Going Gluten Free

So Elphie has made the decision to go Gluten (and dye) free with her boys and eat healthier and more natural all around. Since I signed Batman up for swim lessons down at the base Elphie is at, we stayed with her for the better part of two weeks, and were eating cleaner by proxy. She has seen immediate and amazing results in her kids from changing their diet, and with Superman's issues (Emotional Developmental Delay, fine motor skill challenges and developmental delays in social areas) I figured that this may be a way to help him deal with things better; having a healthier and cleaner system. I haven't seen drastic results due to the diet changes (though the one-on-one time I got with him last week while Batman stayed with Elphie and I had Superman at home for a few days really seemed to help him), but I'm definitely not writing it off.

I do, however, think I may have a wheat allergy or sensitivity. Going from Gluten free to eating like "normal" at home, back and forth, has really been taking a significant (and painful!) toll on my digestive system. It wouldn't really be surprising, as I do have plenty of other seasonal allergies and reactions to various plant life and their pollens. In researching Gluten free cooking & eating, I've come to find that those with these kinds of allergies are most commonly those with hay-fever and reacting to pollens of plants. So I am now trying to go Gluten free in our home as well. It's not exactly easy. Especially when I have two little boys that don't like change and love their bread and pasta!

I have, however, found a great site for Gluten free recipes! When Elphaba was first going Gluten free, she mentioned that the Gluten free bread from the store was gross and that her kids wouldn't eat it unless it was toasted. I put my Internet searching skills to work and found this great blog. We used her sandwich bread recipe, and it was amazing! It was the first time I ever baked with yeast (which I was greatly intimidated by, because I had heard over and over that baking bread with yeast is less like baking and more like cooking...which I kind of fail at...), so I was quite proud of how well it came out. :) And has continued to do so!

A loaf of the Gluten free sandwich bread, halfway done baking

Other than that, we've been staying very busy! Batman has passed his first level of swim lessons with flying colors, and we signed him up today for the next level, which starts next week. Superman did not get swim lessons at the same time because there was a clause in the consent form about assuring the child would not be a hindrance to any of the other kids at any time. With his developmental delays, that's not an area I can promise will go according to the will of the adults involved. However, there is the possibility I may be able to get him into a swim class with kids his age with the teacher that the other boys had this past time, and she was fantastic with whenever there were any problems with wandering attention or tempers flaring. After this set of lessons, though, we'll be done with them for the summer. We'll have just a few weeks to get the boys' school supplies together, plan and have Batman's birthday party, fit in a Barefoot Path adventure, aiming for a picnic lunch at a castle, and hitting up another Medieval Festival at another castle...all before the end of next month! I am grateful that we've been able to keep the boys busy. I can't believe that they've only been out for less than a month, and am even in more disbelief that they'll be starting 1st & 2nd grade in about 6 weeks!

Gettin' My Craft On!

So I have been home from the States for over a month, and I still haven't blogged about my BFF's wedding, nor have I finished blogging about my trip to Paris with Elphie, not to say mentioning my amazing birthday weekend! But I will get there, I promise. And those are not just empty words. I just have...issues...with finding a balance. There tends to be a lot of extreme behaviors one way, and then the complete opposite (and many times back and forth a time or two more!) before I get back into my "groove." And the past few months have been anything but regular!

And in the "extreme behavior" toward the negative, for a week or two, I was completely ensconced in the silly Facebook games. Frontierville/Pioneer Trail, Mafia Wars 2, Cafe World...all that crap. It was like a trance I couldn't be pulled out of. But Monday, I finally reached a decision that I had been mulling over. I decided to stop playing them. All of them. (Well, okay, I still have Words with Friends and Scrabble, but those only take, like, 2 minutes to make your move and then you wait on your opponent to go. No big.) And in the time that I have not been playing those time-sucking games, I have done the following:

Completed the WestKnits Mystery KAL:

Started and completed a stitchmarker Lariat:

Started and completed a pair of Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Wristers:

 

Started and completed a hat for The Instigator's aunt:

Made my own mitten blockers:

Blocked the Bella mittens for Tara:

 Baked a batch of zucchini muffins and 2 loaves of zucchini bread (this is all that was left of the muffins after 24 hours...they were completely gone in less than 48! LOL):

Started and completed a cowl (for trading for an apron from a fellow crafter!):

Finally finished a blanket to donate to a patient of Nephrotic Syndrome 

that has been a long time in coming!:

And have done some super-top-secret HSKS swappy items. Plus,that's to say nothing of finally getting my crafting supplies slowly migrating upstairs to my new craft room (used to be the boys' toy room, but we moved those upstairs to the large closet and their bedroom), catching up on housework, participating in running a knitting swap, and actually cooking meals! I have really been on fire! LOL I'm really hoping that this is less of a swing of the pendulum in the productive segment of my balance and more of a trend leading to habit. :) I guess only time will tell, but all in all, not bad for a week's worth of effort. :)

Baking Away!

Tomorrow afternoon/evening is our Halloween party!!!! Superman, Batman and I will be going down to Ramstein to see Kristin, Elphaba, and their boys and having a spooky old time! :D It's going to be so much fun! I can't wait!

I'm taking some goodies with me, so today I spent much of my time baking. (And when I wasn't baking, I was cleaning...my house needs it!!!) I had originally wanted to make these Pumpkin Pillows, but there isn't a snowball's chance in H-E-double hockey sticks I'd be able to find wonton wrappers at the Commissary. Granted, I could have done some variation of a pie crust, but I honestly didn't feel like going to the trouble. LOL So instead, I resorted to these 2 ingredient pumpkin muffins!

Unfortunately, I didn't look closely enough at the recipe posted before starting (oops!), and ended up opening the wrong can of pumpkin! So now I have to find something to make with the pie mix/filling. (Which, if you know me, is so heartbreaking, giving how much I love pumpkin...LOL)

The RIGHT pumpkin (puree) on the left and the wrong pumpkin (pie mix/filling) on the right

As I could only find the 30 ounce cans of pumpkin at the Commissary, I split the can in half and made one batch with French Vanilla cake mix and the second with Spice Cake mix. (I can already tell from the smell that the latter is going to be my favorite!) And I know the recipe says you only need the two ingredients, but it wasn't mixing the greatest, in my opinion, and still a bit dry, so I added one egg to the spice mix batch.

While I was waiting for the last set of muffins to come out of the oven, I started in on preparing for the Oreo cookie spiders.

Unfortunately, we don't have the black licorice pull and peel here, so the legs will be red, and I cannot buy black jelly beans if it's not Easter season, so I substituted with M&Ms. I cut the pull & peel whips into the 1.5" segments (I used 4 pre-peeled whips and had about an inch leftover on each whip, ending up with 215 leg pieces). When I sat down to put the legs into the cookies, they wouldn't fit. :( So on my way to the gym tonight, I stopped by the Commissary to pick up Double Stuf Oreos. Wouldn't you know it....they don't even carry them. So instead, I will try shaving off some of the end that is to fit inside the cookie and try that route. And if that fails, then I'll just use Ritz crackers, peanut butter and pretzels to make the spiders! LOL

While I waited on the appropriate time to replace the cookies, I worked on the Mini Witch Brooms.

Each Fruit Roll-Up gave me 15 pieces of the 2" requirement (and I cut the 2" strips and the fringe before removing it from the paper to avoid unnecessary sticking to everything!), and I had leftover the ends that are folded in on themselves.  I had some issues at first, but it turns out I had cut the fringe the wrong direction, which gave it a completely different (and completely unsatisfactory) look.

The one on the left is done properly and how it is SUPPOSED to look

I used a teacup to hold the water and a syringe that the pharmacy gives out to give infants medicine (Don't worry, this one was unused! lol) to dab a drop of water on the Roll-Up. (A cheap, new paint brush would also have worked just as easily.) It was actually a little bit tricky, and while wrapping them the wrong way, I actually contemplated going for the fatter pretzels, but it all worked out in the end.

And let me tell you, between peeling all those Twizzlers and rolling all those little Roll-Ups on the end of pretzels, my fingers got a bit sticky (as did my kitchen scissors)! LOL

I waited on making the sugar cookies until the boys were home to help me cut out the shapes, but that ended up backfiring because of how long everything else took, so I haven't even begun to make those! They will have to wait until tomorrow while the boys are at school.

For those of you that know me well enough to know my baking preferences, you know that it's a pretty big deal that I'm resorting to "cheating" and using pre-made mixes to bake cookies. (I'm of the "bake from scratch or it's not truly baking" camp.) But with all the other goodies I'm making, I just don't really have the time to take to make it the right way. :( So tomorrow, more kitchen time and cookie cutters are in my future!!!