Hot Dog!

Hubby and I were sitting around tonight, vaguely talking about dinner, when I suddenly said, "I want hot dogs!" He agreed, so we zipped down to Safeway, and found GF hot dog buns, and GF hot dogs! Schneider's Country Naturals is a fantastic line of meats. All the ham, and the hot dogs that are always full of gluten things, are gluten free! I love it. I bought a few things from them before, because I like the idea that they're natural and preservative-free.

The hot dogs tasted great, and don't taste any different than any normal ones, and hubby liked them too.

The buns, on the other hand... Were classic GF buns. Hard, and dry, and slightly crumbly. Sad and depressing. Better when microwaved, but still sad. Especially when I cut my hard, dense buns, and then hubby's soft, moist, delicious buns.

Picnic

Beautiful weekends call for picnics at the lake.

Oh, did I say beautiful? I mean weekends. It was windy, chilly, and cloudy. Not like stormy-cloudy, but like no-sun-is-shining cloudy. Oh, and she is wearing clothes. I promise. Her blanket-cape is just conveniently covering her entire dress.

Anyways, Banana and I packed a little picnic and drove out to a lake, which was deserted, probably because it wasn't such a nice weekend. 

Delicious, fruit-packed picnic. Mmm. Oh, and Lay's. They're GF! Did you know that? New favourite discovery. I don't mean they don't have gluten in them. I mean at the bottom of the ingredients, in bold letters, the bag says Gluten free. Fan-frickin-tastic. Mmm. Most of the flavours are too, but I think plain is my favourite right now.

Curry, a Delicious Meal in Photos

I mentioned last time that Banana made me curry, but I didn't elaborate. I couldn't tell you how to make it, because she starts with a package of curry paste from Thailand, and follows their instructions. But I will show you pretty pictures!

Curry paste and coconut milk

Stirred and added strips of chicken

Added slices of zucchini

Cooked down a little and added cooked potatoes

Curry is pretty food. It's all so orange, that the lighting looks awful, but it wasn't. I promise.

Raspberry Lemonade

Banana is amazing and made me curry and raspberry lemonade. I would call it from-scratch raspberry lemonade, but we used bottled lemon juice and fresh raspberry. Delicious, easy, and a quintessential summer drink!

Smoosh up the berries in a plastic baggie. With your hand, or a rolling pin. You can use really any berry you want, just cut leaves off and rinse them.

Add equal parts lemon juice and sugar to a pitcher. Start with half a cup or less (less sugar than you normally would like) and then add the smooshed-up berries. Taste the lemonade, and add a bit more lemon or sugar, to taste, until it's perfect.

I'm sorry, lemonade is not a perfect science. But it is an easy one!

And a pretty one.

Arby's

Okay, so I caved... I bought a burger, no bun. My first. Well, sort of... I bought it at Arby's, and they don't really do burgers, they do sandwiches. So I got a pile of roast beef in a dish. And curly fries. And I know I shouldn't be eating the curly fries, I know they're not safe. So I was bad. Sue me. But I crossed another fence and that's a good thing.

So the verdict is... It's pathetic. So sad. But at least the guy at Arby's was really nice about it and didn't make me feel like a loser.

Obviously half of that tray is not for me, but the half that is is pretty sad, huh?

The real verdict is, that it tasted alright, and in a pinch, it would curb my fast food craving. I'll probably go again, and maybe ixnay on the fries, because I know that was a bad idea. Oh, and I should google their cheese sauce and see if I can eat that, because cheese sauced roast beef would be a wee bit less pathetic.

Banana Bread

My mom had a bunch of bananas going bad, so I took them off of her and made muffins. And then there were some leftover, so I made banana bread too! Hubby keeps begging me to make it for him, so I caved and did, mostly because I didn't want two batches of muffins on hand. In hindsight, I should have made two batches of muffins. Mmm, muffins...

The recipe is a little more consuming than the muffin one, using a few more dishes, and the ability to cream butter and sugar. Hey, I only said it's a little more consuming, not like it's hard!

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups Gluten Free flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons xantham gum
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preaheat oven to 350F, grease a loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift flour, xantham gum, baking soda and salt together, add to creamed mixture, mixing well. 

Fold in bananas and vanilla. 

Pour mixture into pan, bake 50-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan ten minutes, then on rack.

You could add up to half a cup of shelled, coarsely chopped walnuts, or chocolate chips, if that suits your fancy. 

There is nothing better than a cup of tea and a slice of warm buttered banana bread.

Cutbacks.

Okay..... So, I'm not very good at blogging. I'm really not. I've said it before, but rereading my old posts, I'm just realizing how boring I am.

From now on, I will write about the things I bake, cook, eat, discover, and the restaurants I go to. Maybe the occasional tidbit related to my gluten free life, but I'm going to cut back on my drivel.

I guess because I'm unmotivated, and bored with blogging, but also because I'm realizing how much blogging early on helped me cope, and I think I'm actually coping fairly well now.