Happy New Year!

Wow! These past two months have been a whirlwind! Hosting a baby shower, family birthdays, the birth of our niece, Thanksgiving, Christmas, parties galore! For the New Years Eve, James and I hosted a "black-tie" party with our friends. Appropriately I found instructions online to create these Penguin appetizers! I absolutely LOVE penguins and black olives, so this appetizer was the ultimate food!

Although many of my friends aren't black olive lovers, like myself, they enjoyed the decorative value of the food.They were super simple to make, using carrots, cream cheese, black olives and a toothpick! And the best part was I got to eat all remaining black olives (not to mention the majority of these penguins)!

 

Additionally, I made Banana Split Bites,  Stuffed Mushrooms, Sherry Shrimp, and Mini Caprese Salad Bites!  They were all gluten-free too! So that was a plus! I believe the Mini Caprese Salad Bites were the biggest hit! 

Wishing a happy new years to you and yours!

~RR

Joy Comes in the Morning

"Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning"-Proverbs 30:5

I literally woke up today with a song in my heart: my hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name (On Christ the Solid Rock).

I know it is very easy to worry about all things-big and small. As I've mentioned before, the Lord is continually reminding me all is according to His will. While some outcomes lately may not have been what I wanted, I am so grateful MY future lies with He who knows and controls all. I need not worry when I acknowledge God has my life planned to a T. In this I continually find peace.

Lately I have been trying to figure out where I belong in this married, college grad, career life. God has been constantly reminding me it's through Him that I find my identity; not because I'm a conservative Aggie, dog-owning Texan, lactose-intolerant blonde, paleo diet and crohn's diagnosed wife, homeowning health nut, sanitary Star Wars loving marketer, or 23 year old pro life shoe enthusiast. I am a chosen daughter of God and I need not put my trust, future or identity in anyone or thing of this world.

No outcome can bring the inner peace found by trusting God completely. While I remain passionate about certain values, I've learned an important lesson this election-cycle: when your hope is in the right place, your world won't come crashing down when events and situations in your life aren't ideal or what you wanted most. A simple, almost silly, lesson, but one which I know I needed a refresher course.

Always learning,
RR

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. -William Ralph Inge

3 Types of Love

When James and I were going through pre-marriage counseling, my pastor gave us the workbook Before You Say "I Do". While this book was originally written in 1977, it was a great tool for us to learn more about each other and God's desires for our marriage (and the old pictures were a comical bonus!). One particular lesson really stuck out to me, as I discovered the lesson was about a topic I had realized before, but I was unaware of its Biblical references.  This lesson talked about the 3 Types of Love.

While a marriage should be based on love, our engagement was legitimately based on love, as James read 1 Corinthians 13 from the Bible to me as he proposed last summer. We acknowledge love is from God and what better way to learn love than from God's word?  The workbook had a chapter entitled 'Love as a Basis for Marriage' and in it, besides studying verses about love, we learned of the three Biblical forms of Love: Eros, Philia, and Agape. 

1. Eros: "a romantic love, sexual love."

2. Philia: "as in a friendship: companionship, communication and cooperation."

3. Agape: "self-giving love, gift love, the love that goes on loving even when the other becomes unlovable; it's something you make happen; Agape is kindness; it is being sympathetic, thoughtful and sensitive to the needs of your loved one."

As the workbook discussed each type, James recalled a devotional video discussing these three types, in easy to understand language and examples entitled "Nooma Flame".

All of these types of love are necessary for a love that lasts forever, an eternal love. These three types create a fulfilling love and combine to create the strongest form of love. Without one type, the 'love' fails.

This description of love explains why certain relationships fail: 'friends with benefits' will not last as it misses the final commitment aspect; a love without romance fails as well as a love between individuals who cannot get along as friends. While these aspects seem to be perfect common sense, I'm surprised at just how many people I see attempting to create a love with only 2 of these 3 requirements.

I was reading last night from a book my cousins gifted us as a wedding gift, Fall in Love, Stay in Love by Willard F. Harley, Jr. The author explains his findings of two kinds of love in marriage: romantic love, "the feeling of being in love-finding someone irresistible," and caring love, "a decision to try to do what you can to make someone happy-a willingness and effort to care for someone". I found his descriptions interesting and built upon the three Biblical descriptions of love.

I am grateful for the true love I have found with James, my soulmate, and I look forward to the rest of forever with him! Identifying the aspects of love will help us develop our love and be capable of working on an aspect that may become weak over the years.  Also being able to recognize these 3 parts of long-lasting love can help us help others. Realizing these types of love could be the saving grace for marriages world-wide.

~RR

"He is the love of my life, my constant companion, my partner, and my best friend..." -Cindi Griffith describing her late husband, Andy Griffith

Losing Pounds, Harvesting Herbs & a Growing Puppy

Is part of growing up feeling like life whirls right past you? James and I skipped August-or you'd think so if you saw our pantry calendar that was still on July the first weekend in September.. We blinked and now it's the fall!


Before I share about my adventure of harvesting herbs I figure I'll give updates on 2 major aspects of our lives: James has lost 6-8 pounds since we changed our diet to eat allergen-free foods, and Rocky now weighs 37 pounds (I could barely hold him and stand on the scale-guess I need to up the iron at the gym, again). James is full of energy and is losing that 'gluten-belly' as we call it (same theology as a beer-gut, but just caused by gluten in various foods. Or in his situation, a combo of all the allergens his body couldn't digest properly).  We'll be adding new pants to his Christmas list, if not sooner. Rocky hasn't chewed through anything major (knock on wood); although I do wonder why we buy him toys when he loves empty water bottles and paper towel rolls... He had a glamor shot photo shoot a while back, check out this beauty:

Thank you Senora Neale for such wonderful shots of Rocky!

Now onto harvesting of the herbs! I searched online for the best method to harvest herbs. I finally decided on harvesting the herbs, washing & drying the herbs, then combining the herbs and olive oil in a food processor.

 

Finally, scoop the herbs into ice cube trays and let them freeze/set-up for a few days. (Yes I am using some heart shaped ice cube trays) Then, transfer frozen cubes into a labeled freezer bag.

So far, we have enjoyed the cilantro I froze with rice, even though I haven't bought fresh cilantro since we made salsa earlier this summer!

I am also trying simply harvesting the herbs and putting the herbs straight into a freezer ziplock bag (after washing and drying of course-so many other critters enjoy herbs!).  I am mainly trying this method with Rosemary, as I read an easy way to get the Rosemary off the branches is to roll a rolling-pin over the bag after they've been frozen for awhile. I'll let you know how this turns out!

Additionally I have been harvesting seeds, so that next year I can grow more herb plants and eventually be able to stock up and share my fresh herbs with friends and family! And Rocky enjoys smelling the herbs every day, so if nothing else he can have some air fresheners.

Until next time,

RR

"The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her."
~Marcelene Cox

Allergy-free pancakes!

(I'm going to recap here a few sentences in case you haven't read my previous allergy free cooking blog):

A few weeks ago we got James's blood-work back and discovered James is allergic to dairy, eggs, gluten, peanuts, soy, citric acid...(I think I listed them all). At this point, most people ask why we tested James for allergies. Easiest answer is a combo of headaches and stomach aches and the curiousity of an allergy possibility. I am also allergic to eggs and am lactose intolerant, so we decided to attempt to be nice to our bodies and get rid of these food allergens from our diets.  Having a younger brother who's allergic to soy, gluten and eggs, an older brother allergic to peanuts, eggs and is lactose intolerant, and a sister-in-law allergic to beef and dairy (ie the whole cow), I thought I was ready to jump right in. I may have been used to the diet, but I was definitely not knowledgeable about how to cook for said dietary restrictions! (And everyone thought I was the hard one to cook for; I just can't eat corn/salads/extremely spicy foods! Cooking for someone who has 3 feet less intestines is SO MUCH EASIER than cooking for someone allergic to the common foods!)

So besides for purging our pantry of all those foods and purchasing more expensive allergy-free foods, we have begun researching allergy-free recipes. While our dinners won't differ much (we tend to eat meats and veggies for dinner), we realized breakfasts and snacks will be our challenges. So, I found a pancake recipe that is gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free and thought I'd give it a try. 

The recipe is as follows:

Protein Packed Pancakes

http://www.realfoodallergyfree.com/2011/12/protein-packed-pancakes/

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Navy Beans, drained
• 1 2/3 cup Water
• 1 Tbsp Honey (Don’t substitute as this gives the pancakes the golden color.)
• 2 tsp Oil (I use olive)
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 1/2 cup Rolled Oats

Directions:

1. Add ingredients to blender in the order listed. Blend until well blended. Set aside to thicken while you heat the skillet to medium.
2. Cook on until golden brown, turning as needed.

The first challenge, besides purchasing the items, was getting over the fact that navy beans will be a main ingredient of pancakes. 

I compiled all ingredients into a blender and heated the griddle:

I used coconut oil to grease the griddle then began cooking. The first round of pancakes didn't turn out as pretty as the second and third.  These pancakes take longer to cook than the gluten filled Bisquick ones, but tasted practically the same! (Believe it or not!) The texture wasn't as light and fluffy as "normal" pancakes, but we enjoyed them!

I'm excited to find more recipes, hopefully ones that work out better than the waffle recipe I attempted the other day.... You win some, you lose some, right?

~RR

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." 

-Henry David Thoreau

Craftroom Creations

While I'm still working on making the craftroom usable (the other day I unloaded 3 boxes into the drawers/shelves/closet) and redoing some chairs for the craftroom, I'd like to share my first craft in the house: a door wreath!

I "cheated" by doing my first wreath with a wreath that already had yellow balls/flower formations. This helped blend in the other flowers! And as the summer draws to an end at craft stores (Hobby Lobby has Christmas decor out already-it scares me 2012 is more than halfway over, but excites me that Christmas is coming!), spring and summer decor goes on sale! So, this wreath was a great find! With the addition of some of my wedding flowers and a maroon R, my wreath turned out pretty well! I've already bought another wreath to begin fall or Christmas decor-I'll take awhile to decide though...there's too many ideas on Pinterest!!

Anyone else create something exciting lately?! I love seeing the creative juices flow!!

~RR

Cooking Adventures of the Paleo/Vegan Diet

We recently learned my husband James has quite a few allergies: dairy, egg, gluten (to name a few).  We've decided to change our diets for awhile to see if the change affects headaches and stomach aches he has recently been having.  In our attempt to find allergy-free recipes, we have decided we are really adapting a paleo/vegan diet: eliminating processed foods and staying away from dairy and eggs, but still eating meats.  So far we have cleaned out our pantry, restocked it with allergy-free ingredients and products, researched appealing recipes and have started adapting to our new lives.

As my doctor told me, allergies are like a cup of water: as you are exposed to an allergen, imagine pouring some water into a cup; the more allergens you are exposed to, the fuller the cup, until your body goes completely haywire and your cup overflows.  When my younger brother was in the 8th/9th grade, this is exactly what was happening. He was skin and bones and had stomach issues.  We did a blood test on him and found he was severely allergic to soy, gluten and eggs, basically the only food groups he was eating.  Since he has changed his diet, he feels great, looks great, and is now a healthy senior in high school. I admire him; I couldn't imagine being 18 years old and not eating cake, hamburgers, drinking pepsi, and so much more.

With my brother's experience, my whole family changed our diets, so this new diet to accommodate to my husband's newly found allergies wouldn't be too different for me. The change, however, will be the cooking of the foods, as I have rarely cooked many allergy-free foods.

Today I changed up my usual crock pot roast so that it would be soy and gluten free. Normally I plop the roast in the crock pot, empty about half a packet of Lipton Onion soup mix packet on top and add some water. Today however, I used some different ingredients:

Roast from the 'Lewis Place', half of a small cooking onion, half of the package of dried portobello mushrooms, and half of the carton of organic, allergy-free mushroom soup.

We absolutely love returning home from work to the smell of a crock pot creation, especially roast! 

The roast tasted the same, if not better, than my traditional onion soup mix recipe; the main difference actually comes with the higher cost of the allergy free ingredients. I altered my mashed potatoes to use only Original flavored Almond Milk (normally I pile in the butter and regular milk).  The mashed potatoes were creamy and tasted just the same! Of course the gravy from the roast would have masked any odd flavors if there were any!

All in all, we had a successful dinner and, besides for the initial 'full' feeling, felt amazing! No discomfort or drowsiness at all. I look forward to adapting more of my recipes and trying new ones as we experiment with our new life change!

Is anyone else trying a new diet due to dietary restrictions? Any suggestions or recommendations out there?

Yours truly,

RR

"Do not live life attempting to make your presence known, 

but live in a way which makes your absence felt."