Gluten-free, Vegan, Breakfast Bars...

I am not one to want to spend much time on breakfast. I just want something quick, easy and healthy to eat with my cup of coffee. I am a gluten-free girl. I was eating Rice or Corn Chex until the naturopath told me to stop since those almost immediately turn into sugar in your system. It was quick and easy but not very healthy. Then I started eating Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal. It is mighty tasty, but not very quick. It has to cook for a little while, not the best thing on mornings when I am up way before dawn to go to work at Starbucks. My cousin Mary Beth is now doing gluten free and she sent me the recipe for Joann's Power Bars at www.allrecipes.com. Here is my version of that recipe:

1 cup gluten-free rolled oats
1/2 cup ground flax seed meal
1/4 cup soy protein powder
1/2 cup dried fruit of your choice, dried blueberries is my choice :)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
egg substitute, equivalent to 1 egg
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tbls brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbls olive oil (I want to try coconut oil next time)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9 inch square pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
2. Mix together the oats, flax seed meal, soy protein powder, brown sugar, dried fruit, nuts and cinnamon in a large bowl.
3. Add the apple sauce, egg substitute, apple sauce, and olive oil. Mix all together.
4. Spoon the dough into the baking dish and press down until evenly in the pan.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the edges get slightly brown.
6. Simply lift the edges of the foil out of the pan and place on a cooling rack. I cute mine into 6 squares, a good size for breakfast. You can cut them smaller if you are just wanting a little snack. Store in an air tight container in the fridge.
   
7. Enjoy!

I had one this morning for breakfast and I was not hungry again until noon! I usually get hungry around 10am and have to have a snack. Not today! I am guessing that all the fiber from the oats and flax seed plus the protein powder and nuts really helps it all stick to your ribs.

This is exactly what I was looking for. This definitely fits the bill for quick, easy and healthy. Yes, cooking up a batch takes a little bit of time but for the next 6 mornings I have breakfast all ready to go. It's not too sweet which is perfect, I don't like sweet breakfasts. I don't even put sugar in my coffee.

Pork Chops, Asparagus and Potatoes...

Today I cooked The Pioneer Woman's Pork Chops with Garlic and Wine. And I have to say you must must must try it! My husband raved over it so you know it is a good recipe. :) I used boneless pork chops.
(Picture c/o of The Pioneer Woman)



With the pork chops I made these baked potatoes. I found the idea on Pinterest. Boy were they good. I used Yukon Gold potatoes and after slicing them I drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled them with a little bit of seasoned salt (my newest found favorite seasoning). Then baked them at 400 degrees for 40-45 minutes.



I also made some roasted asparagus. I drizzled it with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted it at 400 degrees, after 5 minutes tossed them around a little bit and then roasted for another 5 minutes. It comes out perfectly, not too mushy and not too hard.








This came out to be a pretty scrumptious meal. My hubby loved it which means it goes on my "recipes to repeat" list. I am pretty sure I am going to make it every time boneless pork chops go on sale. :)

My brother, the English teacher...

Right now my brother Ben, his wife Mai and my sweet little nephew Charlie are living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. My brother is teaching English and my sister-in-law is working in an orphanage. Mai is from Vietnam and all her family is there. They will be returning to the States in March and then moving to Alaska. Talk about change in climate! Vietnam is hot all year round with the rainy season mixed in there somewhere which is hot and muggy. Alaska is, well... Alaska! My brother made a video for the British school he is working at. I believe he is the one on the motor bike riding around like a crazy man, but that is how they all drive around there so he fits right in. Needless to say I gasped at a couple parts. He appears in the video around minute 2:00. He is the bald, white guy dancing around. It was really fun to see him in his job over there. I can't wait to see them in March. I am going to squish my little squishy face (aka Charlie) all up! (Yes, I am going to be one of those aunts who squishes cheeks, especially when they are that squishable!)

Homework...

When Daniel and I came home from taking Aunt Karin to the airport on Monday Daisy was sitting at the table doing some drawing for a homework assignment. Daniel immediately wanted to do some drawing too. So I set him up with some paper and crayons. They sure looked pretty cute doing their "homework" together. Every once in a while Daniel would say something to Daisy about what he was drawing. Too cute!

Sickies...

Daniel woke up yesterday with a fever. The only good thing about him getting sick is lots of cuddle time. Even Daddy is good for cuddling when you are sick. These pictures just melt my heart. :)



Sweet baby boy. I am keeping lots of liquids in him as he doesn't want to eat much right now. With lots of cuddling and liquids he should feel better soon. :)

Leavenworth with Aunt Karin...

MyAunt Karin came up from LA to visit this past week. It has been so lovely having her here and I am very sad to see her head home tomorrow. I think all of my SoCal family needs to come up here and visit more often! :)

While she was here Mom, Dad, Aunt Karin, Daniel and I went and spent the night in Leavenworth. It was a lot different from the last time Rue, Daisy, Daniel and I went at Christmas time. Then it was extremely crowded, no parking and hardly any room to move in the shops. There was much more snow at that time too. This time it was so quiet and there were hardly any tourists and there was not nearly as much snow. The Enzian Inn we stayed at had hardly any patrons. It was quite nice as I don't enjoy large crowds very much. And the town was still decorated for Christmas!




After dinner at Andreas Keller I took Daniel for a swim in the hotel pool. Unfortunately Daniel wasn't too excited about swimming. I had the whole pool to myself. The pool is in the basement of the hotel. It is surrounded by pillars, has a beautiful mural and there was classical music playing. There was a hot tub too! Aunt Karin, Mom, and Dad were kicking themselves for not bringing their swimsuits.







Daniel and Gramma watched cartoons on my iPod after swimming.


Can you tell that they are twinnies? :)

The men. Aren't they cute! No, Daniel is not retaining water in his wrists, I just pulled his gloves up and over his jacket. :)

This was our view at breakfast in the hotel.

During breakfast a man came out dressed in lederhosen, hopped up on the railing of the balcony and played the alpenhorn.










After breakfast we did a little more looking in the shops. Thanks to Mom and Aunt Karin I came away with a wonderful new hat but that is another post for later. We bought some goodies for Rue and Daisy and then headed towards Wenatchee. The scenery was so beautiful and Aunt Karin oohed and awed almost the whole ride in the car. We stopped at the Aplets and Cotlets factory in Cashmere. Aplets and Cotlets are one of my favorite treats. You can buy them in grocery stores here but I always wait to buy them until we are on the east side of the mountains that way they stay a special treat.




Daniel and Grampa walked to the nearby train tracks hoping to see a train.


It was so wonderful being in the snowy mountains for a couple days with my parents and Aunt Karin. Hearing Aunt Karin ooh and awe over the beauty and snap as many pictures as she could was fun. I love sharing the mountains that I love with the family that I love.

Sunny weather...

We woke up to another gorgeous sunny day this morning. We went to church this morning and after Daniel had a little rest we headed out to enjoy the beautiful sunshine. It was almost warm! Rue had to go to work and Daisy stayed home to finish up some math homework.

We drove out to Manchester, a cute little town on the water. There is a tiny public beach there, probably the smallest, cutest little public beach I have ever seen. The only problem with this little beach was there were no rocks! It was all sand. When I told Daniel we were going to the water he got all excited about getting to throw rocks in the water. This is the first beach I have been to in Washington that had absolutely no rocks! So we walked back up towards the car and found a little dirt patch that had some rocks in it so we gathered up as many as we could and took them down to the beach. They were gone all too quickly but Daniel got to throw some rocks in the water. After the rocks were gone I showed him how to draw in the sand with a stick. He really enjoyed that and kept drawing in the sand until we left.








The view was gorgeous! You can see the full skyline of Seattle. If you look closely towards the left of the picture you can see the Space Needle. This is another moment when I really wish I had a better camera. It's just not that good for distance photos. And we could see Mt. Rainier. I sure can't wait to go do some hiking up there!


My Aunt Karin arrives tomorrow night from LA! She will be visiting for a week. On Wednesday my mom, dad, Aunt Karin, Daniel and I will be heading to Leavenworth and we will be spending the night. I know Aunt Karin is going to LOVE Leavenworth! I just can't wait to see her sweet face! I probably won't be posting anything this week since we will be out having fun but I will be taking lots of pictures and will have a fun post up in about a week or so. Have a good week everyone!

Mmmmmm, chili!

I discovered my two new favorite ingredients from the grocery store Ro-Tel and El Pato tomato sauce. I now keep my pantry stock with several cans of each. So far I have used them in burritos, enchiladas and chili. I am sure I will find even more recipes to use them in. I love making chili in the winter time and thankfully my hubby loves to eat it. It's probably one of the few meals I could make every week and he doesn't mind eating it so often. My favorite chili recipe is from The Pioneer Woman's cook book. At this point it is the best chili I have ever made. She doesn't add the El Pato to her's but I decided to try and add it to mine and it is so good. It makes it just a little bit more spicy. She serves her's with Frito's and I decided to give that a try and it is very yummy. Even better the whole thing is gluten, dairy and egg free which makes it a perfect meal for me. I love it when I find something we all can eat and I don't have to make something separate for myself. I really wish I could share the recipe with you but I am pretty sure that would be breaking a copyright law of some kind so all I can do is encourage you to buy her book. Or you can just come over to my house for dinner and I will make it for you! :)

More crazy weather...

A huge windstorm blew through last night. The wind kept me awake but I did eventually fall asleep only to be woken by a huge gust of wind along with a huge crash. It was so loud I was sure a tree had come down. When I looked out the back window I saw that the back fence had been blown into the neighbors yard! Needless to say we have been having some crazy weather here in the Northwest. My hubby had the day off and Josh, our neighbor, took the day off from work so they are both out there right now working to get the fence back up. The people who lived here before put the fence in but didn't do a very good job. The main posts in the ground weren't put into cement but just in the dirt so they eventually rotted away. No wonder the fence blew over last night. Rue and Josh are doing it right this time. :)

A Very Good Idea...

I saw this idea on Pinterest for salads. I put a homemade balsamic vinaigrette in the bottom. Then some cut up mushrooms, grape tomatoes, then the lettuce. I put a small handful of sunflower seeds on top, you can't see them in the picture. Since the lettuce is on top then it won't get soggy in the dressing. I made up a bunch of these and put them in the fridge. When I am making Rue's work lunch I can just grab one out of the fridge and add it to his lunch. It's so nice to just pull one out of the fridge and dump it on a plate and enjoy. :) They will keep in the fridge up to four days.

Snowy Weather 2...

Well, this has been quite the week. A huge winter storm blew through Washington leaving massive amounts of snow and ice. The icicles are hanging from my parents' porch. If you can believe it they actually got much longer than this, reaching to almost the bottom of the windows!

This is the pond at my parents', so pretty!

Tuesday night Daniel, Daisy and I headed over to my parents' house in case of a power outage since they have a generator and a wood stove and we have neither.

Daniel loves to help my mom do the dishes. She puts a little blob of soap bubbles on the counter and he rubs them all around. Sometimes he puts them in his hand and then claps his hands showering himself and my mom (and me) with suds.





Daniel even helped my dad fold the laundry. He is such a good little helper. I hope I do a good job of encouraging his helpful spirit. My dad would shake out the towels before folding them. Daniel was very good at doing it like Grampa. :)



Shortly after this Daniel came down with a cold and had a fever and was my little cuddle-bug for a couple of days. And alas, he passed the sickies onto me. Now I have a monster sore throat, the chills and aches.

Even though I have really enjoyed all the snow this week I am looking forward to this next week and getting back into our regular routine.

Snowy weather...

It has been snowing here and it is suppose to snow for a couple more days. I am loving this winter weather! I wish it was like this all winter long. Daniel was so excited to see the snow when he woke up yesterday morning. I took him outside for a little while. We played in the front yard and then took a little walk around the block. Every bird we saw was a "snow bird" according to Daniel.

It snowed some more last night and this morning Rue took Daniel out to build a snowman.


Not sure what they ended up building but they sure had fun doing it. Daniel saw something shiny and lost his focus. :)

We are suppose to get dumped on again tonight and tomorrow so we are heading over to my parents' now just in case. They have a generator and a wood stove if the power ends up going out. It wouldn't be very fun to be stuck here with no power and no heat. Maybe it will come to nothing but I would rather be safe than sorry. Plus it's always fun to spend the night at my parents'. :)

Baked Chicken and Fennel with Shallots

I just recently started cooking with fennel. It is in season right now and I am trying to cook more in season. I love the fresh anise smell when I am slicing it and the flavor really mellows when roasted. The roasted shallots are pretty scrumptious too. I got the recipe from Martha Stewart. In her recipe she adds apples but I left them out simply because I didn't feel like adding them. :)

Click here for the recipe. It is such a quick and easy recipe, it's a perfect weeknight meal. I also baked some Yukon Gold potatoes to go with.