Dancing Queen

 

She is a Star, I tell ya.

A Day in the Life

The girls made a video the other day with a friend.  It's always good to be able to laugh at yourself.  Enjoy!

PRIMAL-ish PIZZA CRUST

Thought I would put this here, even if it is already on facebook.  Redundancy is a good thing when it comes to saving digital info, right?

I'm not gonna call this fully Primal, or grain free, but it is gluten free. I have tweaked the flours to go for more protein and fat and less carb, but there is a fair bit of carby carb left. SO, if you are going for a very low carb diet, you might not want to make this. However, if you want pizza as your 20% or as a cheat, or even on a carb re-feed day, this should fit the bill nicely! I have yeast in this because I like the taste. If you don't want it you could add some baking soda, or just rely on the eggs for lift. My goal with this pizza was to make a compromise between the purely paleo/primal purist crusts and your standard gluten free - but chock full of carbs- crust. I want to have my pizza and eat it, too!
125 grams blanched almond flour
100 grams coconut flour
100 grams sweet rice flour
100 grams tapioca starch
75 grams potato starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp guar gum
1 Tbsp sea salt
4 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2-1 cup warm water
1 cup cheese (I like 1/2 parmesan and 1/2 mozzarella)
1 cup finely shredded zucchini/summer squash
3 eggs
1. Mix flours, starches, gums and salt in a big mixing bowl until well combined, with no lumps.
2. Add yeast to 1/2 cup warm water to proof.
3. Add cheese and zucchini to the flour mixture and mix and rub the ingredients together until fully mixed.
4. Beat eggs in a small bowl or measuring cup. Add yeast mixture and oil, then add this to the big bowl of flour. Mix well, adding more water if needed. It will be a moist dough, but it should hold it's shape well.
5. Let rest/rise for 1 hour. It won't rise like wheat dough, but those yeasties will be eating some of the sugars for ya! And making the yummy taste of pizza dough.
6. Divide dough into 2 or more lumps. Roll out between sheets of parchment paper to desired thickness. I like them thin because they will puff up in the oven by about double. When I get the circle I want, I take off the top parchment and fold over the edge of the dough to make a little crust - about a 1/2 inch wide or so. Then I put the parchment back on, put my hand under the bottom paper and flip the whole thing over. It makes a nice looking edge that imitates a wheat dough crust, if you care about that sort of thing. Take off the top paper and brush olive oil over the whole top of the crust.
7. Put in a 500 degree oven for five minutes, preferably on a pizza stone, leaving the parchment under the crust. If you don't have a stone, a cookie sheet is fine.
8. Take out of oven, top as you see fit and return to the oven for another 5-7 minutes, or until it is as bubbly and browned as you like. Enjoy!

Makes 2 pizzas, with about 25 grams of carbs per slice, if you cut 8 slices per pizza.  Not horrible, but a treat, for sure.  Good thing this is a very filling pizza.

Thoughts of Home

Wow, I need a makeover around here.  It doesn't help that my point and shoot camera is broken (sand got in it in HI) and I just don't want to carry around my Canon SLR right now.  So, new pictures are needed to inspire a new design here on the blog that reflects where I am now.

Where am I right now?  Home. I'm home, at last.  You all probably know how much being home means to me.  If not, it means everything.  I am finally ME, as I prefer to be, as the world needs me, in my element.  You could say I could have learned to be ME in whatever place I found myself, and you would be right.  But, I didn't wanna!  I know how to do that.  Been there, done that.  Done with that.  I want my energies to be used to further my plans and dreams in this place I have chosen.  Or has it chosen me?  I don't know.  All I know is that when I am here, in this town, in this house, with these people, I feel...at peace, energized, comfortable, strong, happy.

It wasn't always this way.  I wasn't happy here, at various times in my life.  I had to go away, to find out who I was and wanted to be.  I had to go away to become the person I needed to be to be able to be here and for here to be HOME.

There are some amazing places in this world and I am so blessed to be able to have visited and lived in them.  When we travel, my family always looks around and says, 'Oh, this place reminds me of (insert some other place we have been)."  I found that the places that reminded me most of this little spot on Earth in Upstate New York were the ones I liked best.  Matamata and Cambridge, New Zealand.  Hood River, Oregon.  The Todd Mall, Alice Springs. The differences made each place seem exotic, but the similarities made them feel comfortable.  Like I could live there.  If only my family and friends could be transplanted there with me....

See how much easier it is just to come home and call it good?

Light and Love

There is beauty in chaos sometimes....

And there are always flaws in highly ordered systems...

Random Stuff

So, tomorrow they come to pack our stuff.  Friday it goes on a truck in a crate or two, then on a train to Aldelaide, and then on a boat to home.  I am pretty much ready for the packers.  I have a few last minute tasks to keep me busy while I oversee the packing.  In true Aussie style, I have no idea when they will show up, or how many packers will come.  No one called to let us know like they said they would. Oh well, I'll be up and ready for them bright and early.  No worries!  I think I have the hang of this laidback life. ;-)

I would like to blog more.  I had said that I would blog all about our adventures down under before we got here.  I tried, I really did.  But, it felt mostly like normal boring life and not like an adventure at all, after the first bit.  There just wasn't that much to talk about.  Well, there was a ton of stuff I wanted to talk about, it just wasn't appropriate for the blog.  Some of what I want to talk about is still like that, but I am also brimming with ideas and projects to share, when we get home.  Of course, we still have Sydney and Cairns and Hawaii to visit, so I will share that.

I'm tempted to reflect on our time here, but I know I should wait till we are gone so the fullness of it all can settle in my mind.  Right now, I would bitch about the crime and the lack of recycling and the remoteness and loneliness, or things like that.  I want to get home and let the negative stuff fade away, as it does, and then I can focus on all the good.  There has actually been a lot of good to come out of this crazy year.  I would not be who I am today without having spent a year in the Alice, and I know I will always be grateful for this experience.

My New Favorite Color

See that blue? That's glacial blue and it is my new favorite color. I must have it in my life, somehow, from now on. Thanks to New Zealand for making that color and thank goodness I got to go and see it with my own eyes.
Picture was taken, btw, on the drive to Milford Sound through the Fjordland National Park. Bus driver was nice enough to stop long enough to let us snap a few photos.

Blogger, How I Miss Thee

Facebook is great, but sometimes you need to navel gaze a bit and nothing but a blog post will do. I have a story to share.
Once upon a time there was a little girl. Her family lived in the best place in the world and she was happy. Then, her father got a job in a far away place and the family had to move. She saw the move as an adventure and looked forward to living there. She made some friends and had many fun adventures, making fond memories. After a while, her mother got tired of living in this far away place and pined to go home. After only about a year, they moved back to the best place in the world, except the father could not join them. He had to work far away for a while longer. The family was sad about this, but they were happy to be Home, too. About a year passed and the father got a new job in the best place in the world and the family was back together once again. And they were happy.
The funny thing is this is my story. This happened to me as a child. But it is also my children's story. I hope it turns out the same in the end. Keep your fingers crossed that it only takes a year for us to be back together fully.