Basement Day 15 (& cookies!)

Closets!

This skinny closet houses both of our electrical boxes - we have 2: one for the house, and one for the geo-thermal system - as well as our cable and internet boxes. The HUB of the house, if you will :-) It will be painted the same color as the walls so it blends right in and hopefully won't be as noticeable.

My giant double closet got shelves that run the full length of the inside of the closet! I'm so excited! I can't wait to fill it up and get everything in its place so anyone can find what they are looking for!

And since I'm behind on Christmas decor this year, here is a shot of our lit tree with all the wrapped packages. Most packages will be leaving for friends and family's homes, but for now, they decorate this corner. UPS got a frantic visit on Saturday for the last box which I found sitting under the tree and thought it was already in the mail - I can only hope UPS will get it there in time! (I think they should be called Santa's helpers at this time of year!)

Yep! Christmas baking!

Believe it or not, this is round two! Round one was fudge which is chilling in the fridge. Round three is the non-baking cookies which I forgot to take pics of, I know! But no worries, round 4 is coming up tomorrow morning and I will be sure to take pictures then!

PS - for those of you that noticed the big Samsung box under the kitchen counter, we scored an amazing black Friday deal for a new HUGE TV for the finished basement. I will share more when it comes out of the box! And speaking of the basement (again!) painting is starting tomorrow! woot!

Thanksgiving Menu

Plans changed a bit this year due to Dad's working schedule, so this year we are hosting Thanksgiving for my family on Thanksgiving Day! I love waking up and cooking/baking with the Macy's Day Parade and Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving Special where Snoopy makes toast and popcorn!

Apps:
bacon wrapped scallops
pumpkin dip w/fresh veggies
Dinner:
spinach cranberry salad
onion soup
Turkey & turkey gravy
cranberry chutney & cranberry from the can
stuffing: cornbread (gluten-free), sausage, onion, apple
creamed onions
green beans
roasted beets & greens
Dessert:
crust-less pumpkin pie
apple crumble

There are some new recipes mixed in (pumpkin dip, stuffing, both desserts) with old favorites this year and some things got changed entirely! (Like the soup!) I will be sure to report back and tell you how it all went down :-)
I'm sorta excited about how the schedule changed things up this year - aside from having 3 Thanksgivings - my tummy is already groaning - I get to see so many friends/family!! That's absolutely my favorite thing about Thanksgiving. Everyone is busy over the summer months and then school starts up - but Thanksgiving is the first BIG holiday of the season and so everyone gets together to celebrate and catch-up. Well, that and the Dog Show after the parade!! How can you not love all those cute faces?! :-)

UPDATE: roasted beets and greens has been switched out for radishes and greens!

Isabelle Visit

Friday after work, I went over to Street 360 in Portsmouth to meet up with Aunt Maggie, Lisa and Isabelle for a yummy dinner!!

Aunt Maggie's Killer salad!

Lisa's yummy burger :-)

Isabelle's chicken fingers

My bun-less burger and tapioca chips - gluten-free!!

Iced Tea was great for cooling off and there is no pic of the
SUPER tasty Curry Fries because they were so good they vanished!

After dinner, Maggie and Lisa went home and Isabelle climbed into my car for a weekend of lazy fun. ie, how can we stay cool in 94 degree HUMID heat icky-ness?
We hit up the grocery store early Saturday morning and spent the rest of the day sitting in the wonderful AC watching TV and making these delish no-bake (no oven for us!), healthy chocolate coconut coffee balls. Don't worry! They don't take long to make :-)

The recipe comes from Mark's Daily Apple: To read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cocoa-and-coconut-snacks/#ixzz2VNF6r1uw

1/2 cup each:

• Almonds
• Walnuts
• Pecan nuts
• Hazel nuts
• Pumpkin seeds
• 3-6 dates
• 2-4 tablespoons virgin coconut oil

To taste:

• Unsweetened cocoa powder
• Freshly ground coffee
• Shredded coconut

Instructions:

Run the nuts and pumpkin seeds in a food processor until ground into a fine flour.Remove the nut flower and grind the dates and shredded coconut in the food processor until smooth. Mix these ingredients together with coffee and cocoa powder according to taste. Finally, add the coconut oil and mix it all together by hand. Roll the paste into small nibbly balls and sprinkle them in shredded coconut.

By Saturday night we were ready for a change of scenery but knew we'd still need AC, so after a quick review of what was playing at the  local theatre, off to the movies we went! We saw EPIC, which was fun and light-hearted. It reminded me of Fern Gully - I know, I'm dating myself!! - but the music was good and the cast was great to listen to. We gave it two thumbs up!

Sunday was filled with sleeping late, BRUNCH!, a quickly sorted basement project - Isabelle is super fast! and playing with Reese - who truly enjoyed having 2 people chase him for the ball :-)

21-day PRIMAL food challenge

I am almost finished with my 21-day food journey and I realized that 1) I have been awful abt taking pictures of the dishes and 2) I haven't shared any of the journey with you! So here are some of the good and the not-so-good of the past week or so.

roasted lamb with mushrooms (lamb was barely done! we ate the ends and I re-cooked the center with another recipe)

and creamed kale - interesting.... not sure I would make it again.

macadamia nut fish w/coconut sauce and steamed radishes w/their greens.
Wasn't sure I was going to like this but it was delish!!

spicy tomato soup with mini-meatballs.
Easier than I thought and super yummy!

pumpkin almond flour muffins. they stick to the muffin wrapper...
but they taste like pumpkin pie and are MUCH better for you!!

green little devils - a twist on a deviled egg using an avocado.
Needs a spice adjustment, but tasty!

There has been so much food on this 21-day challenge that Matt and I have eaten leftovers some nights rather than making another new dish. So even though this technically ends Memorial Day weekend - I will still be trying new recipes and will absolutely share our favorites here!

Quick Update!

This is my first whole week off where Matt is also off the whole week since........ too long. Needless to say we've been busy getting ready for Xmas, re-fi the house, dr's appts, sleeping in (YAY!) and we are walking out the door in about 5 minutes to go celebrate Matt's birthday. So, without further ado.... some pics of what we've been up to!

this isn't even all of them - if I counted right, abt 30 dozen cookies of varying kinds!

packing them all up as they cool (not enough counter space!)

holiday cards

flavored vodka

small additions to the mantel - these two glass Angels

Deck the Halls!

.... with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la!

candles in all the windows

the mantel has gone from basic fall to

lighted garland

plus stockings and candles and the Menorah

I am loving these crystal candlesticks I found in the Clearance dept at Home Goods!

It looked a bit empty in the middle, so I pulled in the wooden sign  'Believe'

we take the Menorah down to light the candles each night for Hannukah,
but for the rest of the holidays it will live here on the mantel.

with the addition of our dining room hutch, we now have a place for the creche

I did the painting years ago when we lived in Lawrence for the dining area,
but it makes a great background for the creche! Has me thinking about doing some side panels for next year though, so the entire top would be the sky.

Matt hung our big wreath above the garage. We saved  $$ this year by
getting a plain wreath and decorating it  ourselves with past years decorations.

And here is the front door! I've been SO excited for this ever since
I painted the door black. Doesn't it look great? :-)

There is of course more decorating to come since we haven't picked up our tree yet, but I will post pictures - don't you worry! This is one of my favorite times of year and I've had carols playing for days now - loud enough that I can hear them in every room of the house!

Next up is wrapping packages and baking! woot!

Turkey Day take 2

Saturday was Rand Family Thanksgiving and it was a blast - Ally was able to show up and so the 5 of us (plus Reese!) enjoyed turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, pie, apple -pear cobbler/crisp... YUM!!

Needless to say the fridge is now full of turkey leftovers that I packaged up for lunches :-)

The big pot is pumpkin-squash bisque

considering this was FULL, we've done a fairly good job!

Gluten-Free apple/pear cobbler/crisp. Third time's the charm!

Recipe for Apple/Pear Crisp

Ingredients:

gluten-free bisquick

light brown sugar

unsalted butter

3 types of apples - whichever you like best but I recommend including Granny Smith as 1 of the 3

red pears

bosc/brown pears

Depending upon how large a batch you are making, your number of apples and pears will change. The above is my 9x9 brownie pan that I used and it worked very well! I used 2 apples of each kind as well as 2 pears of each kind and it filled the pan nicely. 

preheat oven to 375

lightly spray baking pan or rub with butter to grease pan

core and chop into large slices all apples and pears

gently toss all fruit in the gluten-free bisquick and place into baking dish

melt butter (I used 1 1/2 sticks) and add equal parts bisquick and light brown sugar. You want the consistency to be like warm fudge (slightly stiff but still mold-able)

spread the 'topping' over the apples and pears like a crust. You want to be able to cover the entire top

bake in the oven for 50-70 min until bottom is bubbly and top is golden brown - see above picture. 

It can be served hot (let cool 15min before serving) OR cool (let cool 50min). Enjoy!

Pumpkin Bread

I was looking at my food cabinet a week or so ago (making the grocery list) when I realized how much canned and boxed food stuff we still have that is not gluten-free. Since Matt decided to join me on the gluten-free 'wagon' it's just been sitting on the shelf not being eaten. So I pulled everything out and stacked it on the counter. It was a pretty sizable stack that was given away to a local friend who is just starting out in her first apartment. (I hate wasting food!)

Well, I was taking stock of my baking cabinet last night to see what I'd need to pick up for Thanksgiving and found a few more items..... So I used some of them to bake Matt a cream cheese frosted pumpkin loaf that went to Liberty for a Friday potluck. Yes, I cheated and used a box mix!!

The rest will go to a local food drive. But the more exciting thing for me is that it means more cabinet space in my kitchen!

I've already been thinking about how I can re-organize to make food items easier to find AND possibly take back some cabinet space for dishware that currently lives on shelves in the basement (spare mugs, holiday dishes, wooden salad bowls, etc).

6 days to Thanksgiving!

Mixed Lentil Stew

White Rabbit!
It's November!
For me, November starts the baking season - so get ready for recipes!
I picked up the Halloween decor this morning, but left the pumpkins - they will stay until after Turkey Day!

To be super honest, I made this recipe up as I was going along so please feel free to enjoy as is or change it  as you see fit! And please let me know if you do something different that turns out yummy!

Ingredients:
1 bag of red lentils
1 bag of white lentils
1 box chopped frozen spinach
1/3 bag of long grain brown rice
1 steamfresh bag of soy beans
1 box low sodium chicken broth
1 box low sodium vegetable broth
6 cups water as needed - the rice and lentils will soak up the broth - good for flavor!

I threw everything into the crock pot on low and checked on it every few hours at first so I could add water as everything soaked up the good broth. I then left it overnight on keep warm and in the morning I added black pepper, a touch of curry powder and then split it into 2 pots. It was a big batch and I had two separate thoughts on how I could finish off the stew, so I figured, why not try both?

The first pot got chunks of ham and 2 cans of corn while the second pot got chunked tofu and 2 cans of diced tomatoes. Both are Super Yum!

Halloween Party!

This weekend Haley came up to visit from Boston and we all went to a Halloween Party at our friends Billy & Ashley's home.
Here are pics from baking, frosting and costumes!

hard to tell from this picture, but the cake batter is orange!

my new bundt pan worked like a charm!

the color mixer = Haley!

fun Halloween Tray

wax paper around the edges, just under the sides of the cake in order to keep the tray clean.
Thanks to Haley for the tip!!

frosting the bottom layer - LOVE her 'Happy Halloween' tee-shirt!

layer 1 all frosted

layer 2 plus frosting and 'stem'
A note for next time: I will cut the bottoms off the 2 bundt cakes so its more of a circle shape
 and less like a 2 layer cake look.  

Where's Waldo?

Minnie Mouse!!
ps - her shoes are covered in black sparkles!!!

Needless to say we all had a great time :-)