Lest I Forget

is a tomato sandwich. Fresh picked tomatoes right out of the garden, sliced nice and thick, a little salt and pepper, and a healthy dollop of mayo on each slice of this homemade bread . I made this bread yesterday for the first time and Tony declared it my best ever. It is that good. The only changes I made were to use vegan butter and I only used one tablespoon of yeast. Believe me, it rose beautifully. I am sorry there are no pictures. My sandwich did not last that long. I made the dough before leaving for my non-stress test. The baby is not stressed, just head up. The dough got a nice two-hour rise thanks to some other babies who were stressed, so I had to wait. I prayed for those mamas and their babies. Last night was the weekly outdoor concert on Ft. Eustis. I made some peanut butter cookies to take with us to share and we met some friends over there. Minus the bugs, it was a lovely evening. On the way home, the moon rose to greet us and guide us home. It was ever so big, red...

I know, you are probably tired of my food posts. But I am excited to share the stories from my kitchen this week. First of all, I didn't plan it, but if I had, it couldn't have worked out better. On the menu for Monday night was spinach and sausage calzones. I bought a package of sweet italian sausage and a 16 oz. package of frozen spinach. I added some onions to that for the filling. Well, I had A LOT left over. As I sat there pondering, I realized I could use that as pizza topping on Thursday. Thursdays have become boring. The kids always want the same pizzas for dinner: BBQ pizza with pineapples and veggie pizza with olives, onions, sun-dried tomato, and whatever leftover veggies I happen to have. So on pizza night, I really changed things up around here. I oven roasted an eggplant and some mushrooms and made one pizza topped with that. The second pizza I kept to the standard BBQ only for the kids sake. The third pizza I used some of the leftover calzone mixture. I could...

Outside my window... Finally! The sun! I was beginning to think I would never see your glorious rays shining on my face ever again. It has been so, so dreary, gloomy, damp, and all around depressing. Therese and I have been singing, "Rain, rain, go away" for days. I am thinking... all those around me that are in dire need of prayer and comfort. So many, it seems, are in the midst of some very hard trials. My heart has been as gray as the skies lately. I walk around offering up all the little things for those who have such big burdens, that their yoke may be lightened. I am thankful for.... ...kids who say funny things that make me smile. ...my family ...a warm cup of coffee with coconut milk creamer to start my day. From the lesson plans... I counted how many weeks we have yet to complete. Umm...at our current pace, we will not finish up until the end of June. In an attempt to move that date up a bit, we are trying to do more each day. Amazi...

Tonight I made another great dish that took very little tweaking to make it dairy free for the kids. I found the recipe on foodgawker. I hope you have taken my advice and have checked out this website. You will not be disappointed. The recipe is called Mushroom Barley Risotto . My husband's quote of the evening: "Something with a name that bad should not taste this good." Instead of veggie broth, I used my homemade turkey stock. There is a tablespoon of butter and some parmesan cheese that are added right at the end. So, before I do that, I get a small serving bowl and put enough in it for Jack and Therese. Then I add the butter to our serving bowl. The cheese gets its own little bowl and we can sprinkle our own, except for Anna who needs moderation in all things cheese. I have to keep the cheese dish on the opposite end of the table from her or she would sneak it all through the meal. Therese had thirds tonight. She kept signing "more". The only person who ...

If I had any talent as a blogger, I would set up 2 columns, side by side so you could easily see how I make changes to our recipes, to accommodate two people who are dairy and soy intolerant. Jack is almost 5 now, and can tolerate some dairy, just not every day, and it is best if it is baked into something and not straight up dairy. Therese, who is 15 months, is still much more sensitive, and I have to be very careful. I found a recipe on foodgawker a while back that looked yummy, but was filled with forbidden ingredients, so I kept putting off making it, till tonight. It was easy to fix and the results were most delicious. I will note that I doubled the ingredients since this said it only served 2, and made some collard greens as a side. Sweet Corn, Bacon & Tomato Tart Crust 2/3 c. all-purpose flour 1/8 tsp. salt 4T. cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks 1T. + 1t (or more) cold water [Here I made a batch of my biscuit dough instead. The ingredients are simply: 1 cup ...

Remember the orange-cinnamon loaves I made for Sophie's birthday? I did say that I would post the recipe soon. It's still soon, isn't it? I got this recipe from my mother. She took a bread baking class when I was a little girl and this is one of the breads she learned to make. Yesterday, I made the foolish decision to have a cyst removed from my back. Hindsight being what it is, I should have waited until we returned from our upcoming beach trip. The surgeon boasted that he had only had two cases with complications. I know this was supposed to be reassuring, however, with the way things have been going here lately, I had my doubts. A few hours after I returned home, something didn't seem right and I went to the mirror to investigate. They had said to expect some slight swelling. Well, it looked like they had implanted a baseball on my spine! I went back to the hospital and they said it was a hematoma and they put a pressure wrap around my body to help reduce the sw...

My southern roots, that is. Exhibit A: Tomato Pie (we had this for dinner tonight) And just so y'all know how southern I truly am, the side dish was okra straight from the garden. The recipe: Tomato Pie 1 batch of biscuit dough* 1 1/4 cups grated Parmesan cheese, divided 2-3 large tomatoes, thinly sliced 2 Tbsp. flour 1 small sweet onion, minced 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 3/4 cup mayo-mustard blend (I use 1 part dijon, 2 parts mayo) Pat bicuit dough into bottom and up sides of a lightly greased 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 400 degrees for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with 1/4 cup cheese. Toss tomato slices in flour; arrange one layer of tomato slices over cheese. Sprinkle evenly with half the onion, basil, salt and pepper. Repeat procedure. Stir together the remaining cheese and mayo-mustard blend, and spread over top of pie. Bake at 400 degrees for 24 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. *My biscuit dough: 2 cups flour 1 tsp. salt ...

We just finished dinner and I have to admit I left the table to write this post so I wouldn't eat too much. I've raved about this site before, but you simply must check out foodgawker.com. Tonight we tried out this recipe , on the homemade buns that I also found on foodgawker. I make some changes to the bun recipe. I use mostly whole wheat flour, with ground flaxseed as well. I bought some evaporated cane juice to replace the refined sugar. This week, we are also trying out sunflower oil instead of canola. To let you know just how delicious the buns are, my mother-in-law gave me a compliment on them. That is a first in over 18 years of being married to her son! I also just read that clarified butter or ghee does not contain milk protein, which is the source of Jack's trouble with dairy. So I made some clarified butter this afternoon and added some to the green beans and the corn. Do you know how long it has been since I've had butter on my veggies? Dinner was divine. A...

OK, then. I just finished making tortillas for the 3rd time. They are getting better, but I have one hurdle that I cannot seem to leap. I cannot for the life of me make them round. Can anyone tell me how to roll out round pieces of dough? I can't make a round pie crust, either. I just liked how this picture turned out. I had set the camera down and that is what I saw in the viewfinder. Speaking of round, I am beginning to take on that shape, so I started looking through my stash of maternity things. Seriously...old...clothing. My oldest is 17 years old after all. So I went on eBay to hunt for some bargains. I did fairly well, I think. I got 12 items for a total of $45 and that included shipping. The seller did have a warped sense of humor....she sent them in a box that once contained a case of beer! Sigh.

What do I do when I am an emotional wreck, not being able to keep up with my daily activities? Why, I try to make homemade tortillas, of course! I found several recipes on foodgawker.com. You should check it out. Thanks to Jack's dairy intolerance, I had to pull from several different recipes to put together one I wanted to try. The dough was easy enough and kneaded up quite nicely. Then all the recipes said the same thing: make golf ball size balls of dough. Not being an avid golfer, I am not sure that these are accurately sized. (Though I did manage to win the first place trophy in my age group when my dad signed me up for golf lessons. Did I mention I was the only one in my age group?) After letting them rest for a while, I fired up the griddle and started making tortillas! After a short break to write a blog post, I will go put together the bean mixture for our burritos, which only takes about 20 minutes. Oh, by the way, I did sample one and they are yummy. I don't know how...