one great blog.  I stumbled across them looking for a flour blend that did not contain tapioca starch, since I can't stand the taste of it--and it's an anti-thyroid food, something I do not need to be eating!

It's called No Gluten, No Problem.  This wonderful couple has a cookbook, too, which we just bought.  What a fantastic cookbook!  Yummy, yummy, yummy.  The book is called Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking, and I am so excited to use it.

This book has everything from crepes and scones to salsas, crab cakes, mozzarella sticks (mmmm), and cheesecake.  Ravioli, anyone?  Or perhaps Pan-Seared Scallops?  How about Garlic-Lime Skirt Steak with Cuban Mojo?  Pad Thai?  Jamaican Jerk Chicken?  There are over 250 recipes in here, from comfort food to ethnic dishes.  You do not have to be on a gluten-free diet to enjoy this book. 

I wanted to give this book a review mostly because I'm so excited about it (their recipes are fabulous), but also because they're a really neat family who had to figure all this out for themselves, just like a lot of other people who have to go gluten-free.  Peter and Kelli Bronski have brought a lot of yummy stuff back into our lives and I'm thankful for all the work they've put into doing that (so I don't have to start from scratch!).  It's also made me excited to cook again.  I think there's something that happens to a lot of people who have to make this transition--you get a little depressed about food.  You don't want to think about it anymore--after all, it's all you think about for a long time after your diagnosis.  You  have to, to make sure you aren't making mistakes.  You get sick of trying to figure out, "What can I/we eat?" all of the stinkin' time!  This book and their website (especially) have helped me to get out of that funk.  I'm thankful for them!

They're in the process of making an all-cupcake cookbook right now!  I can't wait to see that one...

Fall Preserving

I am writing this on Saturday, the fourth of September.  I'm going to have this post while we're gone on our trip.

I felt so productive today.  Made a batch of Sloppy Joes and froze it in a Ziploc to take camping--all we have to do it heat it up and eat it with chips!  Mmmm...

I prepped all my ripe tomatoes (blanched, removed skin, cut in half, squeezed out seeds and goo, put in Ziplocs) and put them in the freezer for winter cooking.  Another mmmm...

I have lots more, and more on the plants--most of which are going to get the same treatment.  We have lots of grape tomatoes.  But those will get eaten up quickly.  They are amazing.  Yum.  I have all the unripe tomatoes spaced out around my kitchen, trying to keep them apart so they ripen more slowly and we don't come home from our trip to a bunch of overripe, mushy, rotten tomatoes!

Even chopped up the purple bell peppers I have and they're on a cookie sheet freezing as we speak.  They'll go into their own Ziploc later tonight.

More are growing right now, and I found that with this particular plant, the longer I leave the peppers on the plant, the better they are.  I left one on for weeks and it started turning green with a tinge of red.  It's actually the cut-up one in the picture above.  I tried a bit of it and it was very good.  Sweet.  The others are a little more bitter.  Still good though!

I've got pumpkins and butternut squash in my storeroom...

Who wants made-from-scratch pumpkin pie in a couple of months?  I know I do.  And Brad.  And Henry and Holly, too!  (The stripes on the butternut are actually shadows from my onion, garlic and potato storage bins that hang on the cool IKEA shelves we got.  More on that another time...)

Then I converted one of Brad's favorite cookie recipe, those Molasses Crinkles I showed off yesterday.  AND I got all the laundry (well, clothing anyway) washed and dried, and got some more packing done for the trip.

Now I need to get school started (when we get home, of course), start canning, and finish up Christmas plans.  Then get ready for the holidays.

We love fall!


P.S.  We'll be back soon and I'll post pictures of our trip as soon as I can!

CAKE.

Yummy.  Chocolate cake.  But I'll never be able to make something good again because we can't have gluten, right?

Wrong.

This is one half of a recipe of "Lighter than Air" chocolate cake (it should be four layers high).  It has no flour in it.  It is made, almost entirely, of eggs.  12 eggs (mine was six).  Whipped egg yolks and whites.  Whipped cream frosting.  Insanely good.

It was gone in about a day.

Anyone wanna come over for some cake?