Sweets for your Sweetheart! Round-Up

I'm typing with one hand here, holding Ashley, who suddenly came down sick. But I promised the round-up today, and I just couldn't wait to show it to you! Feast your eyes on these sweets, which, best of all, are full of love. Cheers everybody!

Check out Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried, to find out about Naomi's theme for next month: Canapes!

Valentine Pomegranate Heart Tarts, by Deliciously Gluten Free

Flourless Chocolate Cake by, Gluten Free Easily

Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Bites by,

Daring to Thrive

Sweet Apple-Banana Muffins by, You-Name-It-Free

Easy Chocolate Covered Truffles by, For the Love of Food

Anejo Old Fashioned Coctail by,

Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried

Chococado Souffles by, Balance Food

Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream, by me, The Spunky Coconut

Butternut Lasagna, gluten-free, casein-free

Guess what, guess what, guess what??? I made the butternut lasagna and ohhh... is it divine!!! I don't know if it's because I had baked the squash the day before, or because I've already made this cream sauce a few times, so I was familiar with it, but it didn't seem to take very long to make this lasagna. The cream colored, noodle-like texture on the left in this picture is not a noodle. That's the cream sauce; it's so good! It tastes nothing like a nut, though it's made of cashew milk bechamel.

Butternut Lasagna:

Cashew Milk Bechamel:

Add to pre-heated pot:

4 tbs of coconut oil or ghee (I used two of each)

4 tbs brown rice flour

Stir.

Whisk in 2 cups of room temperature cashew milk (How to Make Cashew Milk Video), about 1/2 cup at a time, allowing it to thicken in between.
Break two eggs into a large glass measuring cup, and temper them with the sauce:
Add a splash of the hot sauce to the eggs while beating them, to bring them up to temperature without scrambling them.

Slowly continue adding the sauce to the eggs while beating.
Add 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 3/4 tsp Herbamare seasoning, and a few cranks of ground pepper to the sauce.

Butternut Filling:

Puree:

3 cups of cooked butternut

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbs coconut oil or ghee

1/4 cup honey or 2 tbs xylitol

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

I use a 12 inch wide pan containing a few inches of simmering water to parboil the gluten-free lasagna noodles for 10 minutes. I do this in two batches, five noodles and then four.

You should really buy Tinkyada lasagna noodles, and not De Boles. They are so much better, and also easier to work with.

Layer the lasagna in this order: bechamel, noodles, butternut filling

Repeat two more times.

Top with remaining bechamel.

Bake covered (I like to use my stainless cookie sheet, turned upside down to avoid aluminum going into my food).

350 degrees for 50 minutes

UPDATE: I made this in a large crock pot (with pumpkin rather than squash, but either should work) and it was so easy and amazing. The only difference is you don't parboil the noodles. Just layer it as you would, with dry uncooked Tinkyada lasagna noodles. Then after you make your layers pour 1/4 cup water around the edges. Set the crock pot to 4 hours high, but turn it off after 3.5 hours (or use a timer ). To get it to set up well it has to cool without the lid on for at least an hour.

what's for breakfast

Lately, pecans or walnuts, fruit, almond milk , and a drizzle of honey, have been what's for breakfast here. Our friend, Shirley, at Gluten Free Easily, recently did a similar post about this, and at the risk of looking like a copycat, I had to jump on this healthy, delicious bandwagon! Think I'll go eat some right now :-)

I soak my nuts, to remove the enzyme inhibitors, thus unlocking all the nutrition available in nuts, and making them easier to digest. Otherwise, well... they give me gas. There I said it ;-) So I just cover them with water before I go to bed. In the morning I rinse and dump a few times, till the water is clear. Then I season them, or as of lately, just throw them straight into the dehydrator plain.

Good morning everyone! Might I ask you, what's for breakfast?

catching a rainbow

Costco? Oh, yea!

I suspect most of you are going to read this post and let out a big, "DUH, Kelly!" But just on the off chance that some of you are living in the dark, like I was, I thought I would share my latest discovery. That and I'm just so freakin' excited I'm bouncing off the walls!

See, we are having a really hard time paying the bills every month, like some of you may be. My love and I have been trying to figure out how to cut back on our spending, but we almost never buy anything extra. The last extra I bought was the sheets on clearance and the rods, for the girls "fort," also known as a canopy. :-) Before that, at Christmas, we spent about 40 dollars on the kids, and we donated 40 dollars to charity. Andy and I didn't exchange a single gift, but we didn't mind, and our parents gave us gifts. In fact, living simply makes us very happy.

If someone offered Andy a job tomorrow, making twice what he makes being self-employed, commuting and unhappy, I would say no. We would rather have Andy work from home (happy and not commuting) and be able to live anywhere we want, than afford to buy more things. One fuel-efficient car suits us fine. I can't even tell you what we save in gas with Andy working from home and me homeschooling!

Then our neighbor's girls came over to play yesterday, and when their dad came to pick them up, he told me how I could really save a ton of money by shopping at Costco. Costco? I couldn't help but think, that's so not my style. The big warehouse full of stuff and things; yuck. But my neighbor isn't the first person who's been promoting Costco to me lately. In the last month about 3 of my friends have been telling me the same thing.

So today, for the sake of saving money, and having nothing else we could cut back on, Zoe, Ashley and I took a trip to the big bad Costco. We were very excited to see what we could find, and find we did! Just look at all the healthy stuff we got! I didn't even get everything that was healthy and gluten-free in this trip, because we didn't need it yet. Nor did I even scour ever aisle in the store, for the sake of time. That place is huge!

For about 140 dollars I was able to buy:

2 bags of Bear Naked Organic Trail Mix, 1 pound & 10 oz each

Larabar 18 pack, apple, cashew and cherry (they each ate one in the car on the way home, so now it's actually 16 :-))

Clif Kid 24 pieces of Organic Twisted Fruit

2 MaraNatha Natural Almond Butter, 26 oz glass jars

Organic Brown and Wild rice, 3.2 pounds

2 Heinz Organic Ketchup, 44 oz each --Important Update! I found out tonight, 2/2/09, that this is NOT GLUTEN-FREE. Please see the last few comments to see!

frozen Organic Peaches, 4 pounds!

frozen Wild Alaskan Salmon, 7 fillets

frozen All Natural Crispy Waffle Fries, 4 pounds

frozen Organic Broccoli Florets, 4 pounds (I just peeked inside and they look really good)

14 large Organic Fuji Apples

It might not look like a lot from this picture, but trust me my friends, I had to stand far back to get it all in the shot. Those bags are enormous. The Ketchup and Almond Butter are twice the size of the usual kind. It's a ton of food, I promise you!

Are you doing anything to save money that you could share with us? I welcome all the advice I can get!

The best gluten-free, casein-free lasagna EVER!

I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but this is the best gluten-free, casein-free lasagna - ever! LOL I don't know how people who aren't celiac or gluten-intolerant feel, after they eat a pound of gluten and dairy (otherwise known as lasagna), but I used to have to unbutton and unzip my pants, among other things, which I wont get into now! If you have to eat lasagna that is gluten-free and casein-free then this is the way to do it!

So here is my version, which gives us no trouble whatsoever! Hooray!

It took me several tries to get the gluten-free lasagna noodles to work for me. Some say, "no boiling, oven ready", which is why my first few tries failed. Now I ignore the package instructions and parboil them.

I use a 12 inch wide pan containing a few inches of simmering water to parboil the gluten-free lasagna noodles. I do this in two batches, five noodles and then four.

Also, I am going to pick favorites here, and say that you should really buy Tinkyada lasagna noodles, and not De Boles. De Boles just aren't as good as Tinkyada, which are so much more like semolina noodles, and so much easier to work with.

To create a cheese-like layer, much like the ricotta layer in traditional lasagna, I developed this "cream sauce" using Cream of Buckwheat, and coconut milk, and it is so awesome! It gives you that same texture and creaminess as dairy. Okay, not exactly like dairy, but close! :-)

Lasagna:
Parboil 9 gluten-free rice lasagna noodles for 10 minutes. (Tinkyada are the best)
Put them in a bowl of water or onto a cookie sheet coated with olive oil to cool.

To make the "cream filling" prepare:
2 cups of cream of buckwheat hot cereal, using (full fat) coconut milk or other milk substitute
(The directions for two servings on the Pocono Cream of Buckwheat box is equal to two cups cooked.)
Add to the cream of buckwheat:
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Italian Seasoning
1 tbs ghee (which is casein-free)
After it cools, add four eggs.

Saute 2 peppers and add them to the "cream filling" or use cooked ground beef or sausage.

Use a 5 qt (rectangular) sized dish.
Layer your noodles with 3 cups of tomato sauce in this order:
tomato sauce, 3 noodles, "cream sauce"
Repeat two more times.
I like to put my stainless cookie sheet over top, upside down, because I don't use aluminum. We're trying to get the aluminum out of our bodies here :-) It does need to be covered though.
Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
Allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Now that I am really happy with this recipe I like to make two at a time, and freeze one.

Chocolate Heart Shaped Cookies, Gluten-Free

Ahhhh.... love. Having two little girls is like Valentine's Day all year long. The smell of their hair after a lavender shampoo, snuggling on the couch, hiding under their floral patterned quilt, I love you notes, and a million kisses a day. Still, with Valentine's coming soon, there's even more hearts and red paper projects in my house than usual. Yesterday we made these simple but sweet, heart shaped cookies with only a few ingredients. The part I love best is that they use the wet almond meal left over after straining almond milk, so there's no waste. It's a great way to use the leftover almond meal, and save money. For this recipe, (and the one in the comments) you don't even have to dry it.

Chocolate Heart Shaped Cookies:

Add to bowl:

1 beaten egg

1 tbs vanilla extract

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup honey

wet almond meal left over after straining almond milk (equal to 1 cup dry almonds)

(click to watch almond milk video)

Mix ingredients.

Using a teaspoon, drop into heart shapes on unbleached parchment paper.

Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.

Makes about 8 cookies.

Himalayas At Home

Last night we decided to try Himalayas at Home. We called and told them we had an allergy question. They were so kind and helpful. When I went to pick up the food, the owner made it a point to tell me that he would accommodate any allergies we may have. He even offered to substitute coconut milk for dairy in his recipes. 

Andy and I shared the Baigan Bharta and Chicken Curry. The girls shared the lentil soup and ate rice. It was all so good. The Baigan Bharta was nice and spicey, but the Curry was my favorite. I can't wait to try more of their food.

I was just reading the take home menu, and I see that they offer Lunches to Go, which they will deliver for $6.95. There is also a lunch buffet I believe. 

You can find them at the corner of Hover and 119, next to Brewing Market Coffee, in Longmont. Their number is: 303.774.8964