A Coats Farewell Family Lunch!

Had a family lunch this Sunday at my parents house with my parents, brother, and sister in law.  We got together before we take off later this week.  My parents and myself are headed to Tucson, Arizona, and my brother and Sonia are headed to Tampa, Florida. Will be nice!  Thanks to my dad and mom for cooking and hosting!  T'was so nice to come to a literally "home cooked meal!" at the parents.  The neighbors rooster and duck were wandering in my parents yard, so I took a photo of them before I captured them and my parents cooked them for the lunch.  JUST JOKING!   The pic really was taken in my parents yard our our neighbors "runaways" though. With this said my recipes and designs will be on hold for two weeks while we are away having fun!  The cookbook of culinary elegance should be ready to hit the press mid October for those who have asked for a copy.  Until then, everyone have a nice 2 weeks; will be working hard on new designs upon return!

Healthy Granola Bars!

Mrs. Harrison sent me a recipe for healthy granola bars.  They are sweetened with honey, so they are gluten, but honey is natural, so every now and then I'll "get wild" and have some honey which is very healthy for normal people who get to eat gluten!  :-)  Anyway, THANKS to Mrs. Harrison for sending me this recipe.  I now have a new party treat that's healthy for guests!

(following recipe I was sent) Not shown, but I poured oats (half old fashion oats style and the other half gluten free steel cut oats) on non greased baking sheet and baked for 10 minutes at 350F.  Also, not pictured melted honey and olive oil together in a sauce pan.  Once this was done, poured oats into honey and oil sauce pan along with slivered almonds, as well as all natural TOTALLY unsweetened chocolate; not 70% unsweetened chocolate, but TOTALLY unsweetened and mixed everything together.

Put waxed/parchment paper on a small 10X15 baking sheet and evenly distributed the granola mix packing it down tightly onto the baking sheet on top of the wax/parchment paper.  Put in oven and baked for 10 minutes.  Removed from oven and let cool completely.  Put in freezer overnight, and this morning cut the bars apart.  (Easier to get a clean cut when they are frozen.  BTW--they taste really good eaten frozen; crunchy granola bars; if you eat them thawed they are the chewy granola bars.

Vahlah!  Finished healthy homemade granola bars!  So excited to know how to make another new favorite healthy snack!  It's always more fun using someone elses recipe too!  You never never know how they will turn out first time you make it.  Fun!  :-)

Rice :-)

So now they are saying rice contains arsenic.  A few years back they were saying wheat was tampered with. I'm sure it's very true, but whole grain is always good.   I heard about the arsenic in rice.  I'm not buying 100% into that.  I buy the whole grain brown rice flour; grown with no chemicals or pesticides, so I think if God made it to eat, and it’s not tampered with, grown all natural, it’s fine.  Oriental people have been eating rice for centuries as their main entrée most of their lives, and they usually have a longer life span than other nationalities, so I’m not fully buying into the “new research.”  What was it two weeks back it was discovered organic food wasn’t any better than non organic.  I was like, what, of course food that is grown without chemicals would be better to ingest; more cancer free; duh right.  :-)!  Guess that's why we pray over every meal.

Basil Pesto Chicken Pasta

Really pushing hard to finish my dad's and my cookbook.  Will be two full cookbooks.  One will be all non gluten and lactose intolerant recipes helping those on restricted diets to have recipes that are delicious, and the other cookbook will be healthy recipes for everyone with wheat, honey, etc.  Now, I'm cooking up all of my dad's, a retired Chef's, recipes for photos in the cookbook.  I'm actually surprised that some people have come to me expressing an interest in this cookbook already, so it's driving me to get finished!  My dad gave me this AMAZING Basil Pesto Recipe....I made it night before last,.......so yummy. Yesterday I decided to use his basil pesto in a non gluten pasta dish!  For those just tuning in, my diet is non gluten b/c my body doesn't process sugar...so anything that turns to glucose when digested is off limits...including wheat flour which is very healthy in itself, my body just rejects it.  August of 2011 proved to be a summer of a forever changed diet for me and I feel great!  Anyway, here's what I did.  The full recipe with exact measurements for my dad's AMAZING basil pesto, and for my basil pesto pasta will be in the cookbook coming out soon!

 LOVE this non gluten pasta.  My absolute favorite.  These whole grains are so healthy too!  I honestly like this non gluten pasta texture better than the traditional gluten pasta.

 Boiled pasta and drained...duh right!

 Fried ALL NATURAL FED chicken in brown rice flour, basil, garlic, black pepper, sea salt, and pure olive oil.  It does make a difference to get the all natural fed chicken vs the other b/c of hormones pumped into the "not natural fed" chicken.

 Pulled out my dad's basil pesto that I had already made.

 Mixed in some of the basil pesto into the non gluten pasta.

 chopped up chicken and mixed in with the pasta

 Vahlah, I can't describe how yummy this was.  Sure, we're had similar dishes with store bought canned pesto...NOTHING LIKE THIS!!!!  DELICIOUS and VERY HEALTHY made from scratch!

New Fall Blouse and Skirt Gift!

A great friend of mine, Gladys Welsh, got me this outfit for a fall gift.  Funny thing is the red top is a BLOUSE NOT A SKIRT!  When I first got it, I was like what a nice skirt!  Gladys told me it was a fashion top that I would want to sew straps on....I was like WHAT it's a Blouse!.....I didn't even know what it was.  I will be sewing on straps of some sort like Gladys mentioned when I have time to make this "kosher" for me.  I think ladies should dress fashionably but modestly and strapless outfits are not lady like in my book.  Thanks Gladys for my outfit; even if it was so fashionable I thought the blouse was a skirt!  :-)  Below shows the full outfit with the actual skirt below the top!  :-)

"Twisted" Food Bloopers

Yesterday evening after work I was excited to come home and bake my light and smooth strawberry cream pie recipe to see if it could be added to The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance.  (It was successful.)  I baked it and several other things into the night feeling great to have a free evening to be at home and baking.  Even made myself a cocktail.  WELL, turns out my free evening was "twisted" b/c today, I went to work and someone asked me how Jeremiah Musical Choir Practice had gone, and I told them we had no choir practice last night and I was sure I was right until I flipped through my emails and found Mr. Malone's practice schedule email for "The Jermiah Musical The People's Chorus" schedule and OOPS I had accidentally skipped practice.  What did I do?  I had to email Mr. Malone and apologize.  There was no excuse I could come up with; what was I going to say I mean I was baking a pie and enjoying myself!  :-)  I was even prepared for him to kick me out of the musical for not showing up, but he was very nice and said he understood.  That's what I get for not looking at my day planner....so my relaxing evening was at an expense.  Oops!

Tonight, day after the choir skipping blooper, I realized I'm just tired and need sleep; something has been going on every night lately.  I was cutting up garlic and looked down and realized my cutting board was turned upsidedown.  I don't ever remember cutting on a cutting board on the "flipped side."  I'm still up, but probably should be in bed.  At least I didn't catch the house on fire!

Ladies Night At Lisa Hogan's

Lisa Hogan threw a ladies night in her home last night while her husband Patrick is out of town on business.  It was a great evening of fellowship, great snacks, and a great movie.  The move was in German (words translated to English on screen) and it was about the 1989-1990 period when East and West Germany were united.  Photo Above shows left to right:  Lisa herself, Ivory Nice in the kitchen, my sister in law Sonia to the right.  Photo below shows Shandise Brown.  Adar Nice, Tarah Hercus, Staci Barrett, and Valerie Jenkins were also in attendance.  Thanks Lisa for the good time!

Candid Shots From Eric and Evie Hessong's Wedding

 Eric and Evie Hessong's Wedding from yesterday held in front of the field house.  FORGIVE the VERY poor quality of these candid pics.  Used my "iphone want to be cell phone" and their ceremony was right at sunset.  Their wedding was streamed live by Colleen Winn so hopefully a few people got to watch it.  I think my brother and Sonia have started a new HQ trend...stream your wedding live, and Colleen Winn seems to be the official streaming videographer.  It's great, bringing the family around the world together!  VERY Fun wedding; toasts were hilarious, and they even played Earth Wind and Fire songs at their reception....aka favorite disco songs!

Couple looking at the camera list to see who was watching online.

Lador Day Labor!--Sneak Peek of a Few Recipes in The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance

Labor Day Weekend was dedicated to Culinary Labor in my house.  A few recipes to be featured in cookbook.  All of the following recipes were tested by myself and other test tasters, and pased the test of approval to be placed in cookbook 

ABOVE:  Fried Pineapple in Almond

 Started off with Fresh Pineapple and cut it into strips

Added freshly ground almond meal in a bowl along with a another ingredient to add flavor.  By the way, almonds are VERY healthy and yummy with great nutritional value.

Coated and Fried pineapples rolled in almonds until done.  Measurements and other ingredients used in this recipe will be found in The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance. Absolutely yummy and gourmet!

Tired of paying almost $4.00 for one little carton of BROWN RICE MILK in the grocery store for the lactose intolerant who can't drink cow's milk?  Did you know you can easily make it yourself in your own kitchen!  Recipe with measurements will be in cookbook.  Here's a sneak peek of how it's done.

 Boiled rice in water for a specific time frame.

Added to food processor, not all at the same time, and blended in my kitchen aid blender until liquidfied.  (Note:  This is a very heavy duty nice blender and that is requred to properly liquidfy...other nice brands of blender should work as well too, but heavy duty kitchen aid brand is great.)

Using the pitcher that I planned to store the rice milk in, I put a sieve on top, poured the blended rice milk into the sieve catching all the rice bits and only allowing the liquid milk into the pitcher.  Vahlah, homemade rice milk that is a whole lot cheaper made easily right in the home.

Using a chicken tigh I made Homemade Chicken Stock from all natural chicken so that I could make homemade Cream of Chicken Soup.  I'm VERY picky about chicken since your cheaper chicken tends to be loaded with hormones, (My joke is being a woman I already have enough estrogen in me. :-)  )  ....so I tend to prefer making chicken products from scratch and from all natural fed chickens.  Most people know how to make chicken stock, but if not, there will be a recipe in the cookbook on how to do so.

Finished Cream of Chicken Soup.  Came out yummy.  Used my homemade rice milk and chicken broth, brown rice flour, and natural herb spices to get the taste I desired to resemble the store bought kind that most are used to.  This is all natural and healthy without the peservatives.  Of course it will be featured in The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance.

 Cream of Chicken Soup when first put in pot before the rice flour thickend.

 Homemade made from scratch Pumpkin Pie.  Looked at the ingredients on the back of the pumpkin pie filling that most common people use....was shocked at all the unhealthy ingredients in it, so why not make it yourself!....SUGAR FREE AND GLUTEN FREE!  That makes this pie HEALTHY and easy on the waist!  NON GLUTEN recipe to be featured in the cookbook!

 Made non gluten crust from brown rice flour, oil, and water...as simple as that!

 Pureed fresh pumpkin and poured into pie shell and baked in oven until done.

 Homemade GLUTEN FREE AND SUGAR FREE Blueberry Pie!

Blueberries are a SUPER FOOD.  Super foods are some of the healthiest foods on Earth.  Look up the health benefits of blueberries for yourself if you want.  This pie has no sugar or gluten in it, and no corn starch in it, so that means this dessert is healthy with great nutritional value!  Exciting!

Made the pie shell out of brown rice flour, oil, and water.

 Mixed blueberries with brown rice flour, pure powdered stevia, cinnamon, all spice, sea salt, and a few other herbs and spices for flavor.  Picture below shows raw blueberry mix poured into pie shell before it was baked. 

 Made what I called "Cowboy Sirloin Beef Strips" for my dinner after a full day of cooking.

 Made Beef Broth from the sirloin steak.  Why buy beef broth when you can make it yourself?  Beef broth recipe to be in cookbook.

 This is why I called the Sirloin Steak Cowboy Steak.  Used this all natural BBQ from the health food farmers market!  Sale going on all their natural herbs!

 Check out the ingredients.  All healthy BBQ mix made with all natural herbs!  So yummy on beef!

 Cut up a few strawberries and tried to decide what to do with them.

 Added All Natural Plain Greek Yogurt and Stevia.  Thought about coming up with a twist on Strawberry Mousse, but decided that Strawberry Mousse can't really be any better than it is traditionally.

Ended up pureeing in blender and put in freezer.  Decided to make a Strawberry Creme Pie with a few more ingredients added later on this week.