Up and getting ready

It's a day off work (yay!) and we're up getting ready for the gym. We want to go to the early bodypump class, so we can cook today and then I have a nice dinner planned of a rack of lamb and some roast veggie. So far, lokking like it's gonna be a good day. :)

Weekend cooking

Every other weekend, or more often sometimes, we spend a day in the kitchen cooking.

This isn't just cooking up a quick meal, or anything like that, but serious levels of preparation, shopping, trashing out and cooking up.

As you may know, Dancer has many intolerances and allergies, which makes eating out tricky. Not only that, but eating out is expensive, less healthy and less convenient during a work week. So we cook up enough food so that we can take both lunch and dinner to the office.

Today we were marinating chicken breasts, pan frying potatoes, we had halibut, steaks, home made tomato basil soup, stew, mushroom soups, home made gluten free bread.

We started the first chop at about 2pm today, and packed away the last container about 10pm today.

This is what the interior of our fridge / freezer looks like after that kind of damage!



It's hard work, but frankly I love spending the time with Dancer in the kitchen, we put on a few movies (6 hours of the BCC adaption of Pride and Prejudice this time around!) and we usually get through a bottle of wine (to drink)

And we're set for the week. No more cooking now for another two weeks (we have a couple of things to finish up this turn though)

Pain

Oh man. I woke up in the worst pain today. All of my muscles felt like they were on fire, especially my back. It hurt to touch, even lightly. It was one of those "I could've laid there and cry" moments and would've if I had thought it would help. I've only had that level of sensitivity a few times and it's not pleasant. It started last night when the muscles in my chest started spasming, and would ease up. If I were more paranoid, I'd think heart attack, but I could tell it was muscular.

I tried stretching this morning (didn't help) and the shower really sucked. I'm praying for the painkillers to kick in, or for someone to shoot me, whichever comes first. Because I'm telling you right now, this pain needs to go away. I'm at work flinching if something touches my back or my arms, that includes air from a fan. If it wasn't for the static, I'd leave my fleece on just for padding. Ouch!!

I've been in one of my moods with the Celiacs again. It sucks that I can't just get a birthday cake or just go out to eat, but rather it still takes all this planning and hassle. I did compensate a bit by making some brownies, but still, I miss the days of just being able to DO things and EAT things without all the hassle and bother that goes with it some days. Even so, the brownies rocked. :)

On a happy note, yesterday was Brutus' birthday!! He's 4 now! I can hardly believe it. So I made doggie cookies last night for them. They seemed happy enough wtih it. ;) They also got a nice walk yesterday afternoon, and tons of cuddle time. I think Brutus had a good birthday.

Pancakes

Who doesn't love pancakes? A big stack of fluffy pancakes with butter running down the sides and covered in maple syrup. Or maybe covered with a fruit sauce and whipped cream?

I love pancakes. Always did. However, with Celiacs pancakes as I know them are a thing of the past. No more flour, egg or butter means most of the pancake ingredients are gone. I did attempt gluten-free pancakes before but this was before we worked out the dairy and the eggs. Those were pretty good. The last attempt I did with G.F pancakes minus the egg and milk ended in disaster. The batter was way too thin and didn't hold together enough to even cook. We were still in the old apartment when I did that.

Here recently I've been craving bread products, mainly croissants. Call me weird, but I miss breakfast sandwiches. Today, I wanted pancakes. So while my Geek went and got some stuff at the supermarket I set to work in the kitchen. Remembering what went wrong the last time, I decided to add a bit more of the egg replacement, guar gum and xantham gum. It looked great until I added the liquid. It was insanely thick!! I'm talking dough consistency! I decided to go ahead with it anyway and see what happens.

I scopped the "batter" into the pan with two spoons and waited a few minutes, then flipped and squashed them down so they were flat. They turned out really tasty, though the flavor of the dough was a bit flat. Needed a pinch of salt. In lieu of butter and syrup, we used Geek's favorite - lemon juice and sugar. Yum! So I'm happy it worked out as well as it did. I'll keep tweaking this one, but it's easy to deal with too thick than too thin batter. I just need to throttle back on the xantham gum or use guar exclusively. I'm sure Geek won't mind being my guinea pig. :)