The Last Harvest

Well, that was that. We attempted planting our first ever winter garden with few results. Our okra just kept right on going until the frost we received in December--now it's officially dead. We had a few melons, a couple tiny zucchinis, some corn on the cob, and some lettuce. We've had a really cold winter this year so far and I think it took it's toll. Oh well, there's always next year, right?

More Thanksgiving Pics

The Feast

We enjoyed our Veramonte park and the beautiful meal that day!

The Morning Of...

We began Thanksgiving morning pretty easy. I took Asher to the park for a bit while Jase rested. We did some arts and crafts as well--hand turkeys! It was all pretty restful and calm--a nice change from last year. We truly enjoyed each other and remembering why we run around crazy all the time in the first place. I love my family and am grateful for them every day!

Thanksgiving Day "After Dinner" Activities

Thanksgiving Day Planning

I decided to be creative this year and plan a GF/CF (that's gluten-free, casein-free) Thanksgiving Day menu. A lot of children with autism are placed on this type of diet to assist in reducing autistic behaviors. The diet essentially removes the grain and diary proteins which can have an opiate effect in the brain of these kiddos. Anyway, what I thought would be complicated was actually quite simple and ended up looking rather gourmet--if I do say so myself :)

Other than the oven accidentally shutting off mid-way through cooking the turkey things went rather smoothly (we still ate it and none of us got sick--whew!).

1st Day at Candeo!

After homeschooling Jonah for 3 months in the 3rd grade, we decided to allow him to attend a brand new charter school in Peoria. We learned about it through some women in our ward and it's truly a remarkable school. With uniforms and small class sizes, Candeo exemplifies a traditional, classical curriculum--with an emphasis in the arts, the trivium, and latin from Kindergarten through 6th grade. I was really impressed when I went to check it out 2 weeks ago. It's a little bit of a drive for us now, but as soon as next year a Candeo is scheduled to be built in Surprise--allowing Asher to attend as well for Kindergarten. So far, Jonah is really enjoying his classmates and Mrs. Hannah (his teacher). Here's to a great 3rd grade year!!! P.S. The books (above) were to celebrate his 1st day at Candeo (Nov. 18th). Woo-hoo!

Thanksgiving 2009

My wonderful husband recently backed up my computer and got it working, but hasn't restored my old photographs back onto it yet. But I wanted to still put up a post regarding our Thanksgiving this year.

It was a quiet affair (especially compared to my family visiting last year!), but an enjoyable one. We had time to just focus on each other. I also tried some new recipes. Because Asher was on a GF/CF diet at the time, I decided to do an all gluten-free, casein-free dinner. Although I wasn't expecting much, surprisingly everything turned out delicious and looked very gourmet! We did have a mishap with the turkey however. I didn't realize, until now, that my oven will automatically shut off after 10 hours or so and I was attempting to slow-roast our turkey this year at a very low temperature overnight. It wasn't until 8am or so that I realized the oven was off and the turkey's internal temp had dropped. Although I nearly panicked, Jase had me just crank it up to 225 deg. until our dinner at 1pm. Although a little scared, we all dug in and had turkey this year--and none of us got food poisoning!

Here was my menu, along with a few recipes:

Slow-roasted Turkey stuffed with Wild Rice

Sides:
Spiced Cranberry Sauce (recipe)
Cranberry Almond Green Salad (recipe)
Savory Green Beans with Tamari
Garlic-Greens Mashed Potatoes
Deviled Eggs

Dessert:
GF/CF Boxed Brownies :*)
Gooey Chewy Caramel Corn (recipe)

Recipes:

Spiced Cranberry Sauce
3 C fresh cranberries
1 C apple cider
1/2 C Brown Rice Syrup (to taste) or Agave Nectar
1-2 T Sucanat (to taste)
optional: 1/2-1 tsp. cinnamon

Add all of the ingredients to a medium sauce pan. Cook on medium heat until all of the cranberries have popped and the sauce has thickened, about 10 min.
Note: If the sauce is still not thick enough, add 1 T ultra gel and let it sit 10 min. to thicken

Cranberry Almond Green Salad
1 C sliced almonds
2 T sugar
3 T red wine vinegar
1/3 C olive oil
1/4 C cranberries (thawed)
2 T Dijon mustard
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
2 T honey
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
8 C mixed salad greens (spinach is nice)

Preheat oven to 375 deg. Place sliced almonds in a single layer on cookie sheet; sprinkle with sugar and toast in oven for 5 min, until nuts begin to brown. Watch carefully! Cool.

In a blender or processor, combine vinegar, oil, cranberries, mustard, garlic, salt, pepper, and honey; blend or process until smooth.

In a large bowl, toss the almonds, onion, and greens with the vinegar mixture until evenly coated. Serves 8.

Gooey Chewy Caramel Corn

Contains no diary.

10 C popped popcorn (about 1 C kernels)
1/2 C honey
1/2 C Sucanat
1/2 C brown rice syrup
1 t molasses
2 t vanilla
1/2 C coconut oil
1 T salt
1/2 C pecans
1/2 C dried cranberries

Mix the honey, Sucanat, molasses, vanilla, coconut oil, and salt together in a medium sauce pan. Cook on medium heat until it is just about to boil. Take off of stove and pour over popped popcorn. Fold in the pecans and dried cranberries.

Note: If you are really missing the buttery flavor here, instead of using 1/2 C coconut oil, use 1/4 C coconut oil and 1/4 C butter.

Weekend Getaway

Last weekend, Asher's hab worker, Heather, was kind enough to come to our place at 6:30 a.m. in order to let Jase and I escape...I mean, travel to Palm Springs, CA for a 5-1/2 hour seminar. This karate seminar was put on by Sensei Holtzman (Sensei Drake's sensei) in honor of his sensei, Master Koeppel (our sensei's sensei's sensei, confused yet??). Anyway, it was a speical event. We basically got to learn from the "head honcho" of our system and enjoy spending just a teensy bit of time away from the children (as wonderful as they are :*)

I held up pretty well until the end when they were teaching us a bone-on-bone defense block and my forearms went numb--not fun. But once we were through, and I got some awesome Mexican food in me, I was cured. Jase took me to Las Cuellas

All-Hallows Eve

Well, these aren't the best photography I've ever taken...but ya take what you can get sometimes. These are the kiddos the night before Halloween dressed in their costumes and getting ready to run out the door to our ward's trunk-or-treat. Jase ended up having to work late that day so I got the wonderful job of carving our family's pumpkin (Jonah chose a vampire--I added the three eyes for no apparent reason! Ummm, we didn't win :)

Anyway, we enjoyed scarfing down chili and cornbread and eating yummy cookies and muffins while visiting everyone's trunks for goodies. Asher kept wanting to visit 2 or 3 cars and then run back to our trunk, sit inside it, and scarf down all the candy he had just collected. After about the 3rd time I was done and just kept him inside the trunk.

On the actual night of Halloween we were all tired, and I was coming down with a cold, so we stayed in and handed out candy to about 3 kids (alright, maybe 15 at most!), put the kids down early, and watched a movie together (Ghostbusters--Jase's idea). Now THAT's scary!!

"Happy Birthday To Me!"

My birthday this year was pure and simple and was spent mostly with those who are nearest and dearest to my heart--my fam! Jase, Jonah and Ash mean everything to me and I'm so glad I got to celebrate the start of my 34th year with them surrounding me. That is the way it should be and will always be. Here's to another year in love and with love! xoxoxo

Punching Bag

After being a part of a karate dojo for over 2 years, we finally have a kicking/punching bag. We found it at Walmart (online) for a great price. What's cool about it, though, is how Jase ingeniously hung it up. We didn't want to use the ugly, loud chains that it came with so he ended up using fishing wire. It gives it a little bounce and it's practically invisible. Very cool, I thought.