MLK 2013

I am spending my MLK day 2013 doing some cleaning, lunching, and photo editing.  I can remember last year I had a HUGE day of crafting planned and I didn't get near enough of it done.  This year my goals are much more realistic.

I have even managed to accomplish several things already!

I consolidated three bins into two that should be able to make a trip up to the attic sometime soon.  They happen to have the last holdouts from my teaching.  Those activity games and such that I just spent too much money on to give away or try to sell at a yard sale.  I figure that I will want them when I end up having kids so up in the attic they will go.

I have placed all of the jackets that Jon and I have gone though this week in a bin ready for yard sale.  Hopefully I can manage the strength to go through my closet and get rid of a few more things of mine.

I am currently doing some laundry and editing some photos from our New York trip back in June!

I am using my iLuv that Jon got me for Christmas.  It is a super great  little speaker!

I am planning to have them all edited today so that I can place them into the photo book.  I have two Groupon vouchers that expire in February and I don't want to miss out on the deals we purchased.  I have to say that I am making fairly steady progress.

I will be heading to lunch with Kellee shortly.  We are trying out a new pizza place that has gluten free!  Don't worry, I will be taking photos and will give a full report later.

I hope everyone is having a great MLK day and those of you that had to work, I enjoyed my day extra just for you. :)

Much love,

Amanda

NYC Vacay Part 2

On our third day in the NYC, Liz and Mike brought us to their community farm.

It was so freaking cool!!  They pay for a 1/2 a share and owe the community 9 hours of work over the course of the season.  Each week they get to take their 1/2 share of the food!

I have to say there was amazing looking veggies as you can see.

The view of the city from Governor's Island

After the veggies we headed over to Governor's Island for some lunch, biking, and Statue of Liberty viewing.  It was so great!

Jon and I rented bikes (which were so weird because it had pedal breaks vs. hand breaks).

Hi Mike!

I had never seen the Statue of Liberty before and I was a little underwhelmed.  I thought the statue was smaller than I had expected.  The photos all make it look so huge and in person it wasn't the same.   After checking out Lady Liberty we biked around the rest of the island and checked out all of the old buildings.  It was really interesting to see and think about how people used to actually live on the island.

We headed home and chilled for a bit before leaving to go to the Nitehawk Cinema to watch Moonrise Kingdom.  The theatre was cool because it is one of the dine in ones.  I enjoyed the food and the smore's pie for dessert.  The movie was pretty good.

When we got out of the theatre we realized how cool the building was!  We arrived early so it was still light outside.

We made a trip to a look out area to check out what the city looked like at night.  As we were walking up we heard what we thought were fireworks.

We were right!!  The party they were prepping for on Governor's Island was in full swing.  It was a Gay Pride something or other and they had decided to have fireworks.  It was great because we could see the Statue of Liberty AND the fireworks at the same time.  It was a pretty long show too!

After seeing the fireworks the skyline of the city at night looks pretty darn good too!

On our way home we took a mini tour of Red Hook.  We were not ready with the camera so this was the best shot we were able to take as we were driving by.

On our fourth day in the Big City, Jon and I ventured out on our own!  It was funny how I knew (remembered) how to get to the subway better than Jon!  We made it to the right stop and headed over to the 30 Rock Building.

We thought we were going to have to wait to get a ticket up to the top but we were pleasantly surprised that we were able to go right up!  The elevator ride was crazy!  I almost had my dizzy/sick feeling but luckily it went away quickly.  And yes, it is true you need to ride looking at the ceiling the whole time so you don't miss out.

The view was beautiful!!  I have been up very high to view skylines before in Las Vegas and this was just as amazing but completely different.  I could not believe just now many buildings there were.  And that you could pretty much see them all!!  You could see the Empire Statue Building, the Chrysler Building (which was hidden by the Met Life Building), and Times Square.  I was so happy there were difrerent levels so each view was just a little bit different.  Jon went picture taking crazy.  He also ran into one of his co-workers!  He couldn't believe it.

As we were walking through the levels we found a room where the lights on the ceiling followed you around and made noised.  It was so freaking cool!

I couldn't believe we had gone waaaaay up there!!!

After we left it was time for lunch.  Jon found a Chinese food place online and we hoped that it was going to be delicious.  It wasn't delicious, it was amazing.  When the rice arrived I was worried that Jon wouldn't like it.  With his first bite I could tell he was loving it.

We hit up Times Square and checked out the scene.  Jon went off and took some great shots of the buildings and what not.  I had been before and it was "old news" to me. :)

On our way back home we saw this really interesting building.  It was beautiful.  There were numbers all the way to the left (the ones in the middle changing super crazy).  A guy overhead us talking about it and explained it all to us.  The numbers were in military time, then the crazy numbers were the milliseconds, and the last set was a count down until midnight.  It was amazing.  The center sculpture represents the beginning of the Earth and basically how it was created.  The hand of God at the tippy top (a representation of being the Father of the Earth) was pointing directly at the statue of George Washington (a representation of being the Father of our Country) across the street.  Both of their hands are shaped the same and pointing at each other.  The last part is the little gold ball.  It shows the phases of the moon!  I wished we could have been there at night to see it and how accurate it was.

After all our walking around we headed home and were rewarded by going out to eat pizza!  Yes, I admit I was not gluten-free conscious for this meal.  I had decided that I would have a NY pizza and deal with possible headache later (luckily no headache!).  And holy crap it was totally the best pizza ever.  Oh and yes, Jon and I ate the whole thing...

There is more fun stuff to share next week. :)

Gluten-Free Food Review - Domino's Pizza

I did it!  I tried the Domino's Gluten-Free Pizza.  I am lucky to not have "full blown can't eat gluten at all allergy" so I decided that I wanted to have it.

I ordered it online and fixed it up all how I wanted.  Jon picked up our pizzas on the way home from work.  It was so fun to know that one of those boxes of pizza contained a pizza just for me.  No wheat and no guilty feelings after I ate it.

I open the box and what do I see?????  PIZZA!!!!!

The crust reminded me of the pizza crust from Uno's.  I liked it very much and will definitely get it again.

It was a very exciting and happy feeling to know that I was able to actually order a pizza from a regular pizza joint and know I wouldn't feel terribly gross afterwards.  I hope that more places move towards this, although I would love if they could guarantee zero cross contamination.

Speaking of zero cross contamination Chuck E. Cheese is going to test market some gluten-free pizza and cupcakes at some of their locations.  I am very curious if it catches on (which I hope it does).

That is all for now!

Hot Off the Presses!!!

IT'S TRUE!!!!!  I went to their website and the gluten-free crust is online and available!!!  It is only available in 10 inch size and I think the basic cost is $9.99.  I don't think that is so bad.  Of course once you start adding toppings it gets a bit expensive.  Those with Celiac shouldn't have it since they can not guarantee there won't be cross contamination.

I have yet to try it, but I am dying to.  The bf is doing a whole diet thing and doesn't want to order pizza.  I will let you know immediately when I am finally able to experience it.

If you are lucky enough to get some before I do, let me know how you like it!!

Gluten-Free Food Review - Against the Grain Pizza Crust

I have to warn you I have been playing around with the photo editing websites I mentioned in this post and have made another thing!!

Today's gluten-free review product is by Against the Grain Gourmet.  I have to say I have had a few of their products and LOVE them.  The one will feature here is...

Tada! Pretty graphic.  I do have to work on getting the wording on there better, but it is a start!

This is how the pizza crust started.

These guys were my line up.  The meat mix is from the Publix recipe only without the spinach and brushetta.  Yes those are diced pimentos hiding in the background.

 Can't have pizza without cheese!!

Sauce added.

 Meat mix!

Pimentos and black olives.

In the oven and baking!!  Now this pizza crust is nice because you do not have to pre-heat it.  All you do is take it out of the freezer, put your toppings on, and cook!

Here it is cooked and ready to eat!  I enjoyed the texture very much.  It is slightly airy and chewy but firm enough to hold up the toppings.  I really liked it and will definitely buy it again!

Have a great Wednesday!

Food Friday - Pizza Pasta Bake

I enjoy cooking but the problem normally is that we end up with a great deal of left overs.  The bf doesn't bring lunch to work (which would help this problem and save money) so I am stuck with making sure it gets eaten.  I have begun adjusting some of my moms 5-6 person recipes to better accommodate 2-3 people. That way I don't have to eat the same two meals for three or four days.

One recent recipe that got the slim-down makeover is a Pizza Casserole recipe we got from one of my Aunts.

Yup another hand written one, but at least this one is more organized.  And no, I was not the one to write this down.

So how it was updated.  We did not use as much meat, noodles, or sauce.  The size pan we used was also smaller.

What did we use?

Tinkyada Penne Pasta.  I. Love. This. Pasta.

The meat mixture from this posts Publix recipe.  We had made over 3 pounds that day and froze over half of it.

 We tend to buy pasta sauce in bulk when we have coupons so we had this in the pantry.  Any flavor would do.

 I love olives so they always have to be present on pizza anything.

 This seasoning was already in the meat mixture so we did not end up using it.

Pizza things always must have cheese!  The mozzarella was low so we used both.

On to making it!

First we cooked the pasta.  Then placed the thawed meat mixture in with the drained pasta.

Then we dumped about 2/3rds of the pasta sauce on top of that.

It got stirred and stirred until it was fully mixed and transferred into the pan.

Because of my love of olives my side was covered with them.  Really it can be covered with any toppings desired.  I even added more sauce to my side.  I think I could eat marinara sauce plain.

Next came the cheeeeese!

Bake it in the oven for the time specified. 350 for 20 minutes.

Tada!!!

You can totally tell which is my side.

This could always be made in smaller pans so that each person has their own personal pizza pasta bake.  I think we will have to do that next time.

St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow!  I am racking my brain to think of an outfit with green in it!!