Recipes from our Kitchen, Tales from Richmond
So, I’m totally getting into the Pinterest MOVEMENT! Have you seen it? Its like heaven for visual people. :)
So here’s my completely Gluten Free – Completely Valentines’y Pinterest Board. (like an inspiration board).
To see how-to make the craft or goodie, or to get more info on the item, you click on the image which will take you to the original poster’s article.
I’m definitely not talking meat here, folks. I mean the whole Raw movement. There’s a movement (in the States ?) that is promoting the health benefits of raw foods – we mean whole, uncooked, unprocessed foods – with all their flavor and vitamins in tact. I didn’t think I’d go raw – and I still don’t. But I am looking to understand how to make better food choices…
My 11 year old and I both suffer from Oral Allergy Syndrome so raw fruits & veggies are completely out for us, so the simple “toss together some lettuce and random veggies salad” does not work. Unless we’re both up for dealing with sore mouths for a few hours… sometimes we do – can you say pecans and goat cheese? Yum! Anyway, I was given a book to review, “Good and Tasty Eats”, by the wholesome-food-advocate, and incredibly down to earth, Kim Wilson. Let me give you an excerpt:
Here’s my really lazy “one bowl” baking method: Combine wet ingredients in the bottom of your mixing bowl, then measure dry ingredients on top (flour first, then smaller amount ingredients on the very top). Lightly mix the smaller ingredients (baking powder, salt, spices, etc.) into the flour, before combining the dry ingredients with the wet ones below. This is an example of the extent I will go to in avoiding extra dirty dishes!
A woman after my own heart – one-bowl baking!!
I would recommend you pay up to $15 for this book – even more – if you’re setting 2012 goals for switching your cooking from basic American Apple Pie to Apple Pie with a few Healthy meals. (skip below to see the price – you wont believe it. I’m not even kidding)
Big Pros
I don’t know about you, but the only legumes or beans that were served in my house growing up were Split Green Pea Soup with Ham, or Refried Beans with Chile Rianos. I can wing-it with other recipes in my American Applie Pie kitchen, but healthy? You soak wha? Can you disguise the taste? Do legumes have to be in a soup (blech)? Good and Easy Eats shows you exactly what to do, step by step for the basic stuff – like soaking legumes.
You get 70 of their family’s staple recipes. These are the ones they make every week, or every other week.
I also love how she outlines what their family eats – what do they have for breakfast? In a hurry? On a weekend? How about brown-bag lunches?
The price!! Huge pro – $4.99!
Con’s
You wont find any recipes for meat. Although you could easily add a little meat to each meal.
You wont find long exotic ingredients.
There are no fancy gourmet recipes here.
So, for $4.99, there really aren’t any.
Pick up a copy here.
Enjoy!
I love pork tenderloin – it is fantastically cheap. And it is delicious, when I manage not to cook it to death. This recipe is my gluten-free & Cathy-fied variation of this easy recipe from Life Made Delicious.
Photo by KitchenArtistry.com
Ingredients
Instructions
This is a salad that I can get my mind around serving for dinner! Our kids are not huge salad eaters, so we serve dinner salads with bread and butter on the side to round it out for them.
This easy recipe is the foundation for my slight variation:
Photo from LifeMadeDelicious
1 beef sirloin steak, 1lb
2/3 cup Gluten Free balsamic vinaigrette dressing
1 bag (6 oz) fresh baby spinach leaves
3/4 cup crumbled goat feta cheese (3 oz)
Directions:
Candy Cane Candy bark! We made a cookie sheet of it, and broke it up, bagged it, and are delivering to neighbors & friends this week. The kids had a blast smashing the candy canes! 
Read below the recipe to find printable bag toppers!
| Peppermint Candy Cane Bark |
Click on the image to go to the site and download these FREE printable bag toppers! How cute are they?
Last weekend, we put together my youngest (she’s 6 now!!) daughter’s birthday party! I LOOOOVE going completely bonkers with parties. It is my entertainment – something for which to drag myself away from the computer. Since my daughter is only six, and sleep is really important, we had an ‘almost’ sleepover party with all the girls going home at 8pm!
Here’s the invites, and printables (example).
The banner hung on the wall under the twinkle lights. The circles were punched out with a scalloped 2″ square punch, glued on juice boxes with a tulle bow, and the left & right edges glued together to make an ‘envelope’ for the straws. They can also be used for cupcake toppers if you have cupcakes. Thank you tags were fixed to the white craft bags with teddy bear beads and ribbon.
The invites said, “Its an Almost Slumber Party”, Please bring your PJ’s, sleeping bag or comforter, and pillow. Time: 5:30 – 8pm
From Etsy Store: Party So Perfect
Gluten Free (Betty Crocker) Chocolate Cake
It is ridiculously easy to coat anything with candy melts. You just melt them in the microwave, add food coloring and drizzle or dip your sweet goodies. We found sugar free candy melts from the Galloways. The pretzels above are wheat pretzels, but this will work just as well with GF pretzels. We used purchased pink sugar for coating. Just never use bulk-baking goods if you’re party must be Gluten Free!
Sleeping Teddy Bear Soda Crackers (not GF)
There are Gluten Free Teddy Graham crackers/cookies you can purchase from the grocery store. These ones are wheat based. We broke off the bodies of the teddy bears – the girls thought this was pretty fun because they got to eat the bodies. Then we dipped the crackers in candy melts. The salty cracker and sweet candy melts were YUMMMY.
Sugar Free cookies with Candy Melts
Favors
Favors for the sleepover party included: mini flashlights with tulle bows, stickers, candies, assorted princess favors(bracelet, ring, activity sheet, pencil).
Cutest Flashlights Ever (hanging under tulle)
I couldn’t have asked for better flashlights! These were the kind that you have to hold down the button to keep them ON which worked great – the batteries lasted the whole night!
Cutest Birthday Girl Ever
The party table is behind her and the birthday cake. I didn’t get a good picture of the food table set up properly.
It was super easy to decorate with lights everywhere! We put up twinkle lights, some pink streamers, and the birthday banner – thats it! We added some balloons for play and it was beautiful!
Set with 2 layers of table cloths. DIY pizza was set up on the first layer.
TIP: cover your oven tray in tin foil and use a permanent marker to mark each girls pizzas to keep them organized.
Once the pizzas were made and slipped into the oven, we removed the entire top layer – table cloth and all – and tossed it!
Second layer Table: white tablecloth, purple napkin, white plate, utensils and yogurt tube were wrapped in a pink napkin. Utensils were placed beside plate, with a tulle-wrapped juice box at the top of it. Plate had the sleeping teddy bear cookies on each. Center of the table was decorated with twinkle lights, and the fruit trays. We had flower center pieces but they weren’t needed.
IMPORTANT TIP: bring a camera that takes pictures in the dark really well! 
