Wisdom Teeth, or Banana Pudding

I had my wisdom teeth out yesterday.  The night before, I learned something valuable - instant pudding does not set when made with Soy Milk.  So last night, I set about making my own pudding, or at least pudding like, dessert.  Here's what I can up with.

1 lb. silken tofu
3 or 4 med to large bananas
1 cup peanut butter
additional soy milk, if needed for consistency

Toss all ingredients in the food processor and blend until an even consistency.

Enjoy!

Kindle/Nook Cases

For those of you who don't know, I recently got a Kindle Fire. And I love it! But I needed a case for it. So of course I made one. And of course, then my mom wanted one for her nook. Then a coworker-friend wanted one. And it seems I may have stumbled on to the flagship line for the Etsy store I'm getting ready to open.

So it all started with the relatively simple blue monster case I made for myself.

Then my mom wanted one, and I couldn't very well make an identical one. Where's ther creativity in that?


Then my coworkers saw the pictures and one that I'm close with said "I want one, but a Zombie and I'm going to pay you for it because it wouldn't be right to not pay for a custom piece!"

And I thought 'how am I going to design a zombie, where the opening placement is both hilarious and adorable?' and after a few minutes consideration, I had it! HEAD WOUND! So with this stroke of genius in hand, (um, mind maybe?) I bought some mossy green yarn and got down to business.

I deliver this one today, but she's already seen pictures and is completely in love with it!

New Laptop

So, here I sit, posting from potentially my new laptop. The hubby got a chance at a used Sony Vaio that's in really good shape and that's what I'm using. He got it to be his new toy, but it's looking like he's going to end up with my Toshiba Satellite until all's said and done. There's no hard feelings really, it was my idea.

The keyboard is much smaller on here and that makes it a quite a bit more difficult for him to type than on the Toshiba. It also means that this one it much more portable, a plus for me! I love to drag my laptop everywhere with me and I haven't really been able to do that with the Toshiba. It's got a beautiful big screen, but it's heavy and awkward to carry around. Plus, until today, we haven't had wireless set up in a very long time which meant if I took the laptop, he had no internet.

The third reason is simply this, while I was trying very hard to not settle in to the Toshiba too much, out of respect for the fact that we were sharing it, he had no concerns about it. Which means that if he is switching to this little Vaio, he needs time to transfer all his crap. I just need to grab a few bookmarks and a couple dozen pictures.

All things considered, this seems like the best bet.

Cream Sauce!

You may or may not know that I'm lactose intolerant in addition to having recently developed a dairy allergy of sorts. One of the big things that I miss is cream sauce. Also: cream cheese. For cream cheese as an ingredient, Tofutti's Better than Cream Cheese is a great substitute, like cream cheese with pesto on crackers or cream cheese and jalapeno jelly. But it doesn't have enough of a flavor (for me, at least) to just slather a pile onto a bagel and chow down.

However, I discovered that a couple of tablespoons of Better than Cream Cheese and a big healthy glop of pesto stirred into hot pasta (or veggies) makes a pretty damn good cream sauce! I've done it with Basil Pesto and Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and it works out great. And even better, we use a pasta that's got veggies in it or lots of protein, like Barilla's Picollini or Plus, no it's not a carb bomb for Carl. The Pesto Cream Sauce has next to nothing carbs, too! Most pestos are pretty low carb and Better than Cream Cheese only has 1 carb per Tablespoon!

Meyer Lemon Butter

1 stick Salted Sweet Cream Butter

Juice of 1/2 Meyer Lemon

1/2 tsp Dried Basil or to taste

Melt butter over low heat, add basil and lemon juice. Stir well. Serve warm over fish.

This is super easy, and looks fancier for company that just dumping melted butter over fish. IF you don't know what a Meyer Lemon is, it's a cross between a Mandarin Orange and a Lemon, so it has a really good lemon flavor, but it's much sweeter. You've probably seen them at the store without even realizing it, they look almost like a regular lemon, but the peel is slightly smoother with a bit darker color.

Using the Meyer Lemon instead of a regular lemon gives this a much milder, less astringent taste than some lemon butters that I've had with makes it perfect for very mild fish, like Swai (which itself is somewhat sweet).

Food Processor, Flatouts and Flaxmeal.

So, yet again, it's been almost a month since I posted. (I really need to get better about that.) But now that the Christmas Crazies and inventory madness are done at my store, I've been helping out with other projects (both in and out of our store) that didn't fair so well through the holiday season. I've also been playing catch up at home.

I'm slowly but surely getting my craft room organized. The other day I spent most of the afternoon building a rack to house my totes of yarn, so that I can stack them higher without having to fight to get to the stuff on the bottom of the stack. With the craft room shaping up, it means less clutter in the living room, because my yarn (along with everything else) is starting to be where it belongs.

I've gotten into the habit of drinking much more coffee than I should the last two months or so, but I've been slowly replacing that with tea instead, so that's an improvement on several fronts, not the least of which is that I rarely use sugar in my tea, but always do in coffee. I've gotten a better handle on my dairy-free, largely by discovering "cheats" like goat's milk cheese which I can actually enjoy without suffering. But the biggest thing is the 9 pounds I've shed simply by having the time to actually eat meals, rather than surviving on fast food and baked goods.

The biggest hurdle we're still working our way around is balancing Carl's low-carb eating with my hypoglycemic need for carbs. He's been shedding a lot of excess weight simply by avoiding carbs wherever possible, however, I need to eat a pretty even split of carbs and protein.

I bought a food processor with a gift card from my Dad (Thanks, Dad!) which I think will be a big help with finding that balance because among other things, I can make my own "breadcrumbs" now. We made a batch this morning that I will probably use for dinner tomorrow that's about 50-50 Whole Grain Cheezits and Flaxmeal. The Flaxmeal added a lot of bulk to the crumbs, but because it's nearly 100% fiber, it doesn't add any net carbs.

We've both started using the Multi + Flax Flatouts (Thanks, Lisa!) for sandwiches and things because again, the addition of flaxmeal adds bulks, but lowers the net carb count. It's great for him to be able to have a burger than's only got 12 carbs in the "bun" versus things like Kaiser rolls which can rack up to almost 50 carbs. It's good for me because it's not low carb in an artificial way like a like of the "Atkins Approved" snacks that were everywhere a few years ago.

We're enjoying the foods so far, because we're being creative and I think as long as we can keep coming up with new ideas, I think that we won't have any trouble sticking with it!

Cappuccino Chip Cookies!

This is another one of those altered, basics that I like to make. It starts with your favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe - I like the old reliable Nestle Tollhouse recipe - then we add a few things. The first secret to awesome chocolate chip cookies in my book is always this: Good Vanilla Extract and lots of it. Don't use imitation, trust me it's worth the price to get the good stuff.

Here's what you need (in addition to the basic cookie dough recipe)

1 1/2 cups Crushed or Chopped Almonds

1 1/2 cups White Chips

2-3 Tbsp instant coffee (your favorite)

1-2 Tbsp Saigon Cinnamon (again, good cinnamon is totally worth the money!)

More Vanilla Extract

Prepare the basic dough according to your recipe, up to the part where you would normally add the chocolate (and nuts). Add the coffee, cinnamon and extra vanilla. I like a good strong coffee flavor for this and I love cinnamon and vanilla, so I use lots! Mix well.

Add the Almonds and White Chips and mix thoroughly. Bake according to your recipe instructions!

Enjoy!