Have any of my kids been this BUSY!!!!!!

Wow is all I can say, John is the busiest kid EVER!!!! I may have said that about other babies previous lol but I don't remember this. He will get into anything and everything! If you turn around for one second he has climbed into the fireplace and is covered in soot or he has the toilet bowl brush out and scrubbing things with it. His favorite obsession is trying to get into the washer and dryer, so we have to keep that door closed. He loves to play with Cassie our dog, well if that means dumping all her food into her water dish or just plain dumping her water all over his own head, or stepping in it and squishing the water everywhere. Phew I seriously can't look away for one minute, although I love every minute of it because he is so darn cute!!!!! Sometimes I want to get mad at him but then he gives you this little look and says hi mommy and then it's over all I say is awwww. Well I wonder what he is into now so I better run.

Jill

MMMmmm Meatloaf!!!

Ok so I have always been trying to come up with a meatloaf recipe that I liked and I have found one!!!!
Here it is!

Turkey Meatloaf (you can use beef if you want or ground chicken)

1lb ground turkey
1 cup of tomato liquified (I put crushed tomatoes in the magic bullet and turn it into a liquid)
1 cup blanched almond flour
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 to 1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Mix all together and put in a loaf pan or an 8 X 8 pyrex dish
Bake at 350 for approximately 1 hour

Enjoy!!!!

Gluten Free Version of Tempura Veggies (you can use cooked meat as well)

So we were craving chinese food so badly but knew we couldn't have it so I looked around for recipes that looked like something that would taste good and I modified it so we could eat it!!!!! The original recipe came from: http://www.celiac.com/articles/22211/1/Tempura-Vegetables-Gluten-Free/Page1.html but here is how I made it! And honestly it was better than I ever imagined!!

This seriously was so yummy!!!!!

Tempura Vegetables (Gluten-Free)
 Tempura Ingredients:

2 cups rice flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2 cups cold carbonated water

Vegetable Ideas:

Sweet Potato

Yams

broccoli

carrots

cauliflower

asparagus

mushrooms

zucchini

eggplant

bell peppers

Yummy Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:
(yummy sauce that I served on the chicken and veggie tempura)

¼ cup gluten-free vegetable stock

1 Tablespoon coconut sugar

¼ cup coconut secret (you can use braggs or gluten free tamari also)

1 Tablespoon Rice Vinegar


¼ cup Water

Heat all the sauce ingredients in a small pan until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Note: The thicker the vegetable, the longer it will take to cook. You may want to blanch thicker vegetable like sweet potato before frying. Softer vegetables like mushrooms and eggplant do not require blanching. Also, try to cook like-sized pieces to avoid over or under cooking. I cut my vegetables into approximately 1 inch pieces in length, and ¼ inch in width. Avoid overcrowding your veggies and leave plenty of room to keep them from sticking together. Also if you use meat, be sure your meat is cooking thoroughly before dipping in the batter.

When you drop a batter coated veggie in, little pieces of batter will explode off the veggie outward like tempura fireworks. These pieces indicate that your batter is hot enough. The veggies should cook for 40 seconds to 1 minute and feel crispy when you knock them around. You don’t need them to be golden brown, so don’t wait for that.

To make:

Preheat coconut oil in your pan till it’s about medium heat, you want the veggies to sizzle when they hit the pan. You want to make sure that there is enough oil in the pan so they don’t stick to the bottom.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium size mixing bowl.

Add the carbonated water and whisk until smooth.

Lightly dip ingredients in the batter (the batter is pretty thick but you want to make sure there is some all over the veggies, you may find you like them with either more or less batter on them) and immediately fry them until crispy.

Drain tempura on a rack or paper towels.

Tempura is best served fresh and hot. It cools really quickly I find!

JUSTIN BIEBER

So we all went to see the Never Say Never movie and believe it or not it was GREAT!!!! I never really knew much of anything about him but seeing how he came to be was so neat. The only problem I foresaw was Jessica getting the dreaded Bieber Fever lol, but she came home and said I wish he was my brother. PHEW!!!! We keep telling the kids that when they are 30 they are free to date, Jessica is the only one who tries to push the age limit to 18. For those of you who know me I LOVE kernels popcorn!!!!! It is a treat that I so look forward too, although I know it is not the best for me so I don't have it very often. I made some popcorn for the kids at the movies (I know you're not supposed to do that but we have food allergies so it's ok in my mind). I have one of those twirly pop things and I use coconut oil, well I found this yummy seasoning by lydias organics, it is gluten free so I thought I would give it a whirl. It was so yummy!!!!!! Here is a list of the ingredients if anyone wants to know what is in it. For now I have found my replacement for Kernels! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!
Jill

Ingredients: Ingredients: A combination of dehydrated carrots*, celery*, parsley*, sprouted sunflower seeds*, sprouted almonds*, sprouted flax*, sprouted quinoa*, sprouted pumpkin seeds*, kale*, tomatoes*, spinach*, zucchini*, arugula*, radicchio*, lettuce*, dulse*, nori*, ginger*, onions*, garlic*, herbs*, Original Himalayan Crystal Salt & .

The Yummiest Chocolate Cake EVER

Ok so not a word of a lie I just had the best chocolate cake ever!!!!! I found the recipe yet again on Elanas Pantry website and she modified it from another ladies recipe. I thought hmmm there is no sugar or agave or anything in it will it really be that good???? And it is incredible so I had to share! I used dark chocolate chips well a 80% lindt dark chocolate bar cut up when I made it not the white chocolate kind (although I am sure those would have been amazing too).  www.elanaspantry.com

Black and White Cake (Mine was I guess Black Cake lol)
1 cup dark chocolate chips 73% cacao (if you want to use a bar, it's about 6 ounces)
½ cup coconut milk
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white chocolate chips

1. Melt dark chocolate chips and coconut milk in a small saucepan over very low heat
2. When chocolate is completely melted, remove saucepan from heat
3. Stir eggs into saucepan containing chocolate/coconut milk mixture
4. Next, stir in almond flour, salt and baking soda
5. Fold in ½ cup of the white chocolate chips
6. Grease an 8x8 inch baking dish with oil of your choice
7. Pour batter into baking dish, then sprinkle remaining white chocolate chips over batter
8. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes
9. Cool and serve

I think I am getting the hang of this!!!!

Well I am either getting the hang of keeping up my blog or I am procrastinating all the mountain of things I should be doing, either way I have so far been successful at writing. I seriously love writing, it's like me talking to another adult even though I can't see one lol. Things have been great here, incredibly crazy busy but hey that is the life of a business owner/mother of 5 and wife to Jim ha ha ha. I love my crazy life!!!!! So the kids are crazy busy, John had completely changed and is the BUSIEST child ever. You turn your head for one minute and he is in the soot from the fireplace, or floating toys or PS3 remotes in the toilet. His latest obsession is emptying all the water from the water cooler onto the floor, but I got him this time as I went and bought child proof knobs. He tries and tries but cannot get it to work. It's hard to believe that John is almost 2 already, this is the longest I have gone without being pregnant. Yes that means that so far there are no babies on the way for us! Well I have the gym calling me and my kids telling me to get off the computer so I guess my moment of relaxation is over. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend (although I may be the only one reading this so I wish myself a wonderful weekend lol)

Jill

Chorizo Sausages

Ok so here is an amazing vegetarian sausage recipe that I made gluten free!!!! It is amazing, I am not a vegetarian but they are great!!!

1/2 cup cooked pinto beans rinsed and drained
1 cup vegetable broth
1 Tbsp coconut oil
2 Tbsp coconut secret (you can use soy sauce)
2 Tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp. lemon zest (I use juice sometimes)
2 cloved garlic finely minced
1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp. sage
1 tsp. dried oregano

Basically mash the beans until no whole ones are left ( I use my vitamix). Add the rest of the ingredients together with the beans. It is a goopy mixture so I just take tin foil and plop a generous amount in the middle then wrap it up so none can come out. Then place in a steamer and steam approx. 40 min or so. Slice them up and sautee them with onions or alone however you like them. I usually make this recipe X4 so it makes quite a few sausages.

Jill

A whirlwind trip!

Well for those of you who don't know, I took Jim to Vancouver and LA for his birthday/our anniversary/valentines trip ha ha. I booked it literally 2 days before we left, so spontaneous I know. We were looking at the schedule and realized that last weekend would be the only weekend we had to go see Aaron (Jim's good friend and a training client of his) play hockey. Aaron plays for the Canucks and in 2 years we still haven't gone to see him. So I found a flight that overnighted in BC and left the next am for LA. We left at 4:53pm and arrived in BC at 6:02pm having to rush to get to the game for 7pm. It was so exciting to watch someone you know play and at the highest level of hockey. We watched them play and WIN then had a great time going out for dinner with Aaron and Adrianne. I enjoyed adult conversation ha ha. The next morning we left at 6am for the airport and got into LA at 11:15am. Our first stop was definitely LA Ink, or high voltage tattoo, no I am not into getting tattoos but I have watched the show and wanted to see it in person. I was so excited and Jim just let me go in by myself. By the time we were done there we went to get something to eat just over from Rodeo drive and it was time to get going to our hotel. We checked in and went straight to the supercross race. After that we went to the hotel and slept as we were soooo tired. The next morning we left to go to the airport and came home the next night. I have always wanted to be on the amazing race so when we arrived in Calgary with a 4 hour layover I instinctively ran to the counter trying to get home faster, we ended up on a play 15 minutes later. It was a crazy busy fun trip that left us exhausted but it was soooo worth it. I would love to one day go and spend some time in LA but that will be for another year.

Well I better run as the kids are going to be home soon and will want a snack! I will post an amazing gluten free vegetarian sausage recipe within the next couple days!!!!

jill

My Favorite Chicken!!!!

Yesterday was a chicken day for us and I made my favorite chicken dish and thought I should share it!!!! It's super easy and tastes amazing so I hope you enjoy!

Chicken and Mushrooms

Ingredients
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup onion chopped
1/4 tsp oregano dried
1 garlic clove minced
1/2 to 2/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 to 3/4 tsp salt
dash pepper
2 cups mushrooms sliced
4 chicken breasts (or I just tried chicken thighs last night and they were great!)

Brown the chicken in olive oil over med heat in a cast iron pan. Add onion and cook until soft. Season chicken with salt and pepper and add oregano, garlic, wine and mushrooms, make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen the cooked bits of onion and to make sure the chicken isn't sticking. Cover and cook over low heat until the chicken is tender and cooked through, about 30 to 35min. Now it's ready to eat!!!!! If you desire you can garnish it with parsley. Serve with a nice salad and some brown rice!!!

I absolutely LOVE to cook and am going to hopefully start trying to create new dishes. Sometimes it's hard to think of new things and you get stuck in a rut so I hope that maybe some of these will be helpful to others.

Jill

Yummy Soup!!!!!

We had the best soup ever a couple days ago so I thought I would share the recipe!!!!

Hamburger Soup
1lb cooked ground beef (or you can use stewing beef)
1 28oz can tomatoes (ground up in your food processor)
1 16oz can tomato sauce
2 litres beef broth
1 tsp paprika
4 tbsp coconut sugar
1 onion chopped
2 potatoes chopped and cubed
celery (how much you want)
carrots (how much you want)

Basically put it all in a pot and cook!!!!

Honestly it is sooooo yummy and so easy to make!!!!!

Bread MMMMMmmmmmm......

So I have officially found my favorite gluten free bread recipe, it is from Elanas Pantry and made with blanched almond flour. I have tried a lot of them but this one is our family favorite! I always make a double batch!!!

Gluten Free Sandwich Bread
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
¾ cup arrowroot powder
¼ cup flax seed meal
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1. In a medium bowl, combine almond flour, arrowroot, flax meal, salt and baking soda
2. In a larger bowl, blend eggs 3-5 minutes until frothy
3. Stir agave and vinegar into eggs
4. Mix dry ingredients into wet
5. Pour batter into a well greased 7.5" x 3.5" loaf pan
6. Bake at 350º for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean
7. Cool and serve

Makes 1 medium sized loaf of gluten-free bread

http://www.elanaspantry.com/gluten-free-bread-20/