I recently purchased Lauren Hoover’s No Wheat No Dairy No Problem cookbook.  She’s a pastry chef who discovered that she’s allergic to both wheat and dairy.  She made it her mission to make yummy recipes.  This book accomplishes that.  The layout and look and feel of the book are not great but I can get past that.  Her desserts are what really jump out at me, all the other recipes, I feel like I could make gluten free on my own.  It makes sense, since she’s a pastry chef!

While in Idaho, I made her chocolate cake with some modifications.  She uses agave in her recipes and I don’t use agave anymore.  I also made some other tweaks to make the ingredient list not as exotic and expensive.  Though this cake is spendy-I won’t lie!

Gluten Free desserts don’t have to taste like ass-YAY!

Ingredients:

For Cake:

-3 cups oat flour (you can just take GF oats and process them in the food processor to make GF oat flour-it won’t get super fine but it bakes up really well)
-1/2 cup cocoa powder
-2 tsp baking soda
-2 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 cup canola oil
-3/4 cup pure maple syrup
-3/4 cup honey
-2 cups light coconut milk
-2 tsp apple cider vinegar
-1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Cake pan needed:1 9×12 or 2 8-inch rounds

For Frosting:

-12 ounces at least 72 % dark, dairy free chocolate (I found chocolate chips and it was the cheapest way to go BY FAR)
-1 can of whole coconut milk (not light)
-1/2 cup cocoa powder
*If you use super dark chocolate, add some honey or maple syrup to taste, to sweeten this up a bit.

Instructions:

-Preheat oven to 350*. Oil pan (1 9×13 or 2 8 inch rounds) and coat with oat flour, remove excess.

-Combine all dry ingredients and stir.

-Combine all wet ingredients, stir, and add to dry ingredients.

-Mix until just smooth.  Do not over mix.  The batter will appear VERY watery-have faith!

-Pour into cake pan(s) and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

-Let cool. If using round pans, remove cake from pans and let cool on wire racks.

-Once cool, bring the coconut milk to a boil on the stove.

-Pour the hot coconut milk over the chocolate and cocoa powder.

-Mix until smooth (I just used a spatula).

-Pour over top of cake.

-ENJOY!

Yom! I give this cake a 4.5 out of 5 stars.  Shaun and my brother-in-law LOVED this and gave it a 5.  Here’s the rating system in case you’re new ;)  The cake was devoured in about 3 days.  It’s not too sweet and you’d never know it was missing gluten, dairy, or egg!  If it were a little less crumbly and more dense, I’d give it a 5!

It was too cold in Boise for Lu to wear her Easter outfit so she got to wear it today.  How cute is she?

And, showing Mommy her tummy:

She’s also at the stage where she likes to lift MY shirt up to show me MY tummy.  I’m pretty sure the plane full of strangers didn’t want to see that!

I’ve gotten many questions about Lu’s new bike.  Daddy is taking her after work to the park to try it out (with her helmet).  We’ll see how she does.  She saw him put it in the car this morning and REALLY WANTED to play with it.  So she obviously likes it. 

The way a Strider works is that it has no pedals and no brakes.  Kids are supposed to run with it and then put their feet up.  It helps them learn how to balance correctly on a bike.  Using this, she’ll probably be able to graduate straight to a real bike (with NO training wheels) much faster.

Want to see something ridiculous?  Here’s our laundry room, with our bike storage:

We recently sold my mountain bike (I’ll be upgrading once Lu can go with us) and so there was a spot available.  Lu’s bike now has a place 😉

When I got to work today, I had a VERY exciting package.  Remember when I raved about Fil-Fil? Well the executive chef, Ryda contacted me and wanted to send some of their new bottles (with the new label).  It arrived today!

I have some cod marinating in the lemon herb now!

YOM.

They’ll have to wait because I have MORE pictures to share.  A broken computer sure does SUCK.

We just got back from Boise and we had SO.MUCH.FUN!  The weather was awful (it snowed almost every day we were there) but we made the most of it.  Shaun still mountain biked 3 times and we went on walks and hikes-we just bundled up!

Onto PICTURES!

There was lots of this happening:

Anytime I picked up or held Tessa, Lu got jealous.

There was also LOTS of eating.  Yes, my daughter is shirtless.  She was “hot, hot, hot”.

She was still hot after dinner when she took Tessa’s bike for a spin.

After the girls went to bed, we had dinner.  My sister and her husband made real Corned Beef from scratch.  Since it was cured in beer I couldn’t have any but it smelled DIVINE.

With the requisite veggies:

I did NOT go hungry though:

And afterward we had a vegan, gluten free, and refined sugar free cake that I made.

Gluten Free desserts DO NOT have to taste like ass.  Who knew?

It was seriously amazing.  I ate too much of it throughout the week, but OH WELL 🙂

Enough food porn (for now) and back to cute kiddos!

Riding in Tessa’s wagon on the way to the park.

At the park:

How cute is Tessa??!?!?!

Lu went down the slide all by herself with NO injuries!

Later that night, a bath was had!

With crazy hair!

On Easter, the Dads took the girls out on a hike while the Easter Bunny did her magic.  It was a cold hike and Lu had to borrow some clothes from Cousin Tessa.  If you didn’t already notice, Tessa is a colorful dresser.  This is what happened when Lu visited her closet.

OH but it gets better!

She’s stylin’!

The Easter Bunny did, in fact, do her job.

Lu’s garden boots:

And Tessa’s:

Mimi sent rolling backpacks with horsies.

Mimi also sent some bunnies to be taken care of:

Lu’s face upon seeing the loot!

Checking it out.

My sister’s crazy Mom face in this picture cracks me up.

The backpacks were a HUGE hit.

Then we headed over to Grandma Sandy’s (Tessa’s Grandma) for an Easter Egg hunt and brunch.

On the way to the hunt:

EASTER EGG HUNT!

Lu LOVED IT!  She went running around saying “Egg? Egg? Egg?!?!?”  She totally got it.

Tessa was more interested in that blue plate of water you see in the lower right hand of the picture.

Lucy almost got ALL the eggs.

The basket got so full it started overflowing.  Amber would be so proud!

Once inside, we gave Tessa half and Lu half and they discovered what was in them.  STICKERS!

Then it was time for brunch.  I made a gluten free, refined sugar free Dutch Baby.  It was very puffy when I got it out of the oven but I didn’t get a picture until it deflated 🙁

EVERYONE loved it.

We also had a fruit salad.

The gluten eaters 😉 had snicker doodle bread:

Wonderful eggs made by Grandma Sandy.  Why are eggs so much better when someone else makes them?

The whole spread:

Later in the day, Lu discovered that Tessa’s toy box (that Papa made her) was a great “boat”.

They were quite proud of themselves:

That night my sister made halibut en papilloute (wrapped in paper):

YOM.

Uh-oh, Daddy picked up Tessa.  This resulted.

On our last night, the girls got a bath and wrapped in hooded towels that Mimi made them for Easter.

My old college roommate came over for dinner (LOVE that she lives in Boise) and I made taco salad for everyone.  Here’s Shaun’s:

Shaun, Lissa, Willy, Luke, and Megan:

 

We flew home today and Shaun got a bug in his butt to go get Lu a “running bike”.  Shaun’s brother sent a very generous gift certificate for the local toy store for Christmas and Shaun earmarked it for a Strider.  He decided today was the day.

We tried it out.

LU LOVED IT!!!  We got her pink.

We didn’t take her helmet to the store (though we should have) but from now on she WILL be wearing a helmet!!!

Picture overload, eh?

I’m just having fun in Boise with my sister and my computer is broken!

I’ll be back SOON! (with a gluten free, milk free, refined sugar free chocolate cake that is to DIE FOR!!!)

Wow was this weekend ever busy!  We had a blast though.

Saturday was pretty warm and we discovered that Lucy needs some clothes for warmer weather.  I put her in a dress that her Aunt Kelly and Uncle Ricky got her.  How cute is she?!?!?!

Shaun’s comment was that she just melt his heart everyday 🙂

Yesterday we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It was pretty cool.  It wasn’t as big as I was expecting but we still had fun.

Some cool pictures:

Jelly Fish!

Seahorses!

These aren’t plants-they’re sea horses!

No, really!

 

Feed time!

Hello shark!

Lu just kicking back:

Cute Lu pics!

She went around yelling “FISHIE!!!!” It was very cute.

Daddy and a very tired Lu:

Here’s Lu this morning playing with a new toy I got her.  It’s magnets and it sings the ABC’s.  When you put the letters into the big thing you see there it says “B goes buh, B goes buh. Every letter has a sound, B goes buh”.  She played with it in the cart yesterday at Target and listened to the ABC’s about 100 times.

This morning I woke up to Lucy singing “A B C D” hum hum “G” hum hum hum hum “L M N O P” hum hum hum “T” hum hum hum hum hum “Z!”  I about crapped my pants. Seriously.  The letters that she did remember were said in the correct place!  That was INSANE!  I have a kid-she’s no longer a baby!

Her 18 month appointment was this morning and here are her stats:

Height=30 3/4”-25th percentile
Weight=19 pounds 8 ounce-Less than 5th percentile
Head=19.25”-95th percentile

She’s trending exactly where she was at 15 months. She’s a peanut but she’s a just right peanut. She’s still pretty advanced in terms of language and talking and HOPEFULLY the tantrums will start to subside as she can communicate more.  All in all, it was a great visit.  She only had 1 shot and she cried briefly and then was okay. She was VERY proud of her sticker that she got.

In short, she’s awesome 🙂

The recipe?

This:

Plus this:

Plus this:

 
[source] (I wish that was my bathtub!)

Plus this:

 
warming sock treatment

Plus this:

castor oil pack

= 10 glorious, blissful, amazing hours of much needed sleep!

I needed it!

You read right on that first picture.  I got an hour long massage for $25! At Happy Feet. A new one just opened down the street from my office.

Did you see the Amazing Race a few seasons ago where they were in Beijing and had to endure a traditional Chinese Reflexology Massage?  This was pretty much like that. 

I saw the sign outside and walked into a waiting room and asked about the $25 massage.  I was told that they do a foot/leg massage for 35 minutes and the rest of your body for 25 minutes.  CASH ONLY.  I said I was interested and they brought me into a big room with about 15 leather chairs (covered in clean white towels) that fold into bed-like things.  The room is dim and there is relaxing music being played and relaxing scenes on a flat screen.

I was told to sit down and my masseur brought me out a wooden bucket, lined with a plastic liner of warm water.  I soaked my feet and he reclined my chair and started on my face, head, and neck.  The guy said maybe 2 words to me the entire time but he did a really great massage.

After my face, head, and neck he moved to my feet and legs and then finally had me turn over for my back.

You are fully clothed the entire time and you’re in a room with other people getting the exact same thing done to them.  They don’t ask you about pressure and this guy was STRONG.  Holy shitballs was this ever a deep tissue/shiatsu style massage!!  Holy wow!

For $25 (+$10 tip)-I would go back in a heartbeat!

The cons?

-The atmosphere-it’s like a massage fast food chain or something-but the chair is amazing and the place is CLEAN.

-My masseur was a smoker and while I couldn’t smell smoke on him I could smell the mixture of baby oil and cigarette hands. BUT my grandma was a smoker and it reminded me of her (strange, eh?).  I could imagine this really bothering some people though.

-Lastly, and this was STRANGE, at one point my masseur went to get more towels and I looked over to my right.  There was an old dude getting a massage and he was on the back part of the massage.  He was rubbing and kneading his masseuse’s legs (she was a woman).  It was quite sexual and for one moment I thought I had gone into one of those “happy ending” massage shops that you only hear about.  Thank goodness none of that happened to me!  I think the guy was just being highly inappropriate and the masseuse didn’t deal with it and just let the dude be inappropriate.  I felt bad for her 🙁

Overall it really helped relax me and got me started down my road to relaxation.  Tonight, I’m going to do steps 2-5 and Saturday night I hope to only have to do 3-5. I HATE taking sleeping aides!

We’ve got a really fun weekend planned.  Swim lessons tomorrow, followed by a trip to the pet store, bike store, and mall.  On Sunday, Shaun is going for a mountain bike ride down in Monterey and I’m going to meet him after and we’re going to take Lu to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Can’t wait!

🙁

Shaun got in biking accident last night.  He’s okay!  But he’s got a bunch of strawberries (and not the kind you want to eat) ALL OVER his body.  He was THANKFULLY wearing a helmet-as he always does-and will need a new helmet.  The most interesting thing though is his finger.  Check this out!

This picture doesn’t even do it justice.  It’s blue and purple and swollen :(  Poor guy.  If it doesn’t get better, he will be going to the doctor.

Feel better honey!

Everyone-WEAR YOUR HELMET!!!

I haven’t been sleeping well :(  On Sunday night I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep and it was all I could do yesterday to get through work, hence no post!

I got about 6 hours last night but I’m still pretty beat.  I know that if I do a warming socks treatment, I sleep like a baby so I’m going to do that tonight.

Lu turned 18 months old yesterday 🙁 and 🙂 at the same time.  Here’s the big year and a half girly rocking her skinny jeans.

I love that girl.

Foodwise, everything is going really great.  I made some killer granola bars this weekend but need to get some good pictures before I post the recipe.  This one doesn’t cut it.

SO YUMMY!

With that I have to go try and stay awake and get some work done!

Question: What helps you sleep?

Ever since I was told that gluten was off limits, my sister has been sending me recipes to try.  I usually get an email that’s like “You probably already know about this but look at this recipe!”  She has sent me some really AWESOME stuff.  A couple weeks ago a friend of hers made her these pancakes and she raved about them.  I knew I had to try them.  It looks like her friend combined these two recipes.  I altered mine a bit too. 

Here’s my adaptation.

Ingredients:

-1 cup almond meal (also called almond flour)
-2 eggs
-1 banana, smashed
-1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or any milk substance)
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1 tsp vanilla
-Oil or non-stick substance of choice

Instructions:

-Preheat a pan on medium high heat.

-Combine all ingredients.

-Place oil in pan-I noticed that I had to use a little extra because these stuck to the pan at first.

-Cook about a minute and a half on each side (the bubble thing WILL happen).

-Enjoy!

-This made 18 VERY filling but small pancakes.  I only needed 3 to feel full.

How did these rate?  I give them a 4.  Lucy gave them a 5-she ate 5 (!) pancakes (and 3 strawberries).  Shaun did not rate them since he doesn’t like banana in ANYTHING.  I’m going to make a banana free version next.

Thanks Liss!