Battle of Knits

The great polenta experiment.

I had polenta, once. It was okay. Pretty much the definition of peasant food… bland, boring, but edible. I had it with Prosecco and fresh cheeses at a dinner party in Italy. I remember it well. The prosecco was great to wash it down and the cheese was a total treat. Yesterday I did not have any prosecco and I had nothing but a block of Publix brand cheddar, but I wanted to make some polenta. Eating gluten free is a total pain in the ass and I am constantly hungry it seems. If I dont have something made already and stored in the fridge I do not have many options. I am so used to convenience meals, that it is mind blowing to think about cooking everything from scratch! Now, dont get me wrong… I can cook. I just dont particularly love to cook. I take it back… I love to cook for others, but I hate to cook for myself. Most days I find myself eating rice krispies, cheese, rice noodles, ice cream or chips and salsa. If I am lucky I have some leftovers in the fridge suitable for consumption. Usually a soup of some sort. I love soup.

I was surfing foodnetwork.com looking for the right polenta recipe and I couldnt decide. I finally settled on this Alton Brown recipe for, Savory Polenta. Alton Brown is amazing… part chef, part scientist with a dash of corny humor, so I figured at the very least this recipe would be edible. With the baby in the highchair, I set forth to make the polenta. I stirred in the corn meal whisking like a fool so not to have any lumps… HAHAHA it was lumpy as hell. when I popped it in the oven I realized I did not have a cover for the cast iron skillet I was using. OOPS. The oven timer went off and I set it on the stove to cool, then transferred it to a glass pan. The top seemed crusty and I tasted a bit… it was pretty savory. I didnt love it, but I didnt hate it either. It cooled in the fridge over night since I forgot I even made it. Then next day I fried some up for lunch and didnt like it. It was nothing like the stuff I had in the past. I sighed… another failed recipe. Recipes are like knitting patterns for me… sometimes they come out amazing and I am excited about the results… other times I am filling the garbage disposal or frogging and balling up yarn with tears in my eyes.

And just as I was prepared to dump it all down the disposal, I put a piece on the highchair tray for my little guy. To my surprise he loved it! I gave him the remaining polenta and he was actually double-fisting it! I still cant get over it.

In other GF news… I tried the Betty Crocker Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, reviews are “so-so” very expensive for a mediocre batch of cookies. they did taste pretty authentic, but they were flat and dried out by day 2. They looked like you put too much butter and not enough flour in the batter, but without the greasy butter flavor.  I would only buy these again if I was truly desperate for chocolate chip cookies.  So, only a few times a week. (only joking!)

Betty Crocker GFree cookies!

Am I getting sick?

It has been so long since I got sick, I cant even tell anymore! I dont feel so well. Yesterday and today… achy, tired, headache. I think this may be Swine Flu/H1N1 or whatever you want to call it. I just thought I was crabby from my time of the month. Unfortunately I think that I got Swine Flu from Josh, since my immune system was down this past week.

I am trying to stay on top of the sickness, since I cant ever let a virus win… so I am drinking lots of water, OJ and green tea. Eating lots of protein and veggies. This minute I am eating some homemade soup… here is my recipe.

Gluten-free, Wheat free FAST Chicken Curry Noodle Soup

Bowl full of rice noodles, 3/4 cup chicken broth (Kitchen), tsp olive oil, dash of curry powder, chopped cooked chicken breast.

Put ingredients in a micro-safe bowl and microwave about 3 minutes, Stir, let sit for 3 minutes, Stir, EAT.

I just want to lick the bowl! I appreciate rice noodles in a special way… since I cant have regular pasta and the corn pasta and quinoa pasta I have tried taste nasty, rice noodles are a beautiful thing. I think tomorrow I will make another chicken soup. This recipe I have in mind has chicken, curry and peanut butter. It is excellent, so I will find a link and post it.

Ack. I feel so terrible. Time to go curl up on the couch and watch General Hospital and enjoy my quiet time while baby sleeps.

…and then began on the March square… well, it was named “Irish Rose” and it was very pretty… I finished the actual rose part in the middle of the square and then decided to frog it and start a different square when I realized how awkward it would be to lie on top of such a big “rose”… I am really trying to go for a more comfortable blanket at this time, so no more 3-D designs. I decided to go with “Esther’s square” for my March, which is actually a January square, but whatever.

At some point I got the mail and was pleasantly surprised to find YARN!!!

A huge assortment of Araucania Nature Wool from April, a girl on one of my co-op forums. I entered a “yarn for woolies” swap. I signed up as a worker, hoping to make another beautiful skirty for a lucky little girl. The blue and lilac are for me, the pink and pumpkin are for her. She has twins, boy and a girl so I will be working on some shorties as well as a skirty for her! Receiving her yarn in the mail got me thinking about a purchase I made on Hyena Cart… I should have received it by now… it is some delicious BFL called “Starry Night” — I have been in love with it for awhile and finally took the plunge and bought it. I am hoping to find some matching BFL trim somewhere and make it into a Wonderful Wallaby for the Boo.

These were not good.

How is the Gluten-free diet going? Wonderful! Well, until yesterday. I broke down and binged on carbs. Gluten is a delicious thing that I have taken for granted. I have decided I would rather die from a gluten related death than give up my precious gluten. That was the longest week of my life! The deciding factor was pure laziness combined with the complete lack of weight loss. After about 8 days… I didn’t even lose one pound. I blame the depression of looking at that bathroom scale on my full force attack on some REAL french toast sticks followed by a vegetarian corn dog and then a can of veggie soup. After all that I was still hungry, which surprised me. This weekend I intend on consuming the better part of a medium pizza and lots of beer!

You can’t move properly without beer. This is a law of nature.

We did secure a moving truck. Not at first, but after filling out some Internet “paperwork” Josh got a call letting us know we will have a truck at 4:30pm on Saturday. This is great for 3 reasons:

1. I have a hair appointment at 12:15pm, that I no longer have to cancel.

2. We can move this weekend, which does not call for rain… next weekend does.

3. I don’t have to be angry about Josh’s procrastination.

Off to start the skirty for April, finish baking the banana bread, and make taco dinner for the family.

Thanks Martha.

So I will admit it… I watch Martha Stewart. I hate her. I hate her holier than thou attitude and I hate how absolutely fake she is with every guest on the show. Why do I continue to watch? She is like a train wreck!!! I cant stop watching, no matter how bad it gets. She really inspires me with her crafts and cooking. Although I doubt my sheets, towels, place mats, dish cloths and dishes will ever be color coordinating and yet– never in my wildest dreams did I ever think Martha could unlock the secrets to my families health problems! I was watching her show yesterday about Asian noodles. The first noodle they went over was the basic ramen noodle. They were talking about how it is completely made of wheat… and I had that epiphany moment. I could literally see a light bulb going off above my head. You see, lately I have been having severe digestive problems. Ever since my pregnancy I have not been quite right and I was blaming vitamins, fast food, and breastfeeding. In the past three weeks though I have been thinking about going to the doctor, but since I have no insurance I was hoping I could figure things out on my own. Now finally I think I have! Martha and ramen noodles have shed light on this mystery.