Is there something wrong with me?

Doug got home from work unexpectedly early last night. When he asked what I wanted to do, I had to tell the truth -- clean the bathroom. Clean the BATHROOM?? Who wants to spend the evening cleaning the bathroom when their hubby is home from work EARLY?! Me!? Yes it is true. I'd spent all afternoon psyching myself up for it. I was dressed in my grubbies and mentally prepared to tackle the project. If it wasn't last night, when would I be so prepared again? A week, two weeks...*shudder*. Nope, it had to be then and so it was. It only took away 1/2 hr of my precious time with my hunny and when it was done I felt so much better! Maybe I'm turning into a housewife? ...

Fantastic Father

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I love my Dad. He's funny, loving, tender, intelligent and a blast to hang out with.


Here he is (middle) hamming it up after winning a very serious award ;)


Such a cute grandpa too (walking with my little nephew).

Thanks for being such a great example to me, Dad. I looked for someone with similar characteristics to be the father of my children (and I found one!). I'm thankful for all you have done for our family! Sorry this post is a little past Father's Day, but we were thinking of you on Sunday too. Love you!

Year of the Potato

Did you know that 2008 is the international year of the potato? Check out this website.

I love potatoes. They have always been and will always be my favorite food. Yum yum yum.

My Gluten-Free Life is nearly complete...

I had a major triumph recently in gluten-free baking. EBLESKIVERS!!! When I think about the gluten-full things I miss the most, ebleskivers and chocolate-cream filled Dunkin Donuts are the two.

Those of you unfamiliar with ebleskivers--my condolences. They are the cutest little round, puffy, light, slightly sweet and tasty pastry you may ever eat. They're similar to pancakes but cooked in a pan with half-spheres so they turn out round little pancake balls. As kids we'd poke a hole at the top and stuff them with as much butter and powdered sugar as we could before devouring them.

I've missed them so much since going gluten-free, but ebleskivers are no longer a thing of my memory! After nearly four years of gluten-free living, I decided it was time to try making a gluten-free adaption. I asked for a pan for my birthday and then on Mother's Day my sweet husband convinced me to give it a go. I'm not very proficient with gluten-free flour experimentations, so I was nervous, but I did as much research on recipes as I could, then took a leap of faith.

Awesome results!

I used our family recipe and got creative with my flour mix:

4 eggs separated
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup melted shortening
2 cups flour -- see my GF flour blend below
2 scant cups milk
1 tsp zanthan gum (if using GF flour)

GF Flour blend:
2/3 + 1/4 cups rice flour (GF flours need slightly more than a 1:1 replacement with regular flour, hence the extra 1/4 cup)
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
1/3 cup corn starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1/3 cup potato starch

Beat egg yolks. Add sugar. Sift together remaining dry ingredients and add alternatively with the milk. Add melted shortening, mixing well. In a separate bowl beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into batter.

Doug helped me every step of the way and got quite good at baking the ebleskivers. Now he can make these for me every Mother's day!!! ;)

First you put a small piece of butter in each divot. When it's good and bubbly, pour in the batter almost to the top of the divot. Let them cook until small bubbles appear or the edge starts to look dry and/or golden (like a regular pancake).

Flip them over. My mom has a fancy technique of pulling up the edge and letting the batter run down before doing a full on flip. We found that the GF batter didn't work so well with this method. We just did a complete flip. Our cakes were a little more flying-saucer-esque, but that was ok by us.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!

Or, if you're like me, break them in half, rub in butter then dunk in powdered sugar.

Oohh so TASTY!!!

Tooting the Flute

I've been pretty busy the last few weeks with flute performances. I love playing the flute. I've played since I was 1o years old. I never had to be forced to practice. In fact, the more I practiced, the better I got and the more fun it was to play so I'd play more.... I know my parents invested a lot in lessons and music and instruments to get me where I am today. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I had two performances last week. The first was last Sunday where I played a flute obligato along with the Stake Choir in our Stake Conference. The song was "I Know that My Redeemer Lives." It had full choir, organ and piano along with flute. The music was very pretty and flattering to the flute sound. It was so fun to play!

The second performance was on Wednesday night. The Mormon community in Orange County has assembled a community choir and orchestra. I auditioned for the orchestra and was able to join them as principal flute for the spring concert "Celebrate America." It was quite a show. We played in the beautiful Segerstrom Concert Hall -- a professional venue. The organization has a full adult choir, a teenager choir, youth, children and sunbeam choirs. The Sunbeams were my favorite. Little kids ages 4-6 singing their hearts out. Adorable! It was a fun concert -- very audience friendly. Lots of big numbers like "God Bless America." More than anything it was just great to be part of a big group making music again. I've missed that since I finished college.

Permit me a moment of reminiscence? (oh wait, it's my blog I can talk about whatever I want to ;). I remember very clearly driving in the car with my mom talking about what kind of instrument I might like to play. I had reached the point in my piano lessons that I could think about another instrument (family rule: we had to learn to play a hymn before we could take up a different instrument). Mom explained some of the features of the various instruments. When she described the flute, she said "and if you play the flute, you can play in church." That was it -- I was sold.

Since then, I've had some extremely rewarding musical experiences in my life, but none compare to those I've had when I've been able to touch someone's heart at church. I remember looking into the congregation and seeing Brother Effertz with tears streaming down his cheeks, or Bishop Martin struggling to announce the next speaker after my musical number. Nothing quite compares to the feeling I get when I know I've been able to express some of my testimony through my flute and that the spirit has touched someone who was listening. I was very grateful this week to have a few moments of that feeling again.