Kombucha #2

On to kombucha bottle #2. This stuff is nasty, pure and simple. I am forcing myself to finish the bottle since it's so expensive. I'd rather not though.

Kombucha

Thankfully I found a natural food store in Rochester within walking distance of our hotel.

I decided to try some of their local kombucha. This first one is a yummy grape flavor. So, so tasty. I might try to take some home!

Last Restaurant

I have one last restaurant to blog about from the missions trip.  Jamaican!

Just so, so good.  Sweet and sour chicken (thankfully more sweet than sour) with beans and rice plus some cabbage.  All this along side a soft potato-type bread.  A nice big hunk of bread too.  Way more food than could be eaten.

Life is Good

On Tuesday we did our "Urban Plunge". We were sent out in small groups, usually of 4, on a mission to interact with the community and learn more about the homeless. Each group was given a minimal amount of money with which to buy our dinner, a destination and a list of question that we were to ask a homeless person while sharing a meal with them.

Our group was assigned the Eastern Market. While walking to our destination we brain stormed about how we'd accomplish our goal.

After procuring the food, finding our homeless person proved more difficult than expected. Especially, because we didn't want to just assume someone was homeless! However, our person was located, questions were answered and meal shared. All this equaled mission accomplished!!

Kara wound up being our navigator, Seth found the food (pizza) and Cody our spokesperson.

To celebrate our success we went across the street and enjoyed a dozen donuts. Cody ate 5 in about as many minutes. A frozen coffee was at the top of my celebratory list while enjoying the air conditioned atmosphere. Did I mention it was about 95 degrees out? It was while I sat in my seat with my half eaten donut and frozen coffee that I thought to myself "Life is good."

Once our body temperatures returned to normal and fortified by all the sugar we headed out again, this time to Union Station. It was there that we were to meet up with the rest of our people.

Middle Eastern

Missions trips meal #2 was at a Middle Eastern restaurant.

The first things on our table were dishes of hummus and baba ganoush with a basket of warm pita triangles. The baba ganoush was excellent. Even the kids were devouring it. The hummus dish remained almost full. If you've never had baba ganoush you seriously need to try it!

Shortly after consuming a ton of baba ganoush we received our main dish of pita pockets with a meat inside. I chose chicken. Then you go up to a fixings bar and make it really yummy. So many things to choose from. I wound up just putting my fixings on the side and dipping my pocket into whatever one I wanted. Delish!

Another outstanding meal and it's not just because we were starving. :-)

Salvadorian

How about some missions trip food?

Our first night in DC included a fantastic meal at a Salvadorian restaurant. The pancake looking thing on my plate is a cheese filled pupusa. Seriously good stuff. Must find a recipe for these.

After dinner we took a prayer tour of the city. I was really moved by the various stops, especially the end, when we parked on a hill that over looked the city of lights. "What would Jesus think of this city?" Definitely one of my favorite activities!

Experiments with food

So, it comes as no surprise to me that I haven't posted in a while. I knew it would happen.

Anyway, just wanted to share some of my newest food "experiments". And by experiments I mean that they don't quite fit my norm. My efforts to eat healthier have lead me here.

This morning I had the most delicious oatmeal I've ever eaten! I found the recipe on Pinterest and it's called refrigerator oatmeal. Basically you put uncooked oatmeal, Greek yogurt and some milk in a small mason jar and shake it up. Then add what ever sweetener and flavor (such as cinnamon and applesauce) you want. Shake again and then stick it in the fridge over night. In the morning take it out and enjoy an easy, yummy breakfast!

Watercolor Collage

We managed to fit an art project into the schedule today.  I was pretty excited - I've wanted to do this one for a while now.

You start out by painting a random watercolor design.  Cody decided to jazz his up a little by adding in some pencil markings which he claims are letters in his name, because "every good artist puts his name somewhere in his painting".

 Dylan mixed a few colors together there in the center and wound up seeing a toucan.  Do you see it?  I sorta could at first but can't now.

I almost had a hard time painting randomly.  Is there really such thing as truly random??

Once our paintings dried it was time to draw our grid lines on the back.  We choose to make our squares  1 1/2". 

Once all the lines are drawn it's time to cut, cut, cut.

 Katie's pile of pretty colored squares.

Cody's pile was so much more enthralling what with all that orange grabbing your eye for attention.

Our ever present companion.

Now that all the squares are cut it's time to position them on another piece of paper.  The object is not to put your painting back together like a jigsaw puzzle but to randomly place your pieces creating a totally new design.

My partially constructed design - I had to wait on the glue.

Katie gives her design 2 thumbs up.

Cody and all his eye-catching orange.

Dylan's mystical hidden toucan.

Mine. This was such a fun and easy project.  An especially good project for perfectionist children, since there are no mistakes.

Gluten Free Dinner

Two fairly triumphant recipes to share. 

The first is a gluten free bread.  I'm going gluten free for 60 days to try and determine if I have a gluten intolerance.  And, just so ya know, gluten is in everything!  Just like corn - it's everywhere! 

I wasn't real sure this would turn out at all, after hearing that it was really difficult to make gluten free bread and that most folks just buy it online from a place they've found.

 But, I did a little research via the web and found what seemed to be a good recipe.  I found it at Gluten Free Mom.  She has lots of helpful information.  I'm so thankful she took the time to set up that website.

This is the yeast being proofed.  While the recipe is written for newbies, I found it helpful even though I've made my own bread for years.  I followed the recipe to almost a T.

The recipe calls for a bunch of different flours and didn't look like "normal" bread dough does.  Here it is in the oven trying to rise.  It acts like more of a quick bread than a yeast bread.  You spoon it into the pan.  Ha ha ha ha  While the bread was in the oven doing it's thing.....

Pioneer Woman's lasagna is the other recipe.  I really wanted to eat it, but couldn't with regular noodles.  So, I slipped in these brown rice noodles instead.  I knew if I told my family what I'd done they wouldn't eat it.  I was banking on there not being much of a taste and/or consistency difference.

Look at all that glorious cheese.  You can't see my snafu from this angle.  I was on the phone (ok that's a lie, I had just hung up) while assembling the various layers and suddenly...... I realized that I'd laid down the 2nd layer of noodles without putting in the meat/sauce.  I literally went "Ruh Roh!" 

Then I reasoned that no one would notice.  It gets all jumbled up when you dish it out of the pan anyway, right??  I just carried on with the layering I had left, which wasn't much since PW's only has 2 layers.  Actually, I was afraid to pull the noodles out.  They tear, they get stuck to themselves.  You know......

Well, out came the bread and in went the lasagna.  It had risen pretty nicely.  Look at it!  I was like "OH!!"  Looks good doesn't it?  I was still apprehensive because while it may look good on the outside the inside could be yucky.  So, I waited for it to cool.

And as it cooled the bottom side caved in on itself.  Looks kinda funny, huh?  I realized once I tasted it that it needed to cook a little longer and that when I pulled it out of the pan I had put a hole in the bottom.  I guess it acted kind like a balloon. 

The lasagna all finished.  Sure does look pretty.  So hungry at this point and really anxious to taste everything!!

No one noticed about the layers in the lasagna and it tasted just fine!  If anything, it was too much cheese.  The bread was good too.  More of a sweet bread, but I can work with that.  The texture was just like homemade bread and soft.  I will definitely make this again!

Snow Day

The craziness continues here in Central Virginia.  As usual, the weather man nailed the forecast on the head.  Thankfully my hope does not rest in the weather man.  The predicted 1 - 2" turned into 9 - 10". 

This is at about 9:30 am.  The snow was coming down fast and heavy.  This much snow had accumulated in about 2 hours.

Dylan was willing to go out to measure the snow for me since I'm too wimpy to do it myself.  Please note that he is out in the snow in shorts and a t-shirt with NO shoes on.  I'm SO proud.  At this point we had 9" and it continued to snow for another 2ish hours with not a whole lot more accumulation.

My daffodils continue to hang tough.  No worries though, it'll be mid 60s on Wednesday and 70 on Thursday.

Craziest Winter

Having been born and raised in Virginia I am no stranger to it's irregular weather. We've had 50 degree highs in July and 75 degree highs in January. You know, occasional, out of the ordinary days like that.

However, this winter has been very usual. Numerous warm days (65+) have occurred to the point that I feel like we haven't really had winter yet at all.

Ok, ok, we did have one snow and got several inches. But it was so warm afterwards that it was all gone in a matter of days.

Here is evidence to that which I speak. My daffodils are blooming and it's only February!!

Go Sit in the Corner

The other day I made another deviation from Ree.  This time out of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".  The only reason I tried it is because Katie and I saw this recipe being made on a cooking show and it looked simple and delicious!  The one out of Julia's cookbook is called Carbonnades a la Flamande or Beef with Beer.  I saw this recipe as a way to finally use up some of the beer left over from Tara's engagement party from a year and a half ago!!

This recipe needs to be started well in advance of dinner but comes together easily.  The meat was so tender by the time it was done.  I thought it rather interesting how each person chose to load up their plate with all the pieces of the meal.

This is Chris's plate.  Doesn't it look beautiful and yummy, all at the same time??!

Katie's plate - it's missing the green stuff.

Here is Cody's.  Lots of noodles and he took at least a few pieces of broccoli.

Dylan's plate - No veggies, just like Katie.  He still believes he'll throw up if he eats some. 

My plate, or bowl.  Yes, this is not Beef with Beer.  I had run out points (Weight Watcher's points) for the day and had to eat a salad.  (sad face)  I did take a bite off of Chris's plate and Wow! this is yummy!

 Enoch did something that Cody felt he needed to be disciplined for, so he put him in the corner.

The poor dog would look in the corner, then look at Cody.  Cody would put his face back in the corner over and over again. It was pretty funny.

After a few minutes Enoch was resigned to keeping his face in the corner - even after Cody had walked away, laughing.  Funny stuff.

Hiking with Honey

The weather has certainly been bizarre this winter.  I'm trying to enjoy the warm weather and be thankful for the sunshine and warmer temperatures.

Chris wanted to go hike his favorite trail, White Oak Canyon.  So, we did.

We didn't make it all the way to the lower falls this time.  We were a little short on time. 

We decided to stop and just sit.  Chris chose this out cropping of big rocks in the middle of the water. It was fun to climb out on the rocks.  It felt kinda like that show Man, Woman, Wild.  ha ha ha ha

The sunshine felt so wonderful.

Even though it's been rather warm this winter, I've been making lots of soup.  Several different kinds actually.  This is Ree's Broccoli Cheese Soup.  Look at all that yummy cheese.  3 cups of it.  This is a mixture of swiss and cheddar.

I added chopped ham to it and wished that I hadn't.  It was tasty but would have been better without the ham.  I will definitely make this again!