I Need YOUR Help! - recipes please

My son and I have LOTS of food allergies and sensitivities!!  I have a complete list of items we can eat, I need your help developing that list into workable food/meals, like breakfast, lunch, main meals and desserts.

Food List:

Agave
Almond (Almond Milk, etc..)
Amaranth
Arrowroot
Asparagus
Baking Powder
Basil
Adzuki Beans
Anasazi Beans
Black Beans
Kidney Beans
Lentils
Bell Pepper
Beet
Blackberry
Blueberry
Buffalo
Cardamom
Carob
Chia Seed
Carrot
Blue Corn (I buy blue corn chips and popcorn-I would love to make blue corn tortillias is you know how or blue corn tamales!!)
Chicken
Coconut (oil, etc..)
Cucumber
Cumin
Black Currant
Dill
Egg Whites
Fennel
Garlic
Jicama
Lemon
Lettus (all except iceberg)
Marjoram
Millet
Olive Oil
Parsley
Pomegranate
Potatoes
Quinoa
Brown Rice (rice milk, rice syrup, etc..)
Rosemary
Sage
Salt (Orsa or sea)
Sesame Oil (seed, etc..)
Squash (all)
Stevia
Sweet Potatoe
Tapioca
Thyme
Turkey
Vanilla

The hardest part is sticking 100% to the foods listed above!!  Sometime we have to add other ingredients but never WHEAT, DAIRY, SOY or SUGAR. We drink almond or rice milk, use coconut or olive oil as a replacement for butter, and Stevia, agave or rice syrup to replace sugar.

Thanks for your help!!!

Beer Party

Beer Party Invitation by Chars Wild Art (phone number blocked)

We bought a pool table over the summer and after having it a couple weeks we realized it would be fun to host a "Beer Tasting Party."  After all what goes best with pool?  Friends and Beer!!  First we decided to limit the guests to 10 people, giving us enough variety of beer, yet keeping it small and intimate.  As you can see from the invitation the guests were to bring two 22oz bottles of their favorite beer - this way they knew it was a good beer, which cut down on tossing out "bad" beer.

The set up.  We supplied everyone with a personalized coaster and shot glasses that were each different - just to keep track of our own glass :).  The coasters later became note pads for the diehard beer tasters that made notes about how it tasted after eating cheese, meat, etc..

We enjoyed the evening and will definitely do this again!

some of the variety...the can on the end is Watermelon beer

Oatmeal Carob-Chip Cookies

Gluten Free, Sweetened with Stevia

1 cup gluten free multipurpose flour

1 cup gluten free old fashioned oats

½ teaspoon Cinnamon (optional)

½ teaspoon Orsa Salt ( or sea salt)

1 ½ teaspoons Stevia powder, pure

1 cup butternut squash puree

1 cup Ricotta Cheese

1 large egg slightly beaten

2 tablespoons melted coconut oil (or butter, or olive oil)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

½ cup carob chips

Preheat oven to 350°, make sure the rack is in the middle position.  I always use parchment paper covering the cookie sheet – just easier to remove the cookie.  I use a Kitchen Aid to mix my cookies combining all my dry ingredients first – except the carob chips.  Then adding all the wet ingredients on top, then mixing well – until it forms a “cookie batter.”  Add carob chips at this point.  Dried cranberries, cherries, or blueberries are also delicious to add!!  Drop them by spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown.  Let the cookies cool on the sheet for a couple minutes, then transfer to cooling racks.

oatmeal carob chip cookies

they are delish with cranberries also!!

Baby Shower - 2013

 April 6th 2013  Baby Shower for Baby Boy Garza 

GAMES:

The Cotton Ball Game - where your blind folded and have to spoon out cotton balls into another container. It was a fun game, but easy to "cheat" by just using the spoon to push the cotton balls instead of scoop them. Overall it was fun, the winner had 107 cotton balls in her container!

Guess the Belly Size - Breanne stood up and modeled her belly.  From there I walked around with blue yarn, everyone measured -themselves- to try and figure out how big she is.  The person that came the closest wins.  Our winner came with in an inch!!  Most everyone else's guesses were WAY to big.  Fun game, we would do this one again.

Guess  How Many M&M's - this is a fun, quick game to get things started.  We choose a juice pitcher to fill with candy, it held 1,320 m&;m's -in case your wondering...NO, I did not count EACH candy!!  I filled a 1/4 cup, counted those then counted how many it took to fill it up.  Most everyone guessed super low, the winner guessed 1,100.

The Tray game -  Not one of my favorite and I heard several others saying they don't like that game either.  But everyone played.  We had 17 items, the winner had 14 of them.  Breanne put in 2 differences kinds of thermometers, I don't think anyone got both of them.

Question/Answer game - this game has no prize but it is super funny!!!  pass out index card to everyone, have them write a question related to taking care of a baby.  they must know the answer to the question.  Example:  "How do you burp a baby?"  Once they write the question, collect the cards, SHUFFLE them and pass them back out with the blank side up.  Now tell them to write the answer to the question they originally wrote.  Don't turn the card over and look!!  Collect all the cards and read the questions and answers, hilarious because now the questions "How do you burp a baby?" will have a different answer like,  "Strap him to the table and use a warmed wipe to clean his bottom."  This game got lots of laughs and I would do this one again!!

Decorations - getting ready.  Bre and I put up crape paper, 40 balloons and other decorations

during the party
many friends and family attended.  men that came went downstairs and played pool

Family and friends

Breanne and I want to thank everyone for joining us in welcoming the newest addition to our family, thank you for the wonderful gifts and the joy of your company!!!

This is the after party - party :) Kyle and Alijah gathered up all the balloons and ran around the kitchen circle!!  Both boys slept good that night.