Here you will find an archived weblog of my food, travel, and creative pursuits which I kept from 2010-2016. Please note both that the travel information contained here may outdated and that these logs were created on a prior version of this website and may not yet be optimized for the current version. If you’re looking for specific content, use the search field below! <3
Te Anau is a wonderful jumping off point for all the amazing natural wonders to see in the Fiordland region of New Zealand. Since we planned to spend a couple of days in the area to explore the National Park, Milford & Doubtful Sounds, and the surrounding area - we wanted to stay somewhere that we could cook our own meals and feel comfortable.
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Happy 4th of July to all my American readers out there!
Today, I'm sharing perhaps my favorite way to enjoy my greens directly from the garden - on a homemade gluten free pizza!
Speaking of pizza, I've got to say that I'm so over 99% of the gluten free pizza offered at restaurants. I have only ever encountered a good non-cracker-like gluten free pizza crust while eating out once and that was just in the past month. That's not to say that I don't totally appreciate the fact that restaurants are providing options for gluten free customers - seriously, high five to those restaurants! The bottom line is though, that the gluten free pizza crust I make at home blows those cracker-like crusts out of the water and it's just not worth eating sub par crust if you don't have to.
If you've been around here awhile, you'll know I'm not big on re-inventing the wheel. I have no need to have my own "Gluten Free Travelette Flour Blend" or a pie crust recipe if a great one already exists. Right now, that's where I am with pizza crust too. Shauna and Danny from Gluten Free Girl & the Chef have an awesome recipe that I use as my go to crust. For the flour blend, I use half their all purpose blend and half their whole grain blend. I also use psyllium whole husks instead of the flaxseed or chia.
Like my other Meals from the Garden posts thus far - this is more of a meal guide or idea than a recipe. In the links, I'm also sharing the pizza sauce and goat mozzerella brands that I use (and no, I'm not being paid to do so - these are just what I actually stock our fridge with almost every week).
Now this is a hike you should do. This is a hike you should do especially if you're gluten free. Beginning at Lake Louise in beautiful Banff National Park the Plain of Six Glaciers is a must do if you visit the area.
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Our garden keeps on growing!
Each new thing we get to eat from it makes for quite an exciting night! Our golden beets have really started to take off - so it was time to taste a few. What I love about beets is that you get two treats in one plant - the actual beet and the beet leaves. I think this was actually the first time I've ever eaten beet leaves and I love them! They might be my new favorite leafy green.
Just like last week, this post is more of a meal idea than a recipe. A nice bed of gluten free pasta (our favorite is Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta) is a great way to showcase fresh ingredients straight from the garden.
When it comes to planning a multi-week itinerary for a trip - I'm in my element.
I love planning and organizing. And yes, you may call me type A. So by extension this post is really meant for those of you that are also type A or for some reason want to be. By no means, is this the only way to plan an itinerary - it's just the way that works for me! My version of itinerary planning involves some level of certainty. The bottom line is that I like to know where I'm sleeping every night.
Does that sound like the kind of trip you like to take? Then read on and I'll take you through the my steps to plan a multi-week itinerary.
Loving these 22 photos from 22 days in the Balkans.
How do you do it? I get asked this all the time...
From one of my new favorite blogs; you know you're a food blogger if...
When I saw that Shauna was co-hosting another Pie Party, I couldn't resist joining.
I'm all about spreading the good word of pie. Instead of cake at our wedding, we had pie (and no, we did not freeze a piece to eat on our anniversary). For breakfast, it really doesn't get better than pie with some nice plain sheep milk yogurt. Except maybe a pandowdy - but that's basically just a bottomless pie.
With pie, I have no need to reinvent the wheel. I took a class with Shauna & Danny at the Pantry at Delancy and that's where I got my pie crust recipe from. I had never had any success with pie crust until I started using their recipe and people love it! Normally I keep a tub of their all purpose flour on my shelf to use, but after a recent incident involving some potato starch gone bad I was out. So I went about converting the percentages to make their 1000 gram mix to the 350 grams for just the pie crust.
Finally! I'm sharing a meal from our edible garden.
I've been meaning to share this quick weeknight meal for quite awhile now since it's been making an appearance on our kitchen table almost twice a week! And as our gorgeous winter greens have begun to fall prey to caterpillars and bolt - I figured it was high time to share.
This post falls somewhere in between a recipe and guide for a meal. The ingredients are loose depending on what looks good in the garden that night. But the basics stay the same; noodles, broth, greens, and herbs. So here's how we made our Greens & Herb Pho in early June.
Last week I shared my overall experience at BlogHer Food 2012 and this week I'd like to share a couple of the take aways that stood out to me during the various sessions I attended. Overall, I came away feeling energized - creatively, intellectually, and entrepreneur-ially. So here's a of my big take aways from BlogHer Food 2012;
* Think about why you do what you do.
* Keep some personal projects, ones that aren't going to be posted on your blog.
* Surround yourself with colossal dreams.
* Back up your blog!
* If you don't already have photoshop or another paid photo editing software, go, download GIMP. Also, read the live blog of this amazing Post-Processing session - I feel like my editing skills just took a giant leap forward!
Please forgive the lack of a picture this week. My computer and all it's photo editing software had to make an unscheduled visit to the doctors office to get a new case and trackpad. Hopefully it will be back soon, Pic Monkey just isn't the same as my downloaded Picassa program.
So without further adieu, thinks I'm reading;
Have you traveled anywhere you think you could live? For me it's Tasman, New Zealand.
Another great Seattle P-Patch in an interesting locale.
Costa Brava looks amazing.
