My Kind of Weekend

(Warning: this is a long post since it contains two full recipes)

The holiday weekend has been absolutely wonderful. It was jam-packed full of projects and anyone who knows me knows that is just the way I like it. We did a lot of laying around, unfortunately a lot of cleaning up after sick dogs and a partly potty trained toddler, and best of all I spent a ton of time in the kitchen. Now that may not be every ones idea of a great weekend but when I have the time, there are few places I would rather be. Eric’s recent need to go gluten free has driven me to new creative heights and I have been quite upset when a new experiment went bad. Luckily this weekend was smooth sailing as I tried out a few new recipes that are bound to join our family favorites.

This weekend’s project line up:

Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls
Gluten Free Buttermilk Bread
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Barber family recipe Strawberry Icebox Cake
Custom designed vellum wrapped votives
Apple Pie Popscicles

Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls
Serves 8 or 9

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons shortening
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup of milk, room temperature
1 packet yeast (about 1 tablespoon)
1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup potato starch
1 cup corn starch (I used tapioca starch successfully)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons xantham gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

TO SPRINKLE ON BOARD COVERED WITH PLASTIC WRAP
1 - 2 tablespoons sugar

FILLING (*see Ellen's note at end of post)
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped nuts - optional

GLAZE
¾ cup powdered or confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
milk to thicken (I used soymilk)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In medium bowl, combine shortening and sugar. Mix well. Measure warm milk and add yeast to milk. Whisk well to fully dissolve (**see Ellen’s note).

Add milk/yeast to sugar mixture. Add remaining ingredients. Mix very well, being sure to remove all lumps. Dough will be quite soft (***see Ellen’s note).

Take a piece of plastic wrap and lay it out so it covers a 13 1/2" x 13 1/2" square. Sprinkle sugar on the wrap. Lay ball of dough on top of that. Then pull out another sheet of wrap and gently lay over the dough. Pat the dough down into a roughly squarish pancake. Lift the top wrap up and then reposition it. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough in between the two layers of wrap. Occasionally you'll have to lift and reposition the wrap because it gets "stuck" under the edges. You might have to occasionally flip the whole thing over. Make sure that when you're done you've got ABOUT a 13 1/2" x 13 1/2" square of dough.

Remove top piece of wrap. Combine filling ingredients. Spread evenly across dough's surface. (Original recipe poster suggested leaving about a 1 1/2" sugar free edge because when you roll the dough all the sugar shifts and fills this in; otherwise all the sugar spills out).Use the bottom piece of wrap to lift the edge of the dough and start to roll it up forming a long cylinder. Start with the sugary edge, which will be the center of your roll and roll toward the sugarless edge. Cut off or trim up the irregular ends of your "log". Then cut into 8 or 9 slices of similar size, about 1 1/2" wide. Place rolls into a greased round glass pie pan.

Bake approximately 20 minutes, until tops are lightly browned.

Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk to make glaze. The amount of milk you use will depend on how thick you want the glaze to be. Stir until all lumps are dissolved. Drizzle over warm rolls if desired.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Bread

Liquid Ingredients:
3 Large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup Oil
1 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon milk into which 4 tablespoons dry buttermilk has been dissolved.
Heat milk such that liquid mixture will end up at room temperature.

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups Brown rice flour
1/2 cup Potato starch flour
1/2 cup Tapioca flour
3 1/2 teaspoons Xanthan gum
1/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
2 1/4 teaspoons Active dry yeast

Preparation
Mix all liquid ingredients together and pour into breadmaker. Mix all dry ingredients, except yeast, together and spoon over top of liquid ingredients in breadmaker. Sprinkle yeast over dry ingredients, and avoid letting it touch the sides of the pan. On the Welbilt ABM3300, the settings are 'Basic', 'Light'. I beleive this corresponds to your basic loaf settings on most machines. After bread is done, do not remove from pan until any 'Stay Warm' cycle is finished and the bread has cooled down.
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Check out Ginger Lemon Girl’s blog for detailed recipe and instructions. These cookies were amazing; definitely not something you could identify as gluten free. I had to hide them away today in a cookie jar to keep from over-indulging.
Barber Family Strawberry Icebox Cake

Sorry the recipe is a closely guarded secret! ☺ But here’s a picture of the yummy goodness.


And probably my favorite project of the weekend…

Custom vellum wrapped votives for a wedding reception at the zoo.

HAPPY EASTER

Image by Warm 'n Fuzzy via Flickr

We're in Houston today celebrating not just Easter but the baptism of one of my best friends and her two kiddos! I feel so blessed to have been asked to be a part of this part of their lives in this way! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Easter and feeling connected to God in their own ways!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone! 

Mom's trying to stay more on top of posting recent pictures and keeping everyone up to date this year, so here goes.

 

I was partying it up New Year's Day! And then last weekend we went out to Nana and Pawpaw's house, and I took along my Diego tricycle and  flying turtle scooter, and I even managed to give the family some tennis lessons. :)

 

I hope this year is great for all my family and friends. Check back soon for some videos. Mom's been a real slacker about posting those lately!

A Nutty Irishman Saves My Sanity

The rush of the holidays. Finishing up deliverables for the year. Two days until vacation.

These are all things that are occuring simulteanously during the last week of work before Christmas vacation! I work hard all year, and I work from home which means I work sick or not, so I am planning a bang up vacation for Christmas. I'll be out the door (theoretically :)) on Friday at noon and I'll be back sometime after the first of the year. So this week is nuts and today finds me at Kenny's Coffee having a Nutty Irishman, my absolute favorite coffee drink for a pick me up, to get the day jumpstarted. I can't tell you how many times I have been so happy to have a great mom and pop coffee shop with free wifi in my neighborhood. Anytime I need more noise than I have at home to get me to focus, they are ready and waiting with caffinne a plenty. Off to the grind now, but I can't complain too much since Pandora. com is rocking on my computer, the Nutty Irishman is soothing my lack of sleep that I can thank my toddler for, and I'm looking forward to a coworker lunch today! All in all the best of the best that telecommuters can look forward to!

Mmmmm Turkey

I spent yesterday visiting family I don't get to see often enough. I had a great time playing with my cousins, and even though it upset mom, I REFUSED to particpate nicely in any picture taking. Mom managed to grab a few action shots and made the book here.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hope you all had great Thanksgivings and you and your families are doing great!

Holiday Entertaining

Are you hosting Thanksgiving, or baking a dish to take along somewhere? You might even be wondering what the fuss over Turkey is all about! If you here reading this then the fuss is probably more about entertaining and less about the Turkey.

The Holidays are a wonderful time to gather friends and family near, show off your Hostess skills and visit. Unfortunately we typically picture this going smoothly, with a beautiful golden brown turkey, lots of laughter and clinking glasses, everyone mingling and visiting with some kind of background music playing. While some of us might get that vision in our post turkey nap, most of us will have a more "I Love Lucy" style Thanksgiving, with a lot of rushing around, flour flying and kids stealing cookies kind of day.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we count down to Turkey Day with some ideas on how to be prepared and above all RELAX and enjoy the day when it arrives.

Short and Sweet

It's finally caught up with me. I was able to hang past midnight most of our vacation but I have been yawning since Alex went down at 7:30 tonight.  It really cracked me up how defensive I was with the few friends silly enough to sound surprised at my ability to hang in there and watch the ball drop.  From the consummate party girl in college to the sleep deprived parent of a toddler, I have gone a long way in a short time.  It wasn't long ago that 9:30 on a Wednesday meant it was time to head to Scruffy's for some hilarious Karaoke.  There's days when I miss that life, and then there's days like today when my bed looks better than anything else.

I got my Curves workout in this morning, and some extra crunches a few different times today.  I even managed to talk myself into 3 push-ups!  I was motivated by the freaking crazy funny commercial that Yo-plait is running right now with the husband who is scouring the fridge for the desserts he hears his wife mentioning.  Looks like I might have to grab some Boston Creme Pie yogurt next time I'm out!

So Much Fun

I know it's been a while since I got Mom to type my update on here, but never fear I got two new computers for Christmas and will now be able to make my own updates! I got a lot of goodies from all my wonderful family and friends, and some really neat stuff from Santa.

 

Here are a few pictures during the Holidays.

 

A few weeks before Christmas Mom's Friend Nicole came to visit and we all went to check out the fireworks, strolling carolers, and horse drawn carriages at the local shopping center.

 

 

 

 

 

Last year and again this one Mom and I participated in an ornament exchange with our Little Leo group from around the country. Here's is my ornament this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Mid-December I got to see Great Grandma Synatschk at Great Aunt Kathy's house. I also got to play with Noni, she chased and chased me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Checking out the presents at Noni's on Christmas eve.

 

My Christmas Eve outfit.

 

Opening stockings Christmas morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Christmas Tree

 

 

 

 

 

In the Tyler family, it's tradition that the youngest child hand out all the presents. Although I was a bit biased (and gave most of them to Aunt Christine) everything seemed to work out well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I opened presents until I was to tired to open anymore...Although I am playing with everything, my instant favorites seem to be my car, my jeep, my computers and of course my BOOKS. Mom is so happy that I love to read so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holidaze,.. Under Construction

As the 2007 Holidays come to a close I am beginning work on a 2008 guide to saving your sanity and keeping organized for the next Holiday season.  Most people find that they cant enjoy the six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Years due to how chaotic it can be.  I met a number of ladies this year who were praying for Christmas to hurry up and be gone so their life could get back to normal. 

What these ladies needed was a way to spread out what they needed to do so they could enjoy the season and not feel crunched for time and money.  This guide is all about making your lists and checking them twice to make sure you don't walk around in aHolidaze.

Chapters

1. Introduction to the Pieces of the pie (cards, newsletters, shopping, budgets, wrapping, baking, decorating)
2. Random Tips and Tricks
3. Website resources
4. Cards/Family updates (letters, newsletter, poem)/thank you cards
5. Holiday Budget
6. Decorating, decorate early so you can enjoy it, keeps you in the holiday mood
7. Baking/Food preparation
8. Wrapping/assembling/stockings
9. Hosting a celebration
10. Making time for you

Pumpkins As Far As the Eye Could See

Image by Russ Osborne via Flickr

So this weekend was tons of fun. Dad was just in from traveling and all of us, him, mom and I were all sick but pulled it together to go pumpkin hunting on Saturday. There was a little mixup with the directions so we ended up driving around forever but we finally arrived and I got to run all over the place checking everything out. I even got to see goats and eat homemade strawberry icecream...mmmmmm.

 

Here's a few pictures and there are more in the photo album.

 

 

Then we came home and rested for a while, went out to dinner where I had lots of yummy chipoltle and then finally shoe shopping. Noni got me two new pairs of shoes, and one set has pirates on them and will match my halloween costume.

 

This week we are going to carve our pumpkin, bake pumpkin seeds, make baked apples and do some holiday decorating.

 

Oh and I am in training. Mom and I are doing Race for the Cure on November 4th (here's Our Race for the Cure Page http://www.komenaustin.org/site/TR?px=1402434&pg=personal&fr_id=1060). I can't wait to wave to everyone as we walk all morning!

 

Enjoy the pictures and see you all soon over the holidays.

 

Alex

Ready for Halloween

Image via Wikipedia

So its been a busy month since Mom last had time to put some pictures up. I got my 1 year pictures taken, Mom was so happy with them and I loved cheesing it up for the camera. We've spent a lot of time at the park, and even got to try my halloween costume out at the fall carnival. There's lots of new pictures up so check them out.

 

Other fun things to note, I am talking up a storm. New words that I am saying are cheese, shoes (pronounced chooz), out, puppy, princess, cracker, fishes (for goldfish), ball, memaw, gigi, ya-ya, mama, daddy, bye bye, kiss, uh uh, yes, what, and tons more.

 

I am sleeping lots these days and am down by 8 each night and sleeping until 6 each morning. Apparently I am never going to be a late sleeper.

 

I have another cold and this one is already in my chest, so lots of yuck, that is hopefully gone before next Saturday when I go to pumpkin patch to pick out my pumpkin.

 

Check back next week for pictures of my trip.