My crazy life....

It has been a few weeks since I posted last and it's comical cause who would think I had time to write a blog at all with all that goes on in my life.  Just when I think I get caught up with cleaning up the house, cooking, laundry and kids....something happens.....

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend in which we had Lana's best friend and her mother come over and spent the weekend with us and enjoyed some MUCH needed girl time with all girls and NOAH:)....My poor boy was completely surrounded by woman for the whole weekend but ironically, he seemed to enjoy it. 
Then the following week Isabelle started with a stomach flu and then Noah got it.  As most of you know, with Lana's recent transplant we can't have her around anyone sick, so off she went to her dad's house until the coast was clear for her and Shelby to return and hopefully not contaminate her already suppressed immune system.  Luckily she escaped the madness and was able to return quickly. 

Then as I was sitting enjoying spending some time catching up with a friend, you get the phone call you never want to get.....The gym called me saying we needed to go get Shelby and take her to the emergency room because she had injured herself badly.  One of the mother's at the gym is a doctor and looked at her foot and said she thought it was broken....yay us:(.  Luckily though it was not broken and we get to see the orthopedic surgeon on Thursday and see where the recovery process leeds us.  Friday Lana had her biopsy in Little Rock and everything went according to plan but we won't have the answer to the rejection level til Monday mid day.  I will update everyone then. 

So, my Gluten Free notes from late....I've learned to take recipes we love and easily change a few ingredients and make them GFree but I still have not gotten over the fear of sending Isabelle to preschool - really it's Mother's Day Out- next year.  It's not even food related anymore but everything from certain arts and crafts supplies to playdough have gluten.  I've let her play with playdough at home thinking because she wasn't ingesting it she was safe, only to have her face swell and turn red....It's so sad.  Hence, we have decided that we will homeschool preschool and Kindergarden, both toddlers and we'll see where that takes us from there.  The school system here have odd birthday cut off's and both toddlers will be 7 as they exit Kindergarden which is very odd to us- so I am going to do a preschool program and introduction immersion class in French with them over this summer and will likely just enroll Izzy in dance or gymnastics and Noah in some sort of precursor to sports whether that is gymnastics or tee ball or tai kwan do. 

Back to the recipes: I have been watching The Hungary Girl as of late who is a chef who watches calories and sugar in all of her recipes and have been able to interchange and make Gfree recipes from hers.  The one that is most notable were the cupcakes I made today for our close friends, Henrietta and Rudy's, daughter's graduation party.  Henrietta also has celiac's and we have entered this journey together for the most part.  Izzy and she were "diagnosed" very closely in time yet they are years apart in age.  We have shared and worked together to recreate some of our favorite gluten recipes into g free recipes.  I made these chocolate fudgie brownie like cupcakes with a marshmellow topping and topped with a few mini chocolate chips (allergy friendly of course) and not only did they turn out wonderfully BUT they were around 220 calories versus the usual cupcake that is around 500 calories.  Here is the regular recipe for the gluten version of the cupcake:
http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/lisa-lillien/chocolate-marshmallow-madness-cupcakes-recipe/index.html
All I did was interchange her box mix of Devils' Food Cake mix with Pamela's Chocolate Cake mix which is Gfree!  It worked perfectly which is rare with G free recipes compared to regular ones, there is usually something you have to tweek but these were darn good.

Another thing we have changed has been the manner in which we eat...the toddlers tend to eat breakfast really well, some healthy snacks but then they either eat a good lunch or dinner and my trainer has said it's more beneficial to have a heavier lunch and make dinners lean meat and vegeatables.  So we've tried that and so far so good.  This week I planned some lunches around what I got at the Farmer's Market....here is one of them:

2 zucchini roughly chopped (bite sized chunks)
1 summer squash roughly chopped (bite sized chunks)
1 onion
2 TBSP olive oil
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 8 - 10 oz pkg of Baby bella mushrooms either pre sliced or you can quarter them
1 lb g-free tagliatelle pasta (reccomended brand SHAR)
1 tsp italian seasoning
1/4 C heavy cream
splash of g free chicken stock
1/4 C grated parmesan
any protien of choice

boil a pot of salted water and put in tagliatelle til al dente
while pasta is boiling put olive oil, onion and garlic and sautee til tender and onion is translucent, add squash and mushrooms and splash with chicken stock as needed til vegetables are tender.  Add the seasoning, cream and parmesan until sauce has thickened slightly, add cooked pasta and toss then add your choice of grilled chicken, steak, pork, turkey, shrimp/salmon/fish or tofu (when using firm tofu not grilled dice and add with squash and mushrooms to cook and absorb the flavors.

You can also opitonally add 2 roma tomatoes diced and seeded, Kalamata olives and even fresh basil or oregano versus dried seasoning

You can serve a salad, stuffed sweet pepper stuffed with goat cheese and lemon zest with salt and pepper to taste and roasted in the oven about 10 min at 350) or fresh cold cucumber soup- this is Lana's favorite: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chilled-cucumber-soup-with-shrimp-recipe/index.html

I will update again sooner than later:)