harvest, treats, & a gluten update

In an effort to control our sugar consumption, I've been doing sugary baking just once a week, on Saturdays, and that has to last us all week. It's been good! Last week was double-doubles, the week before what my GF chocolate cake, this week was ginger cookies, as per Ambrose's request. I did his name with leftover dough - we mainly did angels and gingerbread men.

Another of the same 'cause he's just so cute.

Sprouts, ready to harvest! (You saw them just as they started to germinate last weekend.) We like using little bits in a green salad rather than using them as a salad base.

My mom and I decides yesterday that we'd go to Chez Cora this morning, so, mindful of our family's usual waffle tradition on Saturdays, and not wanting Tony to feel deprived, I made him a blueberry twist yesterday for his breakfast today, with some bread dough we'd had in the fridge.

Baked & sticky. The shape looks fancy but it's very simple to create - see photo tutorial, here. The filling I used was about 2-3 tbsp butter, 1/4 c sugar or a bit more, and two handfuls of (frozen) blueberries, all squished together. The elongated twist is a shape I really like working with; I find in circular form (whether in a twistedround bread or as cinnamon rolls), you almost always have that underbaked middle thing, or a too-dry or maybe slightly-burned exterior, whereas the logs bake much more evenly (though a wreath would also work).

This isn't exactly food-related, but aren't these little baby daffofils adorable?? I got them at Loblaws today, indending to buy cut flowers, but finding these irresistible!

My gluten update has no picture, but basically the flare-ups have started again. In case you're new to the whole saga, I'd been off gluten since before Christmas, and then about two weeks ago I decided to indulge in a bit of pizza and see how long it took for the flare-up to occur (when I was eating gluten more regularly, I could tell within an hour or two if something had gluten in it based on my skin and tummy aches). But no reaction! Anyway nothing happened, it was exciting. Slowly though my skin started to get tingly, then I got a distinctly painful tummy ache after making non-organic pasta on Tuesday (prior to that all my ingestion had been organic stuff made at home), and it's been downhill since then. Yesterday we had a lovely pizza (since we're going out tonight, our usual pizza night) with mushrooms and onions which was made sort of like a foccacia, rolled, topped, and risen for a few hours before baking, and to be honest it was amazing, but by the end of the evening I was quite red and had cuts on the backs of my hands. Sucks! So it's been interesting - the gluten fasting seemed to cleanse me, as my body was able to deal with it better than before, judging by the slow response time, but it's back on the GF train I go. Sad! I might cheat with pizza once a week though. I've not yet decided what to do on that front.

Another random little update that has no picture is that I've been precooking Sunday food on Saturdays. So far that's meant making a quiche and preparing a roast the day before. It really is so much nicer to know we can come home from Mass, enjoy instant quality food, and spend the day lazing - with a clean kitchen! 

Happy weekending!