Food Allergies

So I don't really talk about this much but since having children (3 of the 4) with food allergies, I often avoid certain things for our family. I do sometimes experiment which substitutions but often times we avoid certain things all together.

One of those things that I love is banana bread, and I haven't made it ever from scratch and I refused to make it from a pack because I know that the ingredients could have nuts in it. And no matter what nut I wanted to put in it at least one of my children with allergies would be allergic to it. And it never crossed my mind to actually make it without nuts. Which is weird because we make chocolate chip cookies, and brownies and every other dessert that calls for nuts without them.

So today I looked at my fruit basket and thought I really want to make banana bread with those really ripe bananas. I have been freezing the bad ones for months for smoothies or milkshakes but I really wanted banana bread.

So I searched online for the perfect quick recipe to make before the kids got home from school and it was one that jumped right out at me from here http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/

And although it took an hour to cook it was nice to have this waiting for the kids for an after school snack...

And they loved it! I pulled out my glass cake stand that I got for $2 at a garage sale and it looks really cute on the stand. I love fall, it's cool enough to experiment with baking recipes and not feel like you are burning up! So this week I say if it's cooling down where you are at, try a recipe that you haven't tried or haven't made in awhile.  Smiles, Tracy

Stopping in really quickly today to post a picture of my "stash/stockpile" of cleaning/personal items. Mostly because I have been couponing for a while and I don't think that I am anywhere close to an extreme couponer but our little stash is so perfect for our big little family of six. Our stockpile has been chipped away at a lot the last couple of weeks because we have been cleaning two places basically. And of course that means that my stash of 16packs of papertowels are now 9 (not including the 3 open packs- 1 in the kitchen,1 in the master bathroom, and 1 for the other two baths).


Well here it is...

This storage is in our very small laundry room. I am not at all complaining but just letting you know that our laundry room is small. Especially compared to the one that we had in MN. But honestly that is just what I need. Smaller space= less room to have dirty laundry collect=laundry being done daily. And with 6 people you basically have to do a couple of loads a day or you will get buried in laundry and be washing all day one day a week. And I prefer a couple of loads a day cause there is very little chance that something stains. Plus I got these two shelves for $20 off Craigslist and they are from IKEA and cost $50 each. I knew that I needed 2 shelves but that they couldn't really take of too much square footage cause I was only working with 48 inches from the washing machine and dryer to the wall.

I wanted this table/kitchen island

but it wouldn't fit and allow me to have storage for my stockpile. So I sort clean clothes and fold on the dryer.


Also this photo doesn't show my massive stockpile of washing powder, stain remover, personal items, deodorant for Vele and I. Those things are really hard to get a good photo of but there is a lot of it. LOL We have over 21 bottles of liquid washing detergent and 4 boxes of powder.


I know I know all this talk about stockpiles such a different topic but its something that I was asked to share from a thread that I read each and everyday on a couponing site. I don't have nearly the amount of some people's stashes but I am just so happy to not have to purchase toilet paper, papertowels or even washing powder. I haven't purchased any since the Staples $3 coupon which was around the second week of June. To me that's an accomplishment cause I usually have to purchase papertowels, toilet paper, and hand soap every week. Which gives me more $$ to spend on groceries! Which is always a plus when you have four kiddos to feed.

So speaking of feeding those little ones I got a recipe from another couponing site that I altered it a little to include pepperoni. And I have made it a couple of times and the family loves it. So here is a photo, sorry I don't have a recipe for it but you could check it out on krazycouponlady.com and get the one that she offers, I just added a couple of other items in mine. YUMMY!

I just had to come and upload some photos from my littlest one 1st birthday. I just realized (while editing the photos to print to make her scrapbook pages) that I never edited the photos and I also never shared them online.

Her birthday week was super busy for us all because Vele was off at training for the week before and was scheduled to come back home the day before my youngest son's birthday which was 3 days before the baby. And then add the fact that I still had to prepare for his birthday and I didn't want to make "big" day for him but it turned out that way anyway. We all headed off to Como Zoo and park and sent the entire day there! It was awesome. It was peaceful for me because we decided to make it a family day and we got to stay as long as we could and just enjoy the day.

But back to Nya, it is our family tradition to actually make the 1st cake and decorate it and have it so that the little one can make a mess. Well since we had a cake still from LaTrele's party we decided to do a small cake and cupcakes and we picked it up from Sams. I hadn't bought a store bought cake in years but it was so cute that I had to get it...but here are some photos from her day.

Well I guess blogger is preparing for a maintenance update and for some reason I am not able to upload some of the photos. So I am going to just upload this one until I can get the page done and the rest will be on there.

Also we went to the fair this last weekend. It was nothing like MN's state fair. It was actually a little more expensive and Vele was so disappointed because he wasn't able to get his bucket of cookies. But I plan on making chocolate chip cookies today so that he can get over that craving because he keeps hinting that he wants some but I just haven't gotten around to making them. Plus we just finally finished off the chocolate chip brownies a couple of days ago. And they were so good. How come no one told me it was so easy to make brownies from scratch. I will never buy another box brownie mix again. Sorry Betty Crocker!

But I wanted to share a recipe that I just got a few months ago. And it is awesome! It's called chicken waldorf salad. It is soooo good. We had ours with fried fish instead of the chips. I have been trying to come up with a collection of salads since it's always so warm all year round. But here is a photo of the salad (if it uploads?)

And the recipe
ingredients (I double to make enough for my family but the recipe if for 4 people)
2 cups of cubed deli rotisserie chicken (I just use chicken breast that I saute)
2 medium unpeeled apples cubed
2 stalks of celery sliced thinly
1 cup red seedless grapes cut in half (I use black and cut at an angle)
1 tablespoon thinly sliced chives
1/3 cup almonds (since we have an tree nut allergy, I use sunflower seeds)
1/4 cup refrigerated coleslaw dressing (I use Litehouse)
4 leaves of lettuce

directions
In a large bowl mix all ingredients except lettuce and chives.
On each of 4 serving plates, place 1 lettuce leaf and spoon salad onto the lettuce, sprinkle with chives.

The kidos love it! And always ask for seconds. But also while I am able to get some of the other photos uploaded that I wanted...I will show some of the recent decorations that I had bought for the apartment. It feels so weird saying apartment, but I am looking for pieces that I might want to bring to the house and so I haven't rushed out and bought anything new. But I have been a thrifty shopper...oh I did splurge and spent a whole $10 on this rooster to add to my collection since my collection no longer exists lol. He is so purrrty!