My Cookbook

It is here, ladies and gentlemen. For a few weeks now I've been the very proud author of this gluten and dairy free cookbook:

 

Isn't it pretty???

My dear friend Abby painted the cover art as a gift before she moved away. It now has two places of honor...hanging up in my home and gracing the front of my new favorite book. ;-)

The recipes inside this book are not run of the mill gluten and dairy free recipes. For one, there is an entire chapter dedicated to Ethnic cuisine. Chinese, Pakistani, Irish, Italian, Thai! Another is that every recipe was written with families in mind. No insanely complicated ingredients or directions. Most dishes are 8 servings so no need to double the recipe to feed your family of _. The best part? It is BOTH dairy and gluten free. EVERY RECIPE. ALL 101 of them! (It's actually all soy free too!)

Where can you find a copy of this glorious treasure you ask? Through me! Click on the link to my Etsy page and purchase For the Love of Food: 101 Gluten and Dairy Free Recipes there. The price is $30. In it you will find my recipe for pasta sauce, curried lentil hummus, grilled hot wings, lemon cake, chocolate pudding, shepherd's pie, buffalo chicken pizza, chicken-fried steak and so much more!!!

This book has been 18 months of my life. For the last 3-4 months I lived, breathed and bled this book to get it published. Now that it's done, I feel amazing. A life goal has been accomplished. I am a published cookbook author! My friend Elizabeth (you can find her blog here) was a HUGE contributor to this lengthy process by editing and testing recipes as I went along. Thanks friend!!!

Scratch off bucket list.

Now on to the next cookbook! I have already started on the recipes for the next book. Crazy much?

Car Rant, Granola Recipe and General Random Ramblings

We bought a new car a couple weeks ago. New to us that is. A beautiful red Nissan Sentra. Absolutely perfect. Until we brought it home...and parked it in our driveway. A bird decided to build a nest on the branch above the car. You can imagine how disgusting the car is in the mornings. (one of the babies fell out of the nest on top of it too! Survived...shockingly.) But that was nothing compared to today...while shopping at Aldi an artistic person decorated my car with lovely zigzags.

This is the smaller scratch. The larger one is all curlicues...

See? Not even possibly an accident. I really hate people today. DIE! Ok, that's out of my system. Ish. Anyone know of an inexpensive way to fix car paint scratches? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The reason I was at Aldi is irritating. Apparently I have very high cholesterol. (I'm 26! and basically vegan) My doctor is actually blaming my vegan diet (mostly beans as protein) and I've been ordered to eat more chicken and fish. If I wanted to eat chicken and fish, I'd have been doing it...and guess what? My stomach hurts more the last few days eating chicken than it did when I wasn't eating it. Anyway...I went to Aldi to buy oatmeal to make granola. Oatmeal lowers cholesterol. I hate oatmeal. And then my car was scratched while I was getting it. Today sucks.

The granola smells amazing though!!! Because I love you and it's been a long while since I shared a new recipe, here is my granola recipe.

Granola

5 cups old fashioned gluten free oats (Bob's Red Mill is good)

1 ½ cups sliced almonds

½ cup chopped pecans

1 ½ cup shredded coconut (sweet or un-sweet--your preference)

½ cup packed light brown sugar

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground nutmeg

½ cup olive oil

½ cup honey

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 ½ cups dried cranberries (or preferred dried fruit)

                Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients (EXCEPT the dried fruit). In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the oil and honey until not quite boiling, turn off heat then stir in the vanilla extract. Quickly pour the oil mixture over the dry ingredients and stir well. Spread the granola on a 15x10 pan with sides. Bake for 30-40 minutes, carefully stirring every 10 minutes. Bake it until light brown in color then remove from oven. Cool completely before adding the dried fruit. Gently stir to break up the largest chunks. Store in an air-tight container.

You're welcome.

Yesterday while watching Fringe (I'm obsessed. Can't stop watching.) I painted my fingernails. That rarely happens because I neither have time nor patience to do it. But it was a lazy rainy day. If you've seen Fringe, you also know that sometimes one needs a break from the weirdness anyway.

Aren't they pretty?



Another new (or rather re-discovered) obsession is Dido. My husband was sweet and bought me her new CD. I've not listened to anything since. Unless it was her "Life for Rent" CD. =) I even listen to the Dido radio station on Pandora. She has a gorgeous voice. Her songs are sad though...not sure why I like her so much actually. Hmmm...

Nothing is happening really... Another senior class is graduating Saturday, among them a good friend of mine. She's headed to The King's College in the Fall. (I heartily approve ;-)) My daughter has her kindergarten graduation this week as well. It seems just last week I posted that picture of her first day. Where does time go? I'm not ready for a first grader. Or the Summer. At least there are no school uniforms to keep track of when school is out!

I think my granola is burning. Goodbye

Currently

I'm doing it...a Currently post. Sorry if you are sick of reading this same format from other bloggers. Skip and come back another day. ;-)

Currently:

Listening to: Christmas music! Michael Buble is my favourite at the moment, but that can always change. Tony Bennett is going in next...

Reading: Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul, by John and Stasi Eldridge. About halfway through and I love it. Highly recommend!!! It has given me many great things to think about and pray over after reading each chapter.

Feeling: TIRED! And a little cranky. The whole family has been sick for a while now, with Tempe being the sickest. I think we're averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night. And she's stopped napping. Very ready for health to reign supreme!

Working on: Two projects! One is my cook book (great progress this week!) and the other is a large Christmas ornament for a friend. It is going to be lovely. Black and white satin flowers covering a large Styrofoam ball topped with a large silver bow. Can you picture it? After I finish I'll try to remember to post a pic of it. Found my camera!!!

Looking forward to: My birthday! And the school Christmas play to be over. I love that my husband has the opportunity of co-directing the play and he's enjoying it! But...the family misses him. Tempe especially as she is sick and only wants Daddy snuggles.

Making me happy: Moroccan food! Seriously, I found a recipe for a vegetarian chickpea dish that I am obsessed with. Don't believe me? Made it Monday and making it again tonight. My hubby and I fought over the leftovers so I'm making a double recipe tonight.

Loving: This picture. It's not the best in the world, but I was happy. He was happy. And we actually have a pic of the two of us! If you know either one of us, you'd understand how difficult this actually is...we hate being photographed! It was taken at the craft fair...obviously, we are in costume! He was Dr. Jekyll AND Mr. Hyde, and I was Mary Poppins. I think we're cute! ;-)