Welcome to Friday Photos, a weekly feature here on Celiac in the City — you can read how it all started by clicking HERE.
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So I may have missed a week (or two) of Friday Photos. But instead of freaking out about it, I’m catching up with a little of everything from the past two weeks.
Hold on tight, it’s been a wild ride.
Recipe testing for Hallie over at Daily Bites…
PB&J Cookies
Chocolate Covered Mint Patties (husband’s favorite)
Mixed things up a little — added some coconut.
Both recipes were outstanding. As in, we’re already making them again. And I not only tested them out at home, but I took some to my co-workers — well trained GF baked goods testers — to get their opinions too. Every single person that tried the Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies said, “they taste JUST like PB&J.”
And that’s a good thing, because that’s exactly what’s in them. There were some new-to-me ingredients like coconut sugar, coconut oil, (had never experimented with it, can you believe it?) and buckwheat flour. All things that I had not used before.
The little mint patties were Mark’s top pick. He used the word addicting. More than once.
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But we’re not just snacking on special treats, my friends. We’re also whipping up things like this spring risotto with asparagus, lemon and tomatoes. I’m still talking about it. (and wishing we had some left)
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A couple of other things I am still talking about…
Meet Cooper and Graham — my new nephews. Perfect little peanuts huh? They were the reason we got to be home for Mother’s Day this year.
But don’t forget about their big brothers…
Chef Carter, who you have all met before — now a gluten-free chef, helped run the kitchen for an afternoon of homemade pizza making.
His big brother Tayden was a pro!
“The Works” pizza using Bob’s Red Mill pizza mix.
I would eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Anyone else with me?
These chopsticks were the best buy of the weekend — I grabbed them from Beans and Barley, on a whim, shortly before going home to see them. Thought they would be fun.
Let’s just say that every meal of the weekend involved these fun little gadgets.
Shark or whale, either way. Big fun with food!
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We needed a crowd pleasing appetizer for Saturday afternoon — took a vote and it was taco dip for the win.
Easy-Peasy Taco Dip
1 package cream cheese
1 16oz container of sour cream
1 packet taco seasoning
Toppings of your choice, we used: lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, black olives, green pepper
The boys would use the KitchenAid to mix ANYTHING, and the higher the speed the better, in their eyes. We like to mix the cream cheese, sour cream, and taco seasoning together so it’s nice and creamy. (no lumps)
Spread the mixture into a serving plate and top with your desired goodies — and you can leave a little space for the picky eaters.
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Instead of cake, to celebrate Mother’s Day and their mama’s birthday, we decided to splurge and make homemade ice cream.
Then things got crazy and we decided it should be an ice cream sundae buffet.
I wish you all could have seen Carter’s face when I brought out the tray of toppings.
CT: “Wait… all of this is gluten-fwee?”
Auntie Sawah: “Yep, ALL of it.”
CT: “You have got to be kidding me — that is so cool!”
Big brother doesn’t mind eating gluten-free, not one bit. (it all tastes the same to him)
We put no restrictions on the fun, which kind of turned into a free for all, ending with me questioning if there was even any ice cream in the bowl. But they both assured me there was. 🙂
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The kids had their fun with ice cream — and then we had ours, after bedtime.
Mudslide meets White Russian — a Russian Mudslide.
We had made coffee cubes for an iced coffee concoction, but the night before seemed as good a time as any to try them out (and the ice cube trays that we wanted to make ice in for mojitos, was being used for said cubes, so we worked with what we had — coffee cubes and ice cream)
Russian Mudslide
(there was no measuring whatsoever, just go with the flow here)
- coffee cubes – made with double strength coffee
- leftover homemade ice cream
- vodka
- splash of milk
- chocolate syrup
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Being as rad as ever, my co-workers never let me go without. One of them went ahead and rocked an egg-bake dish. She just did it with GF bread. (and people had no clue, they loved it!) And another thoughtful friend was sure to include GF crackers for the cheese-cracker spread.
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Whoa. I’m beat. Aren’t you?
Catch up was a little harder than I thought — maybe I’ll just play it safe and be on time next week.
Until then … have a wonderful weekend!
Tomorrow morning is our Team Gluten-Free 5k, followed by pizza at Transfer — probably should have done the pizza and then the workout, yes?
Oh, and thanks to some extremely generous friends and family, I was able to raise over $1400 for the Celiac Disease Foundation. My goal was $1000.
You guys rock.
Good night!
Celiac in the City 