New toy

Guess who got a donut pan last night and was up at 5:00 am this morning making gf donuts?!

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Food finds!

I was at Holiday market picking up a frozen, gf pizza and saw that they carried gf burritos by Amy's so I had to try one! They have an amazing selection of gf food - even better than S&S. That's saying a lot!

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Valentine sweets

A co-worker brought in some goodies for all of her sweeties. Namely me.

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Hijacked!

The only way I get flowers is when I hijack a delivery to an office that's closed for lunch! I'll enjoy them while I ransom them to the real recipient.

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Another week down

After a long hiatus (since before my Christmas work break) I finally made Sunday treats to bring into work on Monday. I was just minding my own business, perusing gluten free cooking blogs when I came across a recipe that I had everything for and look really simple to make. Let me introduce you to toffee granola bars;

The base layer was an oatmeal, a little bit of gf (gluten free) flour, brown sugar, melted margarine, and chopped walnut mix baked for about 15 minutes. While it baked, I heated a can of sweetened condensed milk with a little bit of margarine on the stove until it slightly thickened.When the oatmeal base came out of the oven I covered it with the milk mixture and then stuck it back in the oven for about another 10 minutes (if memory serves me right).

Next was to sprinkle some mini chocolate chips (so they melt faster) on top of the hot, baked toffee and wait a few minutes for the chips to start to melt before spreading them out into a smooth chocolate top layer.

Once it had cooled, I stuck it in the fridge to really harden the chocolate before cutting it into bars. Huge hit at work, and I could have some too!

Tuesday night we spend getting ready for bible study here on Wednesday. Clean, clean, clean, make dessert, and prep as much of the dinner as possible.

One of my favorite sights - a man doing chores.

For dessert I made a turtle cheesecake.A crustless, low-fat cheesecake made with non-fat cream cheese and non-fat Greek yogurt, topped with crushed gf chocolate cookies (in place of chocolate graham crackers), chopped pecans and light caramel dip (the kind you buy in a tub to dip apples in). Though I may have slightly overcooked the cheesecake (I'm always scared when any of it still jiggles), it was still wonderfully tasty - even for the next couple of days' worth of leftovers.

It was my Friday to work so I made the most of my time in P-town by also getting my mullet trimmed and having lunch with C. to finally exchange Christmas presents. Yeah, I'm that bad. They're still shooting to be leaving for Papua New Guinea (PNG) in April, they just have to finish all the work visa paperwork and get that last bit of funding support in place (they're at about 86% right now and have to be at 95% to get the tickets to go). She was telling me about all of the legal paperwork they're having to complete with a lawyer before they go - designating power of attorney (her mom and myself for everything except medical decisions), guardianship for their children should something happen to them while in PNG (definitely NOT us), and medical power of attorney (two of her family members). It's quite a daunting task when you have to sit down and actually make these decisions.

No big plans for the weekend other than to sit down and run church reports (ugh) and finish planning for S.F. next weekend (yay). I'm in charge of figuring out where we're eating since I'm the hardest to accommodate. So far we've decided on a Turkish restaurant by Golden Gate park for lunch on Saturday and an Italian restaurant for lunch on Friday when we arrive that is doing an all day food and beer pairing as part of S.F. Beer Week. I've still got two dinners and two breakfasts to figure out, though I did find a gf bakery on the Embarcadero that I want to stop at on our way out and stock up at. They've got buns, bagels, and some sweet treats I've got my eyes on. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather holds until we get there.

Super Bowl(s of food)

The only thing more important than the Super Bowl game is what we planned to eat during it. After weeks of searching for the perfect recipes I settled on baked mozzarella sticks, buffalo chicken dip, and artichoke spinach dip. I prepped everything earlier in the day so that when game time came I could toss it all in the oven for a quick 30 minute bake.

Grub is served...

15 minutes later..

Yeah, we ate all that - we're that good. I did hold back 1/2 of the spinach dip for bible study on Wednesday night here. I'm going to use it to stuff mushrooms with. The other 1/2 of the buffalo chicken dip is going with the Canadian tomorrow for his lunch. Trust me, nothing's going to waste! 

Vacation destination

Now that I'm on an every-other-Friday off schedule at work (to whittle down excess vacation accruals) I've got some nice 4-day weekends in the coming months because of holidays. This month, with President's Day weekend, is one of them. On a last minute whim we decided to make plans to go to San Fran for that weekend, staying at the cheap hotel right off of Fisherman's Wharf we stayed at last time. It includes free, gated parking which is why we like it. If you've ever been to San Fran you know what a challenge parking can be - especially with our F-250 beast. We'll either walk as is our style, or take a cab, to where ever we're going. Since this last minute trip is happening in two weeks we swung over to B&N this afternoon to do a little destination research.

We're big on pre-planning, so this book will help us find the best attractions close to us as well as dining and shopping. I'm a huge fan of the Frommer's travel books and have one for all the big cities we've visited - Victoria, Seattle, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Plus I've already got my eyes on the Las Vegas, Boston, and New York books for our future trips. Anyway, we'll be spending some quality time this coming week putting together our travel plans.

Tonight I'm heading off to Oroville, with my friend Kari, for a Christian concert at one of the churches there. We're seeing Brandon Heath who I think is so dreamy. We've both seen him at Spirit West Coast (big, annual Christian Woodstock at Laguna Seca) and love his music. We're meeting at the bottom of the hill (Skyway) at 5:00 to get there about an hour before the doors open. It's general seating so you don't want to be last in line. We're bringing something to eat while waiting in line so I made sure to keep a few slices of our gluten free pizza from Left Coast Pizza we got last night. This time I ordered the Emerald Isle pizza which has a pesto sauce, spinach, provolone, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and olives.

Not the Canadian's favorite, probably due to the lack of meat, but good enough. I loved it up until the point I insisted on a third piece that Chris warned me against and instantly got a horrible stomach ache. I've had a bad tummy all week (I think I've been snacking on too much fresh fruit) and this was literally just too much food for my stomach to process. Ugh. Tonight will be two small pieces eaten very slowly. I don't want to spend my evening in so much pain I can't even stand up straight like I have this whole week. There are days I hate my broken stomach so much I'd rather just have the stupid feeding tube. And then I think about how much I'd miss nachos and I knock that thought right out of my head!