Snowy Magic

Happy New Year friends! We are coming off of two weeks with all of us off of work and school during which we celebrated a three year old birthday (trains and trucks!), Christmas (hosted dinner for 12 in our tiny house), New Years Eve (a super mellow evening in with just the four of us), and New Years Day (with a very cold hike).

We got a surprise treat of snow for the last day of Winter Break. Catching snow on our tongues, eating ice, sledding at the park and exploring the snowy playground were the activities of the day. I thought it was the perfect ending to the break. Then, in true Portland style, the snow turned to freezing rain overnight and we woke up to everything covered in a thick sheet of ice, and school and work cancelled the next day. A bonus day of break! And then school was cancelled again today. It's not so fun having two extra days of break, in my opinion, even if we did make my favorite oatmeal cookies. I'm beyond ready to get back to our routine.

In an effort to eat something other than hummus and chips for lunch during the week, I've started cooking batches of food on Sunday that are ready to be eaten whenever hunger strikes. I thought my plans were going to be thwarted by the snow, but it turns out I had everything I needed to make a batch of granola, muffins, hummus, and a pot of mojadra. I aspire to be as organized as this lady. Not only is school starting up again, but we'll be adding a gymnastics class and swim classes twice a week, so I need to be very prepared.

As of January 1st we have officially started an elimination diet to sort out Dean's health issues. For the next 6 weeks we aren't eating gluten, eggs, peanuts, pineapple, and chili pepper/powder. When we first discovered that gluten was an issue for him, I stopped baking bread. I've missed it. I found a recipe in an old issue of Taproot for gluten free sourdough. I now have the beginnings of the starter sitting in a jar by the stove under a towel. Once the starter is ready I can make some dough that can be used to make bagels and pizza dough. I can hardly wait!