Thanksgiving Roundup

Before we move on to Christmas here…some pics and stuff from the last few days.

Cranberries and Gluten-Free Green Bean Casserole.  I made my mock Cream of Chicken base and added Velveeta.  Everyone else had regular fried onion strings and I made my own using an onion and some Cup4Cup.  They were really good.

More of these rolls.  Those are the risen rolls in the pic.  I forgot to take a pic of them before rising.

I wish y’all could reach thru the screen and feel how soft and normal these feel.

My gluten-free plate.  Part of my mini pecan pie.

Rainy Day Casserole with left-over Thanksgiving meat.

I never touch Christmas foods or music until after the Thanksgiving meal.  If my whacked out body would give me the choice I wouldn’t touch the decorations until after the meal either but as my lupus fatigue and joint problems have gotten worse I have to spread the work out.

Every year the first Christmas treat I eat is a Danish Butter Cookie.  Seriously, this goes back to childhood when Mama L would buy the first can of them…back when they were only in blue cans.

Anticipating the sadness of not having that first butter cookie this year…I planned ahead.  Of course I asked Martha what I should do.  And by asked…I just looked at the website.  😉  I found a simple butter cookie recipe and had it chilling in the icebox so I could try it after the Thanksgiving meal.

It is very good for what it is.  But it’s not a Danish Butter Cookie.  😦

Do any of y’all know of a good tried and true version?  On the can it lists desiccated coconut as an ingredient.  What about that?  Do y’all know what that is?

Just so this is said…the can in the pic above is an empty and well washed can.  🙂

Finally received this book.  🙂  So excited.  I’m already working on the ciabatta recipe.  It’ll be up sometime next week.  I told y’all last week how this new bread technique needs to rise in the icebox 12 hours and up to 5 days.  Well the ciabatta dough needs to rise longer than 12 hours so I’ll probably leave it in til Monday.

Hope y’all had a nice day with those you love and are having a sane first weekend of the holidays.  🙂

Quick Apple Spice Cake

This turned out so well I had to share incase y’all need a quick last minute idea.

Recipe is at the bottom if you want to skip the nostalgia  🙂

Thanksgiving is the one holiday that we only spent with Papa Lupiac’s side of the family.  Mema had 3 sisters and they were all extremely close.  They all raised their children in different parts of the state but all retired to the same small town they were raised in.  All along each one of them took a holiday and had all of the extended family over.

Mema’s holiday was Thanksgiving.  She made a huge deal out of it.  And because it was the only holiday we didn’t also spend time with Mama L’s side of the family it was the only time I saw my all of the extended side of Papa L’s family.

So I associate Thanksgiving with an extremely hot house filled with a ton of people.  For some reason I also think of the year we were learning to do the Cotton Eyed Joe in PE class and I then I taught it to my little cousins in the backyard Thanksgiving morning…in shorts because it was still so hot out.  Hey. This is Texas.  Back then we spent a whole 6 week grading period learning to do a bunch of crazy dances in PE. 

I also always think of the year Mema let us drink wine with our meal.  Hello 11 year old wine headache / hangover.  🙂  Also hello never having a drinking problem after that.  😉

The dessert table at this shindig was always full of pies and I don’t really remember more than the occasional cake making an appearance.  But I think we’ve established here that I’m much more of cake girl.  🙂  When the sad day came that I had to start making my own Thanksgiving meal I added cake…apple spice cake.

It actually started as something I threw together to have for dessert when my sister and her SO came into town one evening before Thanksgiving but it was such a hit it became a new tradition (in addition to the pies of course).  Now I make it every Thanksgiving eve.

So this week I did a little of this…

This gluten-free press in crust recipe.  Pressed into mini pie plate rounds using the tortilla press.  Individually wrapped in Saran and put in the icebox til the day of baking.

A lot of this…

Pecan Pie filling.  Papa L broke up the pecans for me…he likes to be on the blog so thanks for helping me, Papa L.  🙂  I never chop my pecans.  I break em up by hand.

Regular pecan pie for everyone else.

Gluten-free crust for me.

Gluten-free chess pie for me.  It cracked a little.  😦

Regular chess for everyone else.

And then I did a little of this…

The above mentioned throw together cake.

For those who can eat gluten it’s super simple.  For those of us who can’t?…a few more steps but still pretty simple.  🙂

The cake has 3 ingredients

1 box Spice Cake

1 can Caramel Apple Pie Filling

4 Eggs

If you’re not opposed to gluten-free cake mixes then it’s still pretty simple.  Just make sure the weight of your cake mix totals the same as a ‘regular’ cake mix.  If not get 2 boxes or how ever much you need to make it equal.

I tried a few gluten-free cake mixes and didn’t like the taste and / or texture.  So I make my own.

This is the recipe I mentioned a while back in the cake pop post.  You can make it plain or spice (probably plenty of other flavors too I just haven’t tried it yet). 

Amounts adapted from reading pretty much every ‘plain’ cake recipe on Martha’s site…then weighing things til the dry ingredients reached the equivalent of a boxed cake. 

Also note.. there are 2 different recipes here…the first is for making a full cake.  The second is for using just the dry ingredients from that full cake recipe to make a mock cake mix.  Just didn’t want anyone to get confused and end up with a soupy goopy mess.  🙂

Plain Cake

3 cups (375g) Flour  (1 cup or 125g)

1 tbsp Baking Powder   (1 tsp)

1/2 tsp Salt   (pinch)

1 stick softened Butter  (4 tbsp)

1 1/2 cups Sugar  (1/2 cup)

4 Eggs   (1)

2 tsp Vanilla (1 tsp)

1 cup Milk  (1/3 cup)

optional

1 tbsp Cinnamon Spice blend (I use Apple Pie Spice)

The number in parenthesis is the amount I used to make the small cakes for the cake pops.  The smaller amount makes a single layer and reminds me of the amount in those small Jiffy cake mixes. 

When I make this plain I use all white sugar and regular whole milk.

When I make it spice I use half white sugar / half brown sugar plus buttermilk.

So for todays cake…

I used the dry ingredients in this cake base as a ‘mix’ for the 3 ingredient cake.

Earlier in the week I weighed out my flour (375 g) then added the baking powder(1 tbsp), sugar (1 1/2 cup) and salt (1/2 tsp).  Mixed it around really well with a whisk and put in a Ziploc.

Today when I was ready to make the cake I threw it in the mixer.  Added 1 tbsp cinnamon spice blend, half a stick of soft butter plus 4 eggs and the can of pie filling.  Mixed it up on half speed for about a minute.  Baked at 350* for about 40 minutes.  I was using my small convection oven so definitely know your oven and adjust your time if needed.

I was so happy with the way it turned out.  🙂

Happy Thanksgiving eve.  🙂

Mini Weekend Roundup

I don’t have a lot to post today because the eats have been pretty boring and I’ve been spending a lot of time doing holiday prep…Christmas and Thanksgiving.

My third batch of this dough.  I smoothed it out after the pic.  Just wanted y’all to see how soft and close to ‘real’ dough it is.

This was my second batch.  I used it to make these bread sticks.  The link goes to a second recipe from the book.

These pics make it look like it didn’t get a good rise but it’s just the pics and how close the camera was to the unrisen dough (much closer than in the after shot).  Someday I’ll get better with the pics.  🙂  They did almost double in size.  I only used butter on the tops because I wanted to be able to use them with some fig jelly later.

Since it’s so strong…with each batch I’ve decreased the amount of Ultratex and the third batch has been the best so far. 

I started with half the amount…which made that half of 5 tsp…so 2 1/2 tsp per cup.  For the second batch I used 2 tsp per cup.  For the third I used 1 tsp per cup and it’s been the best so far.  Of course I won’t really be able to judge it until I get the book and see what it’s supposed to look like.

It’s been in the 40’s here the last few days so I had to make the first hot chocolate of the winter.  🙂

I finally ‘discovered’ Five Guys.  How has it taken me this long?  It’s the perfect place for gluten-free.  They only fry fries in the fryers and at my closest location they do all the bread on a separate grill.  But they did say that it varies from store to store so always ask first.  I loved it.  I’ve also turned into Mama Lupiac…bringing my own mayo.  😉

More holiday prep this week so my posting will be sporadic again.   Next week I’ll get back to my usual posting routine with some holiday baking.  🙂

Hope y’all had a good weekend and are staying warm.

Why Hello There, Dough Hook

It’s been awhile.  🙂  Hope you’ve been keeping up your strength because I have a feeling you’re going to be getting a lot of action soon.   🙂

So earlier in the week I decided to try this recipe from this soon to be released book by this blogger.

As always for a new recipe..I halved the recipe for the first try. 

Also I can’t share the recipe here since it’s from an unpublished book so you’ll need to click on the first link above.  Mel, the blogger who got to test this recipe used the correct pan…so hers are the correct shape.. and she also cooked hers longer.  In my house we don’t eat any bread over a medium to dark gold shade in color.  That’s just a personal preference and it’s why mine is not dark like hers.  🙂

This book is supposed to revolutionize gluten-free dough making.  From my single try here…I have to say I believe it will.  🙂

This is ‘real’ dough, y’all.  LOOK at how it moves around the bowl / dough hook picking up all the flour around the bowl just like ‘real’ flour.

It’s also a cold rising dough.  At least 12 hours in the icebox.

This is a soft / stretchy dough.  Nowhere in the instructions does it say to dimple the dough but I did it for this pic just to show how soft…but also sturdy this dough is.

This series of pics is to show how you can handle this dough…as opposed to old school cake batter like gluten-free dough.  It’s still a soft wetter dough compared to traditional dough though.  You have to be gentle with it and you can’t do a hard ‘knead’ at all but you can actually handle it.  🙂

Since I needed two hands Papa Lupiac helped me out and played photog for these four pics…sorry about the blur…he’s not used to taking the pics.  🙂  Not that mine are ever much better.  😉

Since I halved the recipe I didn’t have a round pan that would hold 6 rolls.   So I just used 3 mini bread pans.  Also the imperfections on top were from the egg wash / brush.  I only have a silicon brush and it kept snagging on the dough.

Yes, I got out the good china again.  😉

Tried to get an up-close pic of the inside of the dough.  My horrible photo skills combined with the tablet photo doesn’t do this dough justice.  It’s soft and chewy.  Even better…it doesn’t  crumble to pieces when you try to spread something on it.

I made a mini ham and cheese roll.

Hook pic again.  Arrows…see how the dough is stretchy enough to wrap and lift up around the hook?  I still can’t believe it.

I’ve written about this before but I baked my first loaf of bread when I was 9 years old.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  I made my first batch of kolaches in 5th grade for ‘heritage day’ show and tell.  When I say I made them…I mean just that.  I did everything…measuring…mixing…kneading…shaping…everything except work the oven.   Mema and Mama Lupiac handled the heat.  They also supervised me of course.   

Kneading dough was always therapeutic for me.  The feel…the smell…everything.  Sometimes I think the process of actually making the dough was better than eating it.  Even after I got alto-Janylvia I would still do some of the kneading by hand after she mixed it all up for a few minutes.  For any new readers…I named my beloved Kitchen-Aid…and occasionally have conversations with her.  We did decide that’s totally sane, right?  😉 

Anyway being able to handle this dough was definitely one of the best things since my diagnosis from h3ll.

I’ve never actually had a Hawaiian roll so I had no idea what they should taste like.  This recipe has pineapple juice in it but the finished rolls didn’t have a pineapple flavor at all.  Maybe the yeast ate it all or maybe it’s a delayed flavor or something but I used Dole pineapple juice and couldn’t taste it at all.

I used my flour blend for the flour part of the bread flour blend and I also used this brand of modified tapioca starch in place of the expandex…as the expandex is sold out everywhere.

This product is stronger than expandex so I used half the amount.  Since I have no idea what the dough was supposed to look like I don’t know if this got close or not but it definitely produced a beautiful stretchy and chewy dough.

Nicole is doing some giveaways related to the book so check it out.

I can’t wait to see the whole book.

Hope y’all are having a great week.  🙂

Tried to find a song about bread for todays song but a song by Bread will have to do.  Sorry for the ear worm.  😉 

Recent Eats and Re-purposed Rustic Rolls

I’m still struggling with lupus fatigue and had to take an out-of-town trip this week plus I’ve started working on getting Christmas decorations moved over to the house.  They stay in storage the rest of the year.  If I ever win the lotto the very first thing I’m telling the architect of the house I’d build wouldn’t be all my many kitchen demands…it would be for them to incorporate a HUGE closet for all of the Christmas stuff.  I’d put my decorated (and covered / dust protected of course) tree on a rolling board and just roll it in and out each year.  I’m not even joking.  So anyway I don’t have a new recipe today but I do have a re-purposed one.  🙂

First some pics of recent eats

Blueberry Banana Pancakes (and bacon).

Fried Mahi and Macaroni and cheese.

I used this HEB store brand gluten-free pasta for the mac and cheese.  For those with an HEB in your area I highly recommend this shape (they had other shapes but this is the only one I’ve tried).

New batch of flour and pot of Pintos.

Mexican Cornbread.  I’ve been working on this recipe for a while.  It’s almost at the point I’m ready to call it done and share.  🙂  I think it just needs one…maybe two…more tweaks.

Chocolate Chip cookies.

Cookies and Milk.  Clean plate at Casa.  🙂

Rustic Roll dough.

Focaccia ?

I knew I was making spaghetti sauce and wanted to make a batch of gfandme’s crusty bread (rustic rolls for me) to go with it but I forgot to add the sugar to the yeast and didn’t think about it until it was way too late to add any.  It rose but I wasn’t sure how it would taste so instead of going thru the whole cast iron pot / heating process I decided to just stick it in a regular pan and see what happened.  I pressed it out a little and thought ‘hey this looks like focaccia dough’.  I tried to do the classic focaccia dimpling but the dough was a little too wet to hold the dimples.  You can see in the baked pic that it did hold a few of them though.

It was a little too sour from the lack of sugar but actually turned out really well.   It made a really nice pull apart dipping bread.

I will make it this flatter ‘focaccia’ shape again but I would do the whole heated cast iron process (and throw in some Italian herbs).  I’d just press it out in to the flatter shape first then drop it in the heated cast iron.

Spaghetti (with parm and ranch…I know. little Italian grannies everywhere are rolling over in their graves at the thought of ranch) plus dipping bread.  So good.   🙂

This week most of my cooking will be Thanksgiving prep.  I’m working on an acceptable dressing and still deciding / testing dessert(s).

Croissants

This is most definitely the gluten-free recipe I’m most proud of so far.  🙂  I wish I’d retained some of my high school French so I could say something befitting.  🙂  Sadly green bean and pen…pretty much the only thing I remember…wouldn’t add anything to this topic.  😉

Still haven’t found my real rolling-pin so I bought this $2 one at Wal-Mart.  Mixed the dough…recipe is at the bottom of the post…and rolled out into shaggy rectangle.  The pics don’t do this dough justice but it’s a soft yeasty dough.

Grated butter in the middle.  Dough folded over the butter like a letter.

Butter filled dough rolled into a shaggy rectangle and folded like a letter again.

Folded dough resting in the freezer for 10 minutes.  Most recipes say to chill for longer.  I found I didn’t need it.  You’re just wanting the dough to firm back up so the butter isn’t soft and oozing out. 

Repeated the rolling / folding /freezing process 3 more times.

After the last trip to the freezer…Rerolled and folded the dough then put in the ice box for several hours.  Most of the recipes I read said that at this point you can leave it in the icebox for up to 2 days.

Out of the icebox.  I trimmed the shaggy uneven sides to make a clean-looking rectangle.  Then rolled out one last time.

Cut into triangle and rolled into croissant shape.  I made them small because I really didn’t think this was going to work.  Didn’t want to waste a lot of flour making them bigger incase they didn’t work.

Egg and cream wash.  Croissant right out of the oven.

Look at all those thin buttery layers.  🙂

More buttery layers.  🙂  Plus I rerolled all the shaggy edge scraps…filled with grated cheese and rolled in a log shape.  This was so amazingly good.  I will be making cheese filled again very soon.

Super messy ham / cheese toasted mini croissant-wich.  🙂  I know it was silly to make a sandwich out of these small croissants but I couldn’t help it.  I wanted to know how they tasted with stuff on ’em.  Delicious that’s how.  🙂

For inspiration…first I went to Martha of course.  😉  I also watched this  YouTube vid.  Then I modified to gluten-free.

I’m so proud of these and might make them for our Thanksgiving ‘roll’.

Hope y’all are having a great week.  🙂

Croissant Recipe

This is what I used to make 8 mini croissant plus the scraps.

135g Flour

(I started with 1 cup flour and then based on feel added a couple more tablespoons…so I ended up with a little over a cup)

1/2 packet Yeast

2 tbsp Sugar 

1/3 cup warm Milk

1/2 tsp Salt

2 tbsp Oil   (I used macadamia oil.)

1 Egg

1 stick Butter

plus 1 Egg and splash of  Cream for brushing

Instructions

Mix half the flour plus warm milk, yeast and sugar.  Cover.  Let rest / rise for an hour.  This is where you’d add your xanthan gum if your blend doesn’t already contain it.

Add rest of flour, salt, oil and egg.  Add warm water by the tablespoon if dough feels too dry.

You want the dough to hold together but you also want it on the sticky side.  It will take in more flour during the rolling process so start on the sticky side to prevent the dough from being too heavy after all of the rolling. 

Mix well and dump out onto a floured rolling surface.

Remember you don’t have any gluten to work with here so a long kneading process is a waste of time when working with gluten-free flour.  Don’t spend more than a couple minutes mixing the dough.  Just make sure everything is completely mixed together and move on.  🙂 

Grate butter.

Refer to the above pics and the linked video for rolling process.  I’m not suggesting you do this because I’m lazy and don’t want to type the rest of the instructions.  I’m doing it because I truly think the visuals are so much more helpful.  Especially if you’ve never worked with homemade pastry dough before.  🙂 

When ready to bake…remove from icebox.  Roll into a 1/4 inch thick rectangle.  Cut into triangles.

Form each triangle.

Place on baking sheet and brush with egg / cream wash.

Cover and let rest while oven is heating to 400*.

The dough will do most of the rising in the hot oven so don’t use the look of the rise as a timetable.  Let the dough rest 10 – 20 minutes and then get them in the hot oven.

Bake 10 – 20 minutes.

Let rest on cooling rack for at least 10 minutes.

Walk around the house showing your family all the buttery layers you made out of…gluten…free…flour.  Ask them if you should have one of the croissants bronzed.  Ok maybe that last part was just me.  😉

Pic Dump and Cheddar Bay Recipe

Today I have some random pics to share from the last couple weeks plus a recipe from the weekend.  As always the recipe is at the end…so it doesn’t clutter up the post .  🙂

Homemade Chili.  Long before my celiac diagnosis I was using masa instead of flour as the thickener in my chili.  Thank you best chili maker in the history of the world…meme.  🙂

Frito pie and Mama Lupiac’s orange / lemon / strawberry punch.  One of my most favorite things.  🙂

Refilled the spinach stash plus a spinach / pear juice.

LOVE these fries.  They’re gluten free…have only a handful of ingredients and you bake them.  My version of Fuddruckers…hamburger patty plus fries and cheese ‘sauce’.

I used the rest of this pie dough to test out a pot pie and a funny shaped fig ‘pop tart’.  It worked great for both but I think we all know my fav…the pop tart of course.  😉

Urban Moonshine digestive bitters.  And my favorite birthday gift.  🙂

I’d been taking some digestive enzymes but I’ve had an ulcer in the past and the enzymes were too strong.  Someone on a message board suggested these bitters and so far so good.  🙂  They taste horrid x a million but I think they help.   🙂

Friday I  had a massage and then ate at Red Lobster.  I had Mussels and a baked potato.  The mussels are supposed to come with crusty dipping bread.  They were still delicious without it.  Watching everyone else eating chowder and cheddar bay biscuits made me sad though.  😦

So…I came home and planned a Saturday meal of potato / corn chowder and cheddar biscuits.  🙂

Two med – large potatoes covered with chicken broth.  You can’t really tell from the pic but the broth should be about two inches over the potatoes.

Cooked down til potatoes absorbed a lot of the broth then stirred in cream and corn.

Cooked back down til thick.  No roux.  No additional thickeners.  Just potatoes and cream.  🙂

Can’t wait to pick up some clams and make this again when / if we ever get a real cold spell.

My version of Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  These plus another half pan were completely gone in about 15 minutes.  🙂

As you can see I got out the good china again for the biscuits.  😉 

Cheddar Bay Biscuits  

I made a half batch and those amounts are in parenthesis. 

2 cups Flour        (1 cup…I used 125g since that’s the amount of one cup of my flour blend)

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder   (3/4 tsp)

1/4 tsp Baking Soda    (big pinch)

1/2 tsp Salt     (1/4 tsp)

1 stick cold Butter    (1/2 stick)

1 cup grated Cheese  (1/2 cup)

1 cup Milk or Cream      (1/2 cup)

1/2 cup cold Water   (1/4 cup)

Plus for brushing on top…

1/2 cup melted Butter   (1/4 cup)

1/4 tsp Garlic Powder   (1/8 tsp) 

Parsley Flakes    I didn’t have any but will get some for next time.

Instructions

Blend flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.   Here’s where you’d add some xanthan gum if needed.

Work in cold butter til the flour / butter mix looks like sand and pebbles.

Do it quickly so the butter doesn’t get soft.

Toss grated cheese in flour / butter mix.

Stir in cold milk (or cream) and water.   I used cream.

Drop on baking sheet.   I used a muffin pan and had some issues with sticking.

Bake up to 10 minutes at 375*.

Brush with melted butter / garlic /  parsley.

Pecan Cups

One of the very worst parts of lupus is the debilitating fatigue.  All of the lost sleep last week just really knocked me down.  Over the last 4 days I’ve slept 14 hours / 10 hours / 13 hours and 9 hours plus little cat naps throughout the day.  You can’t help but feel like you’re sleeping your life away when you fall into a fatigue flare.  😦

Today I was feeling better so I decided to try this recipe I’ve had saved for months.  I need to start doing some trial runs of new recipes I might want to do for Thanksgiving.

This Nut Cup recipe is from No Gluten, No Problem.

I followed the recipe just using my flour blend for the flour and Karo syrup instead of Agave.  These were great and so easy.  I usually have all kinds of problems when making pie dough but this was very easy.  No rolling and no messing with tablespoons of water.  Just mix 3 ingredients…divide and press.

Pre celiac I always bought the store crusts in the aluminum tins.  Even though I’ve got my household eating gluten-free* I really  only like the filling of a pie and since I’m the only one who has to eat gluten-free I’m thinking I’ll probably just still do the premade crusts for everyone else and leave me a little of the filling to the side.  I’d rather use the time (and ingredients) on something else that really needs to be gluten-free.  I haven’t decided for sure but that’s where I’m leaning right now.

*Edited to add…I only cook gluten-free now.  So if my family wants to eat something homemade then they eat gluten-free.  They still eat whatever they want outside of my cooking.  I know some people think it’s bad to go back and forth from a gluten-free diet to one full of wheat so I just wanted to clarify that.  🙂

Have you started planning for Thanksgiving?  Anything new you’re trying for the first time?  Will you do a trial run first? 

Monday Mess

I’m slowly starting to get back into the groove.  I ended up with more bed drama 😦  but finally got the liner midday Saturday.  The whole bed thing was just awful.  It started on Tuesday and if you’re not familiar with lupus one of the most important things is to get a lot of rest.  No bed for days plus all of the work to drain and then put it back together really took a toll on my body / sleep for the week.

So what did I do in the middle of all of that?  I attempted some cinnamon rolls of course.  🙂  and here’s where the ‘mess’ comes in…

I had a sweet ‘roll’ type recipe I’d been wanting to try.  It’s this recipe from the Baking Beauties.   It’s a cream cheese filled roll.  I wanted just a regular cinnamon roll flavor so I used the dough recipe and made my own filling.

As you can see I obviously had problems with it but it was all due to my own mistakes and nothing to do with the dough recipe.  The dough is the whole reason I’m sharing it today.  The taste was that good.

My mistakes were…a little too much liquid and too large of a pan.  As I frequently do I halved the recipe for the first time (so I don’t waste ingredients on something we don’t like) but forgot to half some of the liquid.  And for the pan I used an 8×8 pan which was too big for that amount of dough so the dough spread out to fill the extra space instead of rising up.

What I ended up with was a perfect caramel-y pull apart…sweet flat-ish bread.  Seriously I left it on the counter and when I came back later all but a tiny square was gone.  I didn’t even get to make a glaze.  That’s why I’m sharing even though they didn’t turn out perfectly…the taste was worth it.  Papa Lupiac was even wanting me to make it again this same exact way instead of trying to ‘fix’ it.

I’ll definitely be trying this one again soon (with the proper amount of liquid) and will share the results.  The lemon flavor from the pudding gives it this little underlying kick without being overpowering.  And I’m guessing the pudding also has something to do with the texture which was great too.  Give it a try if you’re up for something a little different.  🙂

Friday Hodgepodge

With the crazy cold / bug / whatever-it-was and now this disaster I need a do-over on the last week.  This post is all over the place.  Hopefully next week I’ll be completely back to normal with some new recipes.  🙂

I sleep on an old school water-bed.  It’s the only way I can sleep pain-free.  But as you might guess…when you need water-bed accessories you pretty much have to order them online.

I ordered a new liner and it was supposed to be delivered on Thursday.  So I get up early and get the bed drained…a HUGE pain…and about halfway thru I get email notice that the package was damaged and wouldn’t be delivered.  I called Amazon and they reordered the liner and comp’d overnight shipping so fingers crossed it will come today.  If not I’m going to be without a bed for the weekend.  😦

Some random pics

My taste is finally starting to get back to normal so of course Mexican is back too.  🙂

Fresh batch of English Muffins and I wanted to share this food color.  It’s AmeriColor brand and I had to get it at Hobby Lobby.  I used it for the cake icing last week and I can’t recommend it highly enough.  It is so much better than the Wilton pastes.  So much.

Sunday would have been my Pappy’s birthday.  I’ve written about my Mema and Meme for their birthday and don’t want to leave him out.  He was pure Czech and pretty funny at times.  Til the day he died he loved to tell us this crazy story about meeting Mema for the first time as she was walking barefoot down the road.  Something that never actually happened.  🙂  He loved to fish and worked bingo every Thursday night.  I can vividly remember summer childhood nights spent in an air-conditioned less bingo hall…winning Bundt cakes and pot plants…every child’s dream 😉  from the raffle between games.

The local paper here in rural route has a weekly football ‘pickem’ game and for the last 8 years of his life every single Thursday I’d go to the house and we’d pick the games.  I don’t like to brag…oh who am I kiddin’ of course I do…but most years I’m pretty good.  shhhh….let’s not talk about this year.  😉  I still do the pickem’s with Papa Lupiac every week pretty much in his honor.

I don’t have  a recipe for him.  A lot of what he loved to eat I haven’t translated to gluten-free yet…Kolaches and Czech food.  He was also a big pie guy and I’m sure it won’t surprise y’all to know the only kinds of pie I really like are of the frozen Chicken variety and the Whataburger drive thru  😉 which are both off-limits now with the celiac.   I will be doing some traditional pies for Thanksgiving and will share then.  Gluten free of course. 

Two candies I’ll always associate with him are Chick-o Sticks and Orange slices.  He always had a pack of orange slices in the icebox and mini Chick-o’s in his ‘junk’ drawer.  I was at Wal-Mart last night and picked up a bag of each in his honor.  🙂

For the last year and half of his life I saw him every single day.  Even on his worst days he always said something memorable.  He also made me laugh every time I’d walk in the house with a Cola Icee and he’d ask if I was drinking my ‘crack coke’.  🙂

Happy Birthday, Pappy.  🙂

Hope y’all have a good weekend.  🙂