#iPPP a la Girl Scouts

Back for #iPPP and it hasn't even been a whole year since my last visit!  Say what?  Only two weeks?  Call Guinness!

Life's been busy, busy, but last weekend, busy also meant tasty.  My sweet girl was working on her Snacks badge for Brownies (Girl Scouts) and got crackin' in the kitchen, creating a sweet treat and a smoothie.

Saturday night, for dessert, she made yogurt strawberry parfaits, layering greek yogurt mixed with a li'l honey, sliced strawberries, and granola.

And while the first set of parfaits were made gluten free, using Udi's vanilla granola, she needed to go one step further for her brother, who can't have dairy,  to join in the sweet treat fun and swapped out the greek yogurt for almond yogurt creating a GFCF parfait delight.  Looks nearly the same, eh?

Can I share the most random and yet helpful thing I learned over the weekend?  Thanks to friend Jenn visiting, I finally learned how to spell dessert and not get it mixed up with desert!  Dessert is spelled with two 's's because you want more and desert with only one 's' because you supposedly want less (since I'm not a fan of the heat, this totally works for me).  Told ya it was random...but, it will save me when spell check isn't nearby!

On Sunday, she blended up a smoothie, using frozen organic blueberries, frozen strawberries, frozen mangoes, fresh ripe banana, fresh baby spinach leaves, and coconut water.  We slurped up smoothie and then poured the left over mix into popsicle molds for desert this week.  Delish.

Coming back for an #iPPP visit with

G*Funk*ified & Jumping With My Fingers Crossed & Angela Amman

Get cookin' for a cause with 50+ Favorite Bloggers!

50+ of our favorite bloggers have come together to create a cookbook with their favorite recipes. And what's even better, it's all for a great cause, The American Red Cross!

I found out about this exciting book through one of my favorite bloggers, Holly of 504 Main.  She has donated her new recipe for Aloha Scones to the cause and the book.

Did I say donated?  I sure did.  That is the best part about all these fantastic bloggers coming together to create this cookbook:  for a $10 donation, you can get this new cookbook and 100% of the proceeds are being donated to The American Red Cross.

You can read Holly's post about the 50+ Favorite Bloggers 50+ Best Recipes Cookbook or you can get clicky and head straight here to order: http://recipestohelp.bigcartel.com/

Orders are only being taken from 8/15/11 - 8/31/11, so make sure you don't miss out.  Tweet, Facebook, blog and help spread the word about this opportunity to make a difference!

ETA: I am not associated with this cookbook in any way. It's a cool way to contribute and am happy to pass the word on. :>

Pinterest Inspired: One Bowl Wonder

I took a break from Pinning over at my favorite place to escape, Pinterest, to actually look at my boards and see what I've pinned.  And while looking at my food board, Tastebuds and Eyes, I saw that I had collected a few fresh corn ideas & recipes.

Source: italian.food.com via Karen on Pinterest

Already beyond the dinner hour and completely not in the mood to hit the store for specific ingredients, I decided to use these three as inspiration, rather than a recipe.

Source: sensiblelessons.com via Karen on Pinterest

Source: authenticsuburbangourmet.blogspot.com via Karen on Pinterest

I grabbed leftover ears of cooked corn, cut off their kernels into a bowl and headed to the fridge to see what else we had. 

I had already reheated the baked chicken & brown rice leftovers for the kids and there was about a quarter cup of rice and an ounce of chicken leftover, so while I was initially going for a salad, I threw them in.

Grabbed an organic red bell pepper, red onion, and avocado, sliced them up and threw them into this One Bowl Wonder.  And I dressed her up in lime juice and a little sea salt.

It was absolutely delicious!  I think it could be even better with some zucchini and chopped flat leaf parsley or cilantro, depending on your preference.

I will definitely make this again.  And you want to know what else is cool?  This delish dinner is GFCF (gluten & casein free) and since it was a One Bowl Wonder, there's minimal clean up!  Now that's what I call a perfect summer meal.

What have you been creating in your kitchen lately?  Are you Pinning on Pinterest?  Are you bringing your Pins to life, literally or simply inspired by?

GF/CF/SF Strawberry-Banana Smoothie......Delish!

Last year, my sweet boy brought home a small strawberry plant that he planted, watered, and nurtured its way to producing a few strawberries. This year, that plant is looking mighty happy with many blossoms and it even divided itself at some point over the winter and so now there are two strawberry plants in the pot. We are very much anticipating more ripe red strawberries to eat and light up our sweet boy's proud smile!

In the meantime, we are a strawberry lovin' family and just cannot wait for the ones in our garden. So, that means many containers of organic strawberries come home with us!

One container of those organic strawberries made its way into the blender for this gluten, casein (the protein in dairy), soy free Strawberry-Banana Smoothie and it was absolutely deliscious!!! So delish that the kidlets had three glasses each! It was definitely a meal in a glass that day. :> (Our son cannot eat gluten or casein and soy is extremely limited in his diet. He just loves it when he can eat something that looks and tastes like what everyone else can eat and won't make him sick & miserable!!)

Gluten/Casein/Soy Free Strawberry-Banana Smoothie

One container of GF/CF/SF Coconut Yogurt

(we used strawberry-banana here, but plain or vanilla would work too)

One ripe banana

One 16 oz. container of organic strawberries

(halving or quartering first, depending on size, helps in the blending)

Half a scoop of Pea Protein

Ten drops of liquid Stevia

Crushed Ice

Add all ingredients to the blender and blend!

Did you know that you can add some spinach or kale to a sweet fruit smoothie and not effect its taste? You can! How much you add depends on how big your blender is and how much fruit you have in it. It will change its color, but its a great way to add some extra nutrients & dark leafy green veggies to you or your kidlets diet. Everybody's tastes are different, but personally, I've never seen anyone turn down a smoothie! :>

What's your favorite smoothie? My kidlets want to try a mango smoothie next!

GF/CF Pumpkin Bread

Yes! You are in the right place! Today, I crafted some time in the kitchen with my daughter to bake some delicious pumpkin bread!

Our son has a restricted diet and eats gluten and casein (the protein in dairy) free, mostly soy free, msg/nitrite/nitrate free, low sugar (almost no refined sugars), as preservative & chemical free and organic as we can get. With that being said, I read every ingredient label, am constantly making substitutions, spend a good deal of time grocery shopping, and have learned a lot in the last almost two years that he has been eating this way.

While the entire house is not always gf/cf (plus everything else), our family meals are, and when it comes to baking......well, we do not keep any gluten flours in the house at all. Flour gets in the air and will contaminate everything. So, when my Princess wanted to use the canned organic pumpkin we bought at Trader Joe's yesterday, I set about looking for a recipe online that we could all eat and love.

I found a GF/CF (gluten free/casein free) blog through a google search and found this recipe as a great place to start. We rarely use any refined sugar, even in baking (though I do have an emergency stash of organic cane sugar for recipes that just do not work with sugar substitutes), so I headed here for sugar substitutes and their equivalents. I chose to use a combination of honey and agave syrup. Here's my version of Kathi's recipe for our gf/cf pumpkin bread:

Yummy GF/CF Pumpkin Bread

1 c. Quinoa flour *

1/2 c. Sorghum flour

1/2 tsp. Sea salt

1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda (aluminum free)

1 tsp. Xantham gum

1/4 tsp. Freshly grated nutmeg

1 heaping tsp. Cinnamon (we use Ceylon cinnamon) *

1/4 tsp. Ground Allspice

1/8 tsp. Ground Ginger

1 1/4 c. Pumpkin puree *

1/4 c. Vegetable oil (usually we use Canola for this to avoid the soy, but I was out)

1/4c. Ghee, melted, but not hot (essentially it is clarified butter, with all the solids removed, taking out the casein/proteins) *

1/4 c. Honey *

1/4 c. Agave Syrup *

2 Eggs, beaten *

* denotes items we used that are organic

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl. Mix wet ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients into dry ones until combined. Do not over mix. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes. Remove from loaf pan and cool on wire rack.

Guess what?! I do not miss the gluten, the sugar, or anything else in this pumpkin bread! It is scrumptious.........so much so, that I imagine it will be gone mighty quickly. My daughter and I had it with lunch and it is on the menu to accompany our dinner as well.

Next, I want to find or come up with a good pie crust recipe that fits our requirements so that I can make some pumpkin pie for the holidays that everyone in the house can eat!