Pamela's, again

I ♥♥♥ these cookies!  The Lemon Shortbread cookies are delicious.  I savored each and every bite of each one of the cookies I had from this box.  I was sad that I had to share them with the kids.  I was disappointed the kids liked them.  I was vexed that Paul had more than one when he said he did not like them.  He says they were too strong.  I thought the intense lemon flavour was perfect.  The words that come to mind to describe the flavour: lemon, refreshing, light, clean, crisp, rich, mmmmm.  Texture wise they were perfect; firm enough to take a real bite, but soft enough the they almost dissolved in my mouth, small nuggets of something throughout the cookie that burst with extra flavour.  Yes, I will be buying these.  Yes, they will be for ME, the only person in the family that doesn't even need to eat gluten free.  I need to stop thinking about these cookies, I think I'm drooling.

Pancakes.  We checked out a kids gluten free cookbook from the library a couple weeks.  The cover has a pancake face.  Alayna has been asking to make pancakes with a face since.  I don't think Alayna or Cavell have ever had a real pancake, even of the gluten free variety.  Paul has tried a couple of high protein "pancakes" but they weren't good and don't count.  Well, one can imagine Alayna's excitement when she saw the Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix.

Big success.  Golden, fluffy and tasty.  What more could you ask for in a pancake?  Paul made a triple batch with the kids, who made faces on them with fruit.  Even Lex enjoyed a couple of cakes.  And just to put his Papa coolness over the top, the last cakes where served with leftover birthday ice cream with cherries and chocolate sauce on top.

There is a little over 2 batches left.  Waffles do not tempt us.  We have perfected our waffle recipe and make a double batch about every week.  Now we need to decide if we will try crepes or muffins with it, or just have another pancake meal.  This is a mix I can see keeping on hand in the pantry.  Paul says we can and should make our own pancakes from scratch instead.  Seeing how this was the first time we've made pancakes says that we "can't" do that.  If we do, we will have to experiment to find The Recipe.  If we try pancake recipes, they will be competing with these.

A couple of updates.  I was looking at the picture of the organic cookies' box.  It seems there were three more cookie packs of another, unknown to me, flavour.  I did not get a taste of them, I don't even know what they were!  I do know I found one of the wrappers in the living room in the kids' pillow corner, but that was the PB Chocolate Chip flavour.  But, I put the box on the top shelf after I found the wrapper.  It does make me wonder where the last three went.  I have my suspicions that it was Paul.
Also, Paul actually liked the Chocolate Chunk Pecan Shortbread, obviously more than the Lemon Shortbread.  He thought they were good.  But, I don't think he liked them enough to bother buying them.

More Pamela's

The mystery has been solved!  My sister's friend's wife works at Pamela's Products.  I guess she shared about our family of Celiacs and we became the recipients of a large sample package.  Thank you, Stephanie, Stephanie's friend, Stephanie's friend's wife, and Pamela's Products.  Now for more of our product reviews.

Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies.  Yum.  I should probably compare these to the Famous Amos cookies but it has been a looong time since I've tasted those.  I happened to have some Chips Ahoy Saturday.  These really are very similar, except the Chips Ahoy* are a little bigger and have more chocolate chips.  Pamela's Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies are drier, in a crunchy way, which is still a tastey way.  That's a good thing when it is what you want, which is what I want from this type of cookie.
* I am talking about the original, blue bag Chips Ahoy.


Ginger Mini Snapz.  I don't remember eating ginger cookies before the family needed to eat gluten free.  Then, I only bought the Mi-Del version because they were available at our regular grocery store and would be an acceptable substitute/improvement for graham crackers in the crust of our traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin cheesecake.  Well, these taste like that, I think, it's been awhile.  These have a strong flavour; tingle you tongue strong, which, in my opinion, is good for a ginger cookie.

We liked all three versions of the Simplebites cookies (remember the Extreme Chocolate Mini Cookies from the previous post?).  They are what one expects from a packaged snack cookie, even a regular gluten version.  They aren't "to die for!"  They aren't the best cookie you will ever eat.  They are the kind of cookies you technically buy for the kids, but you will nibble on one now and then, and maybe pop another in your mouth here or there because these are enjoyable.  Then you realize that you have probably eaten half of the kids' cookies, because, while they have been put out of reach of the children, you can still reach them.  Or maybe that is just me (and Paul)?

I'm sorry to say we had some "fails" in our sampling.  The boxed version of the Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies (Cavell is holding the box) and the Organic cookies: we sampled the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and the Chocolate Chunk Pecan Shortbread.  We were also given samples of the Espresso Chocolate Chunk Cookies, but we aren't fans of the taste or smell of coffee items, so Paul is giving those to someone at work.

I had the same problem with the Chocolate Chip and PB Chocolate Chip cookies.  They were too soft.  Just holding a cookie felt like it was going to come apart in my fingers, or my thumb was going to poke thru from the bottom as the cookie fell around.  There was some actual drooping of the cookie as I held it.  I didn't feel like I could really bite the cookies.  It was like they came apart when I started to bite them.  While they weren't actually dry, the powdery texture they became in my mouth made them seem dry.

The pecan cookie was dry and hard, but still broke easily.  While I could bite it, it just exploded into crumbs in my mouth.  Those crumbs were rather tasteless. There wasn't much chocolate chunk to try and make up for the lack of flavour either.  Maybe this is actually a flaw of any pecan shortbread?  It's been a few years since I had a Keebler Sandies and I wasn't a fan of them anyway.

Not to worry, as you can see we have more items to review, and I'm certain the positives will out weigh these negatives.

Aloo Gobi

Stacy attended an evening cooking class with a friend and learned how to cook a few Indian dishes.  Her first attempt at home was the dish Aloo Gobi, made famous here in America from it's reference in the movie, Bend it Like Beckham. The dish is described as a traditional north Indian delicacy which is a dry dish made from Potatoes and Cauliflower and Indian spices. We just call it awesome. It's normally considered a vegetarian dish, but it tastes incredible when served on top of chicken!

Alayna and Cavell turned their noses up at the dish, but Lex really enjoyed it.  Stacy and I were both surprised because this dish has a pretty strong flavor, but he kept diving for the spoon and sucking on the food to get all the flavor out before swallowing.  At least one of our kids can appreciate a good chunk of cauliflower.

Here's the recipe Stacy received from the Executive Chef at Gourmage who taught the cooking class.  The changes we have made are in parenthesis.

Aloo Gobi

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil (We use just enough olive oil to saute the onions.)

1 Medium onion, medium diced

1 Bunch fresh Cilantro, separate leaves from stalks and chop the stalks

1 Small Green chili, minced

1 Large head Cauliflower cut into larger bite sized pieces (we've been using frozen)

3 White potatoes peeled and cut into bite sized pieces (we use sweet potatoes)

1 Can whole peeled tomatoes, grated (we use 1 can diced)

Thumb length fresh ginger peeled and grated (1 1/2 tsp of or frozen, grated ginger)

3 Cloves garlic, grated (minced)

1 Tblsp Cumin seeds

2 tsp Tumeric

2 tsp Salt

2 tsp Garam Masala (recipe follows)

Directions:

Heat oil in a large pan or Wok over medium heat.  Add onion and cumin.  Cook till onion is creamy golden.  Add chopped cilantro stalks, tumeric, salt, and minced chili.  Stir in tomatoes, ginger, and garlic.  Mix well to combine and add potatoes and cauliflower.  Completely coat the potatoes and cauliflower in the sauce and add a few spoonfuls of water (to keep vegetables from sticking).  Cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes (or until potatoes are tender).  Gently stir in Garam Masala and remove from heat.  Sprinkle chopped cilantro leaves on top and cover until ready to serve.

Garam Masala

1 Tblsp ground Cumin

11/2 tsp ground Coriander

11/2 tsp ground Cardamom

11/2 tsp ground Black pepper

1      tsp Cinnamon

1/2   tsp ground Cloves

1/2   tsp ground Nutmeg

Birthday Followup

In a couple of the cards Alayna received for her birthday, there was MONEY!  Alayna was very excited and was ready to go shopping the next day.  We made her wait until Saturday for a Girls' Day Out with her mama.  Now she can share what she purchased.

Pink boots, a princess butterfly tiara with clip on earrings, and nail polish (sparkles and bright pink).

She wanted to show the flowers inside the boots.

Thank you Grandpas and Grandmas!

Pamela's Products

Thursday we received a large, mysterious package; addressed to me from Pamela's Products.

I hadn't ordered anything and neither had Paul.  While we enter any blog giveaway for gluten free items we read, neither of us had won any, or if we had, we hadn't given our name or address to anyone.
There was NO information about WHY we had received it!  We even called our moms to check if it was a gift.  Nothing.  But, we were not going to complain when we saw what was inside.  We'll even share our own review on the items we received.


Simplebites Extreme Chocolate Mini Cookies. Not only was there a regular package, there was a big box of individually wrapped cookies. We had some of those while revealing the rest of the loot.

These really were extremely chocolate-y!  You know it's good when, the next morning, you find empty wrappers in the kitchen.  Yes, the children went downstairs in the morning and helped themselves to some more cookies.  I put them on the top shelf of the pantry.  By the end of the day, the parents had a couple as well.


Friday afternoon, I noticed that there was a little snip out of the top of a now open bag of Chocolate Chunk Cookie Mix.  I think Cavell was a little disappointed when he only saw powder inside.  Paul made the cookies that night.  We really like that we only had to add a stick of butter and an egg.  Sometimes when we buy a gluten free mix, we feel like we have to add everything to the mix except the rice flour!  The bag says it makes 18-20 cookies.  What!?!?  We used our regular, #50, cookie scoop and only had enough dough for 12.  They did take the whole 20 minutes to bake, which seemed a long time for this size cookie, but was just right for these.

These were very yummy.  Paul liked them enough that the children did not get to try any!  We loved the cocoa powder throughout the cookie, and may try it in our own recipe.  We loved the huge volume of chocolate chunks, and will have to add more chocolate to our own recipe.  Really, I wouldn't mind buying a bag to have on hand in the pantry.  But, $6 for 12 cookies?  We wouldn't be making them every week.

We will share the rest in future posts.

Alayna is 7!

In the morning she was greeted with streamers, a balloon, tiaras and cards.  Sadly, the balloon was taken outside and lost to space before the sun came up.  The cards were opened, enjoyed and saved.

The first present opened after school was her new gym bag and workout outfit.  Followed by a trip to the gym with her dad.  She got in a real good workout.  This was then topped off with a trip to Chick-Fil-A for dinner and playtime at the playground.  There was a balloon man, so her lost balloon was replaced with a couple of balloons that wouldn't float away.  Then it was home for presents.

After receiving a Webkinz pet for her birthday last year, Alayna has been anxiously waiting for a new one.  Welcome to the family, Heather; "like feather, except you replace the F with H."

Lex must know Alayna rather well. The joy that a mirror and hair accessories can bring to a little girl is amazing.

Great Grandpa and Grandma Onines gave her personalized scriptures.  She could hardly believe she now has her own Holy Bible! I contributed a custom scripture bag with the CTR shield "freezer paper stenciled" to the front.

Alayna picked chocolate cake with cherries and a Cool Whip frosting, in large cupcake form.  It was paired with homemade coconut, cherry, chocolate chip ice cream.

Happy birthday, Alayna! I think this is going to be a great year for you.

Failed Project

This week has been Spring Break for Alayna. Since St. Patrick's Day was also this week I thought it would be fun to do a craft project with the kids. Thru a blog trail I can't remember, I found this tutorial to make "Crafts for Children: Stained Glue Shamrock Crafts".

After taping the templates under some wax paper, I poured glue in a little cup and happily started cutting string to length and passing them to Alayna.  I had to stop and cut the cup because it was too tall for her fingers to push the string into the glue.  Alayna and Cavell were now dipping and I was back to snipping.  The kids were having trouble getting the glued string to follow their outlines.  I knew I would have to help Cavell and told Alayna to watch what I did.  Except it was really hard to get the string to follow the outline.  In the time it took for me to get the first ouline done, the kids were bored and left.  That's okay, once the outlines are done the string has to dry overnight and then they can do the glue painting the next day, which should be simple.

Alayna ended up playing at a friends' house the next day, so Cavell and I got ready to paint glue.  Cavell LOVED painting glue.  The filler glue made the string soft and pliable again.  With his brush, Cavell managed to undo a fair portion of the outlining I had done on his shamrocks.

I took the time to carefully do the rainbow myself.  It was not easy to keep the string where it needed to be or to keep the colours separate.  After all that, our project took two days to dry instead of one, so they weren't done in time for St. Patrick's Day.

I took my rainbow off of the wax paper today, except most of the wax paper came off with it.

St. Patrick's Day

This morning I ran the St. Patrick's Day Treadmill 5k at our YMCA.  While I was aiming for some time between 25:30 and 26 minutes, I was quite happy with my 27:01.  I earned some Lucky Charms.

Alayna was very excited for the today's "Green Out" at the Y.

We tried a shamrock hairdo and decided to add a little green.

In ChildWatch the kids tie-dyed some shirts in green and gold, received green leis, party blowers, shamrock stickers, a hat or crown, and their own Lucky Charms treat.  Alayna had her face painted; a bejeweled, glittered butterfly on the left and a rainbow with a pot of gold on the right.  Miss Nell also painted a shamrock on Alayna's hand.  She wanted to make sure you saw it in the picture.  Cavell decided he needed to pose the same way.

Lex's First Tooth

Today, Lex cut his first tooth.  He's been grumpy and drooling for weeks.  This morning was the payoff.  And he won't even let us take a picture.