3 Reviews in 1 Just For You!

 

What more could I ask for than to be able to review an awesome product from Simplified Pantry!The  Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Simplified Pantry is available for purchase.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this PDF file, there are so many tips and tricks for the gluten free and dairy free lifestyle. For those of us that live this each and every day, it's been a blessing to find some new recipes to add to the weekly menu plan.

Lots of slow cooker or crockpot meals for the coming hot summer days to keep your home cool, yet get good quality foods on the table for your family. No fancy ingredients, but lots of pantry items in these recipes. I love how there is a Master Pantry List.

 

An entire page of marinades!! Perfect for summer grilling.

 

How many of you say that you want to eat more healthy fish, but are not sure how to cook it? YUMMO!! 3 fish recipes.

 

Pasta on a gluten free diet? YOU BET! Some delicious looking recipes in the Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Simplified Pantry recipes.

 

Looking to add more fiber? They have bean recipes just for you!

 

Mexican they got that too!

 

Nice hearty Soups & Stews, 4 pages worth.

 

Full meal salads, side salads and veggie dishes too.

 

Desserts like Peanut Butter Cookies, Berry Sorbet, Chocolate Mousse and many more sweet treats.

 

And last but not least a menu planner! LOVE that! Though I wish that I could type in the PDF menu planner, that would be a wonderful added touch. I could type my menus and print it out.

 

My only complaint about the Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Simplified Pantry is that it suggests using frozen meat in your crockpot/slow cooker, I DO NOT AGREE WITH DOING THIS. NOR DO I ADVOCATE DOING THIS.  I will admit to having done this in the past before I took a food sanitation class and learned that the meat ends up being 3 different temperatures while cooking in the crockpot/slow cooker. Some of the meat it hot, some cool and some warm, which ends up being a hot bed for bacteria growth. So each time you are doing this you risk harming your family with food poisoning (that flu bug that everyone seems to get can actually be caused by food poisoning).

 

This is for any level of cook, I did not come across anything at all that was too hard or had any weirdo ingredients. I printed out a copy of the PDF and took it to one of my gluten free cooking classes that I teach at our local college for the students to look it over. Many of the people commented that the recipes looked easy and doable.

The Simplified Pantry Blog has a few other products including a regular meal planner, Simplified Pantry. That has similar recipes to the gluten free/dairy free version. I did see some that were clearly gluten containing meals, but they could all be pretty easily converted to gluten free/dairy free recipes.

 

You will also find available for purchase the Paperless Home Organization ! This is awesome and works as a binder system in a digital age. Organize everything on your Apple and Android devices!!! Both PDF and Kindle versions are available. This homeschool, unorganized, computer no-nothing Momma...lol. Loves this. Step by step instructions on how to set it all up. This has come at the perfect time for me. I have some summer free time to play with this and have it all up and running by the start of school. This is SOOO COOL!!! I totally recommend this. 

Hope you enjoy these products, I sure have. I really enjoy being a part of the TOS Review Crew, but this review really WOW'd me, it was something fun for me as the Momma and I learned some new menu tricks that I have enjoyed implementing in our home. Thank you TOS!!

  

 

GOTCHA DAY! Adoption Day!

This week we celebrated our son's adoption day, we call it GOTCHA DAY! In our home when it's your special day (birthday or Gotcha Day) you get to pick your meals. Our son picked cold cereal for breakfast, we normally have hot breakfast so this was a treat. Lunch was a favorite buffet restaurant and dinner was Subway. In the past we have spent the night at a hotel swimming,  gone to the zoo, played board games all evening long or find other fun stuff to do for his Gotcha Day! We had planned a fun field trip to tap maple trees for syrup but those plans unraveled. We got on the road by 7am with my sister in law (AKA favorite Aunt of the child) in tow and headed toward the forest of maple trees.

About an hour into the drive husband calls to say the field trip was cancelled due to weather. From the backseat comes a yell to head to the children's museum instead. OK, foiled plans are now made in to more fun plans!! It was cold (33 degrees) anyway and I think we were all a bit glad it was going to be an inside day. We decided to take a side trip to look at the baby chicks at the feed store, always a fun time. We now have BABY CHICK FEVER! lol. We will need to go to the doctor for that cause I ain't got no energy to care for baby chicks right now, though we only have about 4 chickens left in the freezer. We did buy a chicken hutch that was $119.00 on sale for $89.00. When I am up on my feet again we will get some meat birds to fill that up. YUM!!

Then we headed off to the museum, we get in free with our son's AOPA membership so that is pretty cool! Since I am not up for much in the way of walking around and expending energy since my surgery/leak/infection, I rested on a bench, then sat for a few hours in the lunch room. I brought the Kindle Fire along with me to watched an episode of the Duggars show 19 Kids and Counting, if you want to know exactly what my only child is like, he is a carbon copy of the Duggar boy that is interested in cameras and photography, I will have to ask our son what that boys name is. If anyone knows post the name, I know it starts with a J . . . hahaha, but I can't come up with it, post it on my blog please. Josiah is his name!

After the children's museum we headed off to the mall since I needed some new pants, none of mine fit anymore since the surgery, my stomach is still swollen, though this morning I did see a bit of my large incision, so the swelling is going down some. We walked around the mall and sat down a few times. Son treated his Aunt to a chair massage, they both liked it. I thought it might be too much for me so I just watched. Did not buy any clothes, but got talked into being a model for a fashion show and I will get 40% off my purchases that day. I'm thinking it was the pain meds that made me do it!  Otherwise I would NEVER consent to being a fashion model. But for 40% off everything that I buy, well I'm thinking I can do this. And the child was going nuts about it, so I said "YES!"

After all this they wanted to go to a bookstore, I conceded and headed out to the car to recline. I napped and ate some egg salad (what other type of sandwich would you eat when you raise chickens?) and chips. They enjoyed themselves and Auntie thought she would never get the child out of the bookstore...hahaha, she was getting tired and there are no chairs in this particular book store, I guess they don't want you to sit around and sample the books before you buy.

We arrived home around 10pm, I was pooped (pun intended after my intestinal surgery. . . LOL), the next day I did NOTHING but breathe, sleep and eat. I am for sure not ready for a day out like that again for awhile.

There is a silver lining to all this.
After all the stress of my illness and added responsibility that the child has had over the last 6 months, remember I broke my foot, ended up on bed rest with it, then was hospitalized in December (Diverticulitis), then again in January (surgery), then yet again in February (infection). Now my recovery phase (should be back to normal by summer, but really what is NORMAL. . . hahaha.) It's been a really long ride for all of us. So this comment from our son really threw me for a loop, it got me thinking WOW I guess love is what it's all about (the love of the Father first and foremost) and you just do what you have to do to make it through. I think this has all been a HUGE learning experience for our son, in watching how Daddy takes care of me and how our marriage vowes really come into play with something like this, especially when your spouse is not able to function for months on end, you have to take on household responsibilities and new financial responsibilities (my medical bills just for 12 days in the hospital + all the extras of tests, co-pays, prescriptions etc. are well over $100,000.00 and insurance is fighting $48,000 of that saying it was not medically necessary for me to be in the hospital for the infection and IV antibiotics. Prayers would be appreciated in this area. I am thinking that there is an insurance coding glitch or something since I was very ill and I don't think I would have fared very well at home in the condition I was in, there is no way I could have functioned at home.

I pray that our son will remember us getting through these times when/if his wife or children should ever become ill. I look at this as a time of growing for all of us, and WOW what opportunities I had to share through the course of my illness, to God Be The Glory is all I can say! As I feel up to it I will share more things that I encountered through my illness.

Visiting Mom in the hospital. I look much better now!

I will leave you with the comment from our child the night before his Gotcha Day, he says to me "Mom, I am so glad that you adopted me." I said "Why?" He says "Because I get to grow up in a Christian home, I get chickens and I get to have a dog." I told him "Thank you and also be thankful for your birth parents, they made a really hard decision in placing you for adoption."

How does your family celebrate Gotcha Day!?

 

Stop by my blog

http://adoptivemomhomeschoolinganonlychild.blogspot.com/

2 FREE Kindle Books for Gluten Free foods

Enjoy!!

33 Simple Gluten-Free Lunches

A Gluten Free Thanksgiving

Moe