Polyvore Coolness!

Autumn Decor by erinmartinez on Polyvore.com

Angel Vine Topiary - Ballard Designs, $25
News Text Pillar Candle | Pottery Barn, $17
Owl Shaped Lantern | Pottery Barn, $29

Several days ago I saw this posting on Home Stories A2Z and saved it to read when I had more time.  Tonight the kids were all in bed on time since tomorrow is the first day of school.  So, I had a bit of free time to read through the info and play with the FREE Polyvore software.  Oh my!  So cool and fun and best of all EASY!  It's neat software in that it lets you clip images from all over the web and create your own buttons, decor boards, and collages.  I highly recommend it.  When you get a bit of time, check it out.  I'm still figuring it out--like posting it to my blog without necessarily having all that descriptive text under the picture and that over-sized white square.  Anyway, just check it out and be sure to check out the tutorial post about it--it helped me get a quick start. Fun!

Blueberry Muffins

Since tomorrow is the first day of school, I've been busy yet again baking and prepping food for the busy mornings with starving (their word, not mine!) boys and to quickly pack healthy filling lunches. Today I've made gluten free and dairy free blueberry muffins (again), rice pudding, French bread, and meatballs.  Okay, so the meat balls are also for dinner tonight for meatball subs, but the leftover ones also make a great lunch!  Since John Paul and Penelope finished off ALL of the granola I made last week, I'm going to have to make more along with some regular granola.  Still to make tonight are some dairy free waffles for Alexander and some gluten and dairy free pancakes.

The GF/DF blueberry muffins are SO good and easy.  The recipe I use is a variation of these Berry-blue-Blueberry Muffins.  I'm so happy to have found this recipe and that it is a family favorite.  I plan on playing with it some more and changing up the berries as well as trying it with some pumpkin or sweet potato for the autumn.

Blue Berry Muffins***
about 2 cups of blueberries (I used frozen ones that we picked earlier this summer)
2 cups all purpose GF flour (I use Silvana's blend from the Cooking for Isaiah cookbook--LOVE this blend!)
1-2 tablespoons GF flour
2/3 cup sugar (I don't always use this much)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup almond milk (if I use vanilla almond milk then I don't add as much sugar)
1/2 cup applesauce
2 eggs
some vanilla depending on which almond milk I used

How To
Put the blueberries in a smallish bowl/measuring cup and dump the 1-2 tablespoons of flour over them.  Gently tap the sides of the bowl to knock the flour to the bottom.
In a medium bowl, put the 2 cups flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt.  Mix together.  Then add the milk, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla.  Mix all together. Then add the blueberries and stir them in.
Heat oven to 350.  Grease your muffin tins.  This batter makes 12 regular sized muffins and 24 mini muffins--a fantastic amount!  I bake them at the same time for 10-12 minutes, take the mini muffins out, and let the regular sized ones bake 7 minutes or so.
This morning I forgot the eggs until I had measured about half of the muffins out!  I just dumped it all back in the bowl, mixed up the eggs with a bit of milk, poured it in the batter bowl, and mixed it all in.  They still turned out great! :)

They were super good with my berry spinach smoothie!
***If you don't need/want to make these gluten free then just use regular all purpose flour.  If you don't need/want these to be dairy free then use regular milk.

School Time!

Tomorrow I will send my 2 boys off to school.  This will be the first time that both of them will be at school, all day, together!  That leaves Penelope and myself at home.  Am I ready?  Yes and no.  Is Penelope ready?  Not the slightest bit!  She call her brothers her buddies.  When she wakes up in the morning or from a nap her first question usually is, "Where the buddies?" Quickly followed by, "I play buddies!"  She LOVES to do whatever they are doing and repeats most everything they say.  She even plays with their friends--with the exception if babies are around, she'll want to help play with and care for the babies.  I think she'll make an excellent big sister! :)  She has a small Pokemon card collection so that she can trade and play with the boys.  In the evenings, I can usually find Penelope and Alexander in bed together reading Calvin and Hobbes books.  If John Paul is bouncing or kicking a ball, so is Penelope.  I love her relationships with her buddies.

We will definitely miss the boys, but I'm so excited for them too.  Alexander starts 3rd grade and John Paul begins kindergarten.  We've met the teachers and seen the classrooms.  I think we are in for a fun and educational year.  The boys are in wonderful hands and fantastic classes. 

Almond Butter

As mentioned before, I'm frugal and when it comes to buying or making nut butters, there's PLENTY of money to be saved when making your own, not to mention that you can make them healthier too.  This week I made 2 types of almond butter--regular (or plain as my kids call it) and chocolate.  Both start out the same, both are gluten and dairy free, both are SUPER easy, and both are pretty darn tasty!
Start buy buying raw almonds.  I get mine at Whole Foods in the bulk section.  FYI--they are really on sale this week, as in $2 off/pound!
Almond Butter
Ingredients
raw almonds
a bit of salt
some oil (I used both extra virgin olive oil and some Earth Balance coconut spread)
How To
Roast your almonds (for this batch I used about 3 cups of almonds) on a baking sheet for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Keep an eye on them and give them a little stir half way through.  This step is not necessary, but it adds some great flavor!
Remove almonds from oven and either let cool on the pan or pour into your food processor and let cool some there.  Be careful, these nuts are HOT!

After some time, whiz them around in the food processor with a bit of salt (I always use Kosher salt--the bigger pieces of salt--instead of table salt, just personal preference) to start chopping them up. 

In this picture they are course ground.  If you keep going and don't add any fat, you'll have almond flour.  However, today I'm making almond butter so I keep going and add the fat.  I added a few tablespoons (sorry I just poured it in and eyeballed the amount) of EVOO.  It was still pretty thick and I was beginning to run out of EVOO so I thought I'd try adding the coconut spread.  It worked great.  Since my nuts were still warm, it just kinda melted right in when I turned the processor back on.

See how it's beginning to look like almond butter?  I dare you not to try some at this point!  It was so yummy when it was warm.  You can keep adding the fat until you get a desired consistency.  I keep our almond butter in the fridge, so it thickens more in there.  I just stick some of it in the microwave to soften it a bit before spreading on bread.

Chocolate Almond Butter
Follow same recipe as above, but mix in some cocoa powder toward the end.  When I made ours this time I just stirred in the cocoa powder in the jar.  Just taste it a bit as you go and add more cocoa powder until desired flavor.

The 3 cups of almonds made 1 1/2  jars of almond butter.


Honey Almond Butter
Follow almond butter recipe, but add in some honey.  Easy!

Of course a sweetener can be added to any of these, but since a favorite sandwich in our home is almond butter with honey and cinnamon, I don't add any sweetener (honey, agave, sugar, molasses) to my butters when making them.
Almond butter can be used to make sandwiches, used in smoothies, enjoyed by the spoonful, cookies (replace the peanut butter with the almond butter), etc.  So good!  Also, almonds are a good source of calcium.
Enjoy!

Super Easy Homemade Foods

This week I've been doing plenty of cooking.  I think I was inspired by the prospect of school starting for the boys next week and knowing that they eat MASSIVE amounts of food especially at breakfast.  Because I'm cheap frugal I refuse to spend half of Jaime's paycheck on pre-made foods that I can easily make at home.  Seriously, $6 for about 2 cups of GF granola!? Crazy!  Anyway, I'd been promising John Paul that I'd make him some granola and when I saw Whole Foods had the GF oats on sale this week I grabbed a couple of bags.  I also make non-GF granola for myself, Jaime, and Alexander, but this was a special batch.  The breakfast foods made this week along with the granola, were almond butter and chocolate almond butter, and gluten free and dairy free blueberry muffins. 
So, first up is the Gluten free Dairy free Granola:

What I like about cooking is that you can substitute ingredients.  These are what I used, but change it up for your needs and flavor likings.
INGREDIENTS
about 3 cups GF slow cook oats
couple of handfuls of chopped walnuts (use any nuts or seeds or none at all)
sunflower seeds
couple pinches of salt
several shakes of cinnamon
a few dashes of cloves
oh about 1/4 to a 1/3 of a cup of molasses
somewhere around a 1/3 cup of honey (can use agave or brown sugar as a sweetener too or instead of)
a few tablespoons or so of butter of some sort (this time I used some coconut butter that Jaime bought a while back when it was on sale)
vanilla extract (optional and can sub almond or orange extract)
HOW TO
Because I do all of the dish washing here, I like to use as few dishes as possible and keep a pretty clean kitchen as I go along.  Keeping that in mind, you can use as many dishes, pots, pans, and spoons as you wish. :)
Heat oven to 400.
First pour the oats on to a baking sheet (or you could use a 9x13 probably) then add the nuts and seeds and salt. 

Because the walnuts are fairly soft and I don't want to spend my day standing and doing dishes, I just somewhat crush them in my hands. 
In a glass dish (or if you want to use your stove top, use a pot) combine some butter--a few tablespoons I suppose--some honey, molasses, cinnamon, and cloves.  Then melt in the microwave or in your pot.  FYI--this coconut butter melts SUPER FAST!

It looks kinda gross up there, but I just pulled the melted mixture from the microwave and didn't stir it yet.
Take this sweetened mixture and pour it over the oats, nuts, and seeds.
Mix it all together so that the oats are coated.

Is it becoming painfully obvious that I really need to take some photo lessons from here or here?!
Then stick your pan in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, stirring once or twice during cooking.  Let cool completely before storing in a container in the pantry.
You noticed that there isn't any fruit in here.... Well, I like to mix things up a bit and my 2 GF eaters can't agree on what they both like.  So, when I serve granola I also add some sort of fruit, usually dried, to it as well.  You can add fresh fruit too.  They also like to add their GF crispy rice to the granola and pour almond milk over the top or eat it with dairy free yogurt.
Enjoy!
The almond butters and muffins will come later today hopefully :)

Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Last week I sauteed some baby bella mushrooms with all the fixings--butter, fresh thyme, red wine, LOVE.  Anyway, as fate would have it, by the time they were done me and my pregnancy had absolutely no desire for the incredibly awesome mushrooms.  Of course I wouldn't throw away such a loved food, so I put them in a dish and popped them in the fridge. 
Fast forward through the weekend and there I was Monday facing a fridge of various leftovers and a total craving for a grilled cheese sandwich.  If I weren't pregnant I may have just gone for the classic cheddar and bread and left it at that along with leaving all those left overs in the fridge.  However, I am pregnant and need to consciously eat well.  Also, I've been challenged to not waste any food.  So, I faced my fridge and pulled out most of it's contents.  And the result was love!
This week, yes the entire week (most of this pregnancy I've been able to stomach a food at most twice within the same week), I've been eating and LOVING grilled cheese sandwiches, mind you, not the classic plain Jane bread and cheddar ones.  This week, with the help of last week's cast off mushrooms, I've cooked up some fancy schmancy sandwiches with cheese and other leftover yummy-ness.
Like I mentioned, I started by taking out anything that might sound remotely good on a sandwich.  Things like chopped artichoke hearts, watercress, hummus, provolone, sauteed mushrooms, grilled chicken, garden fresh tomatoes, peppers, roasted peppers, fresh basil, mozzarella, oh the list is never ending sometimes! 
I had a beautiful sourdough loaf and some cheese from Whole Foods, called Belletoile, a triple ream Brie.  This cheese has the consistency of cream cheese but is sold in a wedge because when cold it is fairly firm.  My first gourmet sandwich of the week was on the sourdough with the Belletoile, some watercress, and sauteed mushrooms.  Delicious!  The cheese melted beautifully and held the sandwich together well.  The mushrooms provided a lovely meaty flavor and the watercress lent the sandwich a little peppery flavor.  I was hooked and was so happy that I had plenty more of the fixings to make more sandwiches.
Another one that was yummy was the provolone, chopped artichoke, hummus, couple last sauteed mushroom pieces, and roasted peppers (I bet some prosciutto would be tasty on this one too) on sourdough.  I loved the mozzarella, tomato, basil, splash of balsamic vinegar, and chicken grilled cheese sandwich too.  Just sitting her writing this up my mind is conjuring more combinations!
Besides using up leftovers in a surprisingly delicious way, I have been enjoying lunchtime much more than usual this week and have been inspired to create more gourmet grilled cheeses.
Are you inspired or just grossed out?

Make 10

The boys and I just finished several rousing rounds of Make 10.  Make 10 is a great twist on Go Fish! and a wonderful review of math facts that equal 10.  All you need is a deck of cards or 2-4 sets of index cards numbered 0-10.  This will be enough for 2-3 kids to play.  With the deck of cards, the Queen=0 and the Ace=1.  Remove all the other face cards.  Shuffle the cards, then deal 7 cards to each player and place the rest in a pile in the center of the table or floor.  Take turns asking each other for cards to complete the pair to make 10.  For example, if Alexander is holding a 7, 4, and a Q, he would ask John Paul or me for either a 3, 6, or 10. 
With school around the corner and blisteringly HOT days outside, take some time to relax and sneak in a bit of review.  Enjoy some fun time with the kiddos then let them play on their own.

Blog Design Help

I thought I'd change out my blog design, clam it down some. The brightness just isn't working for me anymore.  So I played around with the design templates here in Blogger and oh my...do you see what happened?! Of course you see...if you even bothered to stick around long enough to read this.  Ugg, I can't figure out how to get rid of all the layering and backgrounds.  I tried widening the post area, but with no luck.  Anyone with some how to knowledge or tips? Thanks!

Someone Noticed

I got a sweet email the other day from a friend who noticed I haven't posted here in ummmm....months.  Pregnancy will do that to a person I suppose.  Or just life's busy-ness.
I've been pulling together some inspiration pictures for Penelope's room and thought I'd share them here :)

Via

What I like here is the paint and the way it is above the chair rail.  Also, the crisp white bedding with the blanket at the end of the bed.  I already have a blanket on all the beds, just a touch I love.  The other piece I really like about the room is the painting on the wall--it brings in lots of color and makes a great focal point.  I want to put a chandelier in her room, but need to keep the ceiling fan.  I might put a small one in a little alcove in her room and make it a fun reading/art corner.  I like the way the chandelier here isn't sparkly glamour...that just isn't Penelope right now.

Via

In this picture I love all the stuff on the wall--pictures, collage board, monogram, basket, mirror, etc!  A wall that can be continually added to and changed up.  Penelope's room has an alcove area where this fun idea might work.  Also, did you notice the outlet cover has been painted?  It blends right in! Love that!  Love the floor pillows for the art corner and the art storage here.  I've considered doing a few layers of the magnetic paint so that art work can be displayed and changed easily.

Via

That's all for now.  I'll have to share more later...hopefully much sooner than later ;)

Fantastic Kid Craft Site

How many TP roles do you and your family go through?  Do you throw them away or recycle them?  Last week John Paul's theme at preschool was Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  We've recycled here at home for several years, so it's really nothing new for us...or so I thought.  John Paul must have really tuned in to Ms Jan when she talked about the Reuse part.  He won't let me put anything in the recycle bin because he thinks it's all getting thrown away.  I had to explain that no, it was all being taken to be recycled, made in to new things.  He insisted that we could reuse everything.  So, after making a few music boxes out of tissue and cereal boxes I knew I needed to turn to the creative people on the net.  Via another favorite blog I found this gem of a site, TPcraft.  I love that many of her TP roll crafts not only have complete how-tos, they also have a children's book associated with it.

Check out some of the fun:

Spring flowers

Seed starter planters

Log Cabin

The Log Cabin one could easily be changed in to a store, garage, house, etc and could be played with many other toys.
I have to remind myself that so many kids crafts are more about the process and the learning that takes place while creating and they're not about the end product.  They'll all be recycled in a week or two, right?  ;)