Our beautiful daughter graduates from high school this spring, and we couldn't be happier!
This coming fall we will be empty nesters, scary but quite exciting.
So when a child graduates in our house we take them on a family vacation of their choice, we took our son to Hawaii for his senior trip.
Our daughter wasn't sure where she wanted to go, I quickly suggested Bermuda, Barbados...you get the drift. In the end she chose Washington State.
Really?
At first I wasn't impressed. It's still chilly up there even in the summer...right?
I started a Pinterest board and began pinning everything that looked exciting to do in the state.
I am now an official Lenticular Cloud junkie.
It is my greatest wish to see a UFO looking cloud parked right over Mt.Rainier.
Everyone else has an equally interesting thing they want to see or do out of the trip, my daughter wants to go to a huge music festival called The Sasquatch Festival, my husband wants to whale watch, and our son is hoping to be back from his internship in Brussels in time to make the trip.
I have really kicked up my walking and treadmill time so that I can haul my booty around Washington's mountains and forests without puking and slowing everyone down.
We are now on super budget crunch down trying to save for this trip.
No more eating out and I am making sure that we eat everything in our fridge, with next to no waste at all. No one is happy about this arrangement, none of us are fans of leftovers, but with some creativity I have been making it work.
One of our staples every week is pureed cauliflower. We eat it as a side dish, like mashed potatoes.
When it is the next day I like to bake it on parchment paper by spoonful's, it reminds me of tater tots. When my cauliflower is thin I reminds me more of little potato pancakes, a perfect side dish for any meat. This night I wanted to use it completely different. I scraped the container of leftover cauliflower into a sauce pan, put about a cup and a half of water in the container and shook it around to loosen the puree and poured that in the pan too. I added a 1/4 cup of heavy cream, salted and peppered it. Once it was warm I poured it in our bowls and generously doused it with bacon and a bit of cheese.
Awesome.
Best thing I have had in a while.
This lunch is all left overs. If you take a closer peek at my blueberries, they are a tad sketchy. But if there isn't mold on something I'm going to eat it. No waste!
My hard cooked eggs were a day away from being trash so I mixed them with carrot shreds (which we add to everything) celery, a small amount of Caesar dressing, pistachios, a little cheddar, and lots of spices.
My cookies are made from a boat load of leftovers and are perfectly Paleo/Primal.
I had made some medjool date paste (soak the dates in water, remove seed, and whiz in the food processor-it is almost like carmel and is a natural sugar source) that I needed to use so I decided on these cookies.
After I blended the almonds down to flour, I threw everything else in the food processor and whizzed it together.
Ready in two seconds!
Dropped by spoonful onto parchment paper.
Baked for twelve minutes and they were ready to enjoy with breakfast lunch or dinner.
Gluten Free Paleo / Primal Anytime Cookies:
1/4 cup mejoohl date paste
2 tbsp. of honey
1-2 ripe bananas (depends if yours are small or big)
1/2 cup almond flour (grind my own)
1/2 almond butter (grind my own)
1 egg
1 tsp. of vanilla
1tbsp. of pumpkin pie spice (optional)
1/2 tsp. of baking powder
dash of salt
I mixed everything together in the food processor till blended and creamy.
Dropped by spoonful onto parchment paper (I did like them better smoothed out into cookie shape)
Baked in a 350 degree oven for 10/12 minutes.
Enjoy anytime of the day!
In the mean time I am going to keep planning our trip and hoping to see a sight like this!
Did you see the clouds? How is your weight loss going? I'm from north of Cincinnati and feel like I'm beginning a similar journey.
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