Monday, January 30, 2012

Shooting Guns--Sunday Fun!

This Sunday Benjamin Tauer and Gary Basquez, invited me to shoot guns with them. It's been a looong time since I've shot a real gun, so at first it was tough, getting reacquainted with the weight of a real gun and the kick it has on the shoulder when fired, (women really don't have the strength of men though some try not to admit it, but it's the physical truth) but by the time the last round was fired, I started hitting the target and I didn't accidentally shoot my own foot or anyone else so it was great! :-)! Fun. Proves I'm still the gal that grew up in Texas, but I confess, I was deep conditioning my hair under my turbine as I was shooting! :-)

All these bullet holes came from "my own finger on the gun trigger." I'm so cheesy taking a pic of my target and the bullet holes!

I hit the 6 ring THREE TIMES! Happy to see that the 6 ring is sooo close to the bullseye!
It was a total accident, but I hit the 6 almost in the exact same spot twice.


Gary is a great shot and has a fancy gun....though the photographer....aka me.....did a very poor job on the creative angle of this shot....looks like he's shooting the house siding.

Benjamin Tauer also a great shot, reloads his gun while Gary Shoots.

Benjamin Shoots

Fun With Non Gluten Pancakes

Ashley Buckler tried her hands at making Brown Rice flour pancakes at my house this weekend. She put me to shame....she got the hang of frying pancakes made from brown rice flour faster than I. It cooks twice as fast as regular wheat flour pancakes.

Last week I was feeling way exhausted, so this past Sunday I didn't sew or do any house chores, I decided to relax for once in my life, but I always have to be productive; else I'd feel like a lazy bum, so I cooked a lot, understatement!...and I got back to feeling well rested!

Ashley decided to show off her creative cooking skills and made a Micky Mouse shaped Brown Rice Pancake. If she ever wants to get a job at Disney I'm sure this would be her resume ticket in! :-)

Her pile of finished Brown Rice Pancakes. (Recipe for these healthy gluten free (friendly to your waistline) pancakes are listed in another blog entry below.)

All Natural Chicken Fried Steak

Tried making all natural Chicken Fried Steak dinner for a friend and myself with all natural grass fed beef, and brown rice flour w/natural seasonings. I have to say, for a first try not bad, but being someone who likes food super spicy, it came out wayyyy toooo bland for my liking, so next time I make this I know just what to add to it to give it more kick! I'll add a touch of chili powder, chop up a few fresh garlic cloves, and add a lot more freshly ground black pepper!

Mixed my "too bland" seasonings together with Rice Flour and then covered beef with the flour mixture on both sides.....

Then covered both sides of the beef with egg, then dipped the egg covered beef back in the flour mixture.

Fried in skillet

Rice Flour Chicken Fried Steak Done

Oops!.....forget to make a side dish, so pulled lentils from frig and reheated, and instead of making a high calorie white gravy for the chicken fried steak, made a white sauce from 1/2 Cup pureed white beans, 1 Cup of rice milk with garlic to taste, sea salt to taste, and freshly ground black pepper to taste.....thanks to a tip from a friend in Texas. Both she and her husband are excellent cooks. Thanks Melissa! Tasted great and not all the calories and fat of the regular white gravy....I plan to make the "white bean gravy" from now on now. I mashed the beans by hand, so they weren't all "pureed" but next time I'll do it right and use a food processor to get them nice and smooth!

Healthy Dessert!

Whipped up my frozen sugar free strawberry treat for a late night dessert. (Recipe for this is on a previous post on this blog)


Tilapia Skillet Dinner

Decided to try Tilapia Fish w/kinda the same recipe I made up for the salmon that I posted last week; only I used yellow onions instead of the green with the tilapia. Came out alright though I preferred the Salmon dish.


Brown Rice Flour Pancakes!

Tried my hands at making Brown Rice Flour pancakes this weekend. Took me THREE tries at it before I got the pancakes just right. The flour made from Brown Rice fried A LOT faster than wheat flour...it seemed like as soon as I poured the batter in the frying pan it was done on one side. The first 3 were burnt badly. I felt like such a dum, dum! Finally got it right. This is a healthy non-gluten(doesn't turn to glucose sugar when digested) pancakes, wheat free, and lactose free...guilt free too. They taste really light! (this is NOT one of my original recipes....found it on the internet) I used my sugar free natural blueberry jam as the spread.


Ingredients used......1 Cup Rice Milk, 1 Cup Brown Rice Flour, 1 tbsp non aluminum Baking Powder, 1 Cage Free Brown Egg, 1/2 tsp Sea Salt, I FORGOT to photo the 2 tsp olive oil....mix all together....

Pour batter into hot frying pan or griddle, over medium high heat; with the rice flour, it's ready to flip in literally a few seconds, otherwise it's burnt...you can tell when the top is really all bubbly like you see in the photo

Vahlah! Done, healthy, guilt free, light, yummy!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Easy Garlic Salmon Skillet Dinner!

Here is the finished result of a throw it in the pan fish meal that I tried on Sunday. It was successful and so yummy. Most people know fish is very healthy, so lately I've been into eating A LOT of fish and trying to make it taste yummy. In the past, fish was never one of my favorite foods, but if prepared certain ways, even as a non fish lover, I've grown to actually LIKE fish A LOT to where I crave it. Here is a quick recipe to a fast skillet dinner that's healthy, nutritional, and yummy!

First off, on a whim I decided to "skin a fresh pineapple" and cut it into bite size pieces. I set it aside for later use to eat, and for garnishing my salmon dish.

Then going through my spice cabinet, I decided since salmon has a more fishy taste, to use stronger spices...so I ended up with lemon pepper, sea salt, fresh garlic that I chopped, and fresh green onion that I chopped. (I used 3 fresh garlic cloves cut finely, and 4 fresh green onion stalks cut finely.)

Next in my new Orgreenic non stick all non toxic skillet. (I'm sure you all have seen the commercial for these and all I have to say is they work great and made from non toxic non stick pans, and you don't have to use ANY oil or butter with ANYTHING using these skillets. Amazing!) Anyway, I put one still frozen salmon fillet in the skillet without oil. So excited about that! :-) However, if you use a different brand of skillet, then you'll need to use olive oil to keep fillet from sticking.

Next I coated both the bottom and the top with my seasoning mixture of lemon pepper, sea salt, chopped garlic, and chopped green onion. I coated the bottom first, common sense as to the amount of lemon pepper and sea salt to sprinkle on going on personal taste, and then carefully flipped with care making sure my seasonings stayed in place on the bottom and repeated this process on the top as shown.

Not to forget that I had cooked a serving of wild rice mixed with brown rice to go with my dish. It takes brown rice mixed with wild rice about 50 minutes to cook, so I cooked my rice before I cooked the fish so everything would be ready to go and eat. I was hungry! :-) (1 Cup of wild/brown rice mixture, 2 cups water, bring rice and water to a boil over medium to medium high heat, then add a lid to the pan, reduce heat to low and let cook covered for 50 minutes until all water is drained out and vahlah!...most people are going duh on this one. :-) )