Rice Dal and Pizza

One day I found a website... and tried two of the recipes onnit within 24hrs, because they're simple and called for ingredients I had all of, but would never have thought to combine. The first one was fried egg and mushrooms which came out amazing. Despite being like the first time I've fried an egg in a few years, still trying to get used to it. Cursed with breaking the yolks, and still being too worried about it. Also I had heard some australians on my cooking shows cook shrooms for breakfast, but never known what spices or anything else they used. This is def a fave now, especially with crispy potatoes too. MMMMN!

The second recipe I tried that day was kidney beans and pears which I put with some jasmine rice. It was quite different, but good and filling! We'd had pears that had been sitting around with nobody wanting to deal with, so it was purrfect timing too.

Here's that rice, topped with carrot strips, sunflower seeds, and kelp seasoning sprinkled on top. Tier 2 has my usual fave creamy red lentil soup with red pepper and carrots. Also in the corner(though on accident) is a parrot shaped jelly sucker that was way cute, I bought it for the boy and one with a tiger for the girl.

Later that weekend I ordered up all of my free pizzas and fed the kids, then got one last one for myself to say goodbye to gluten. We have an awesome pizza place, and tis near one of our friends so hopefully I'll be able to go get their gluten free with vegan cheese ones sometime! *drools a little thinking about it*

Also, I just had to do this and take the pic because my sister was laughing saying it was cute "she actually put PIZZA in the PIZZA dish!" cuz usually I'll stuff it with pasta or rice or something and she shakes her head about it. LOL.

The little ducky here is full of oil and vinegar that I make to dip breadsticks in, and put on the pizza crusts at end. I'm disappointed in those ducks though, 2/3 of them had their poor little beaks crack open on the first use! And the third one might too, I just haven't used it yet to see. WTF? Grrr!

Backlog, Party Times

I haven't been home much for the last few weeks.. a lot of pics to post have built up because I haven't been able to upload them here. If only my laptop wasn't so dead and blue screened, ehh?

They probably won't be posted in the right order, not sure I have the energy to remember and explain what was in each one. But I will get to fixin it, hopefully. o_0

The face dish is a goulash with spiral pasta, soy crumble meat, and veggies semi strategically arranged. The right side of it is actually a few brussel sprouts in garlic sauce, then some squash covered them so you don't even really see that here. On the left is mandarin oranges around a watermelon and candied ginger salad(in middle cup) black olives and a boiled egg that kindasorta resembles an elephant shape. Cmon, tis like looking at clouds, use your imagination. *whistles*

I know, I still needa find a "simple bento cuteness guide for the artistically impaired" but hey at least it's balanced and has lots of bright variety!

In gluten free news, I've tried Hodgson Mills Baking Mix, and totally loved it! The other brand of pancake mix I had before, it smells wonderful like muffins, but doesn't cook like pancakes no matter what for me. They flopped, stayed flat and texture wasn't right no matter what, seemed light/airy and not fluffy or filling like they should be.

The HM mix though, they were thick and browned up beautifully! Thank goodness, I'm so happy. Yeah yeah, give a girl cake...even just pancakes...and sometimes that's enough for a simple girl. *sniffles*

The box also had a lot of other recipes on it, not just pancake and waffles. For my uncle's birthday party at the last minute I decided to try the brownie recipe, twenty minutes before guests started to arrive. Originally I had chosen to just skip having any kinda sweets for myself, we had several cakes and red velvet cupcakes for everybody else already. But then I got selfish and NEEDED chocolate too.

It worked out great, the whole house smelled like fresh brownies, and everybody wanted to try them and were amazed when told they were gluten free saying they would never have known. Then there was one lady who made me repeat it again in shock since she's so used to just not eating when she's out at places because of her celiac, and then I told her the other food there that was safe.

I'd bought grape leaves stuffed with season rice that reminded me of a greek flavored variety of sushi. I'd also gotten some veggie burgers and udi's buns, but didn't seem I even needed them that night. And we had made some crock pot pork in "Sweet BBQ Sauce" from a recipe on my bottle of hoisin sauce which was actually marked GF so even though it wasn't something vegetarian that I could have, I knew everything in it should be OK for her. She got to eat a plateful of dinner instead of just seeing it, yay! Later on we sent some of the last brownies home to a couple who are also gluten free and couldn't make it for the party.

I didn't think to take pictures in time. These cupcakes were from the week before, when his son and some of our friends had their birthdays. They were made from the Betty Crocker cake mix.