Happy New Year

We are blessed!  Casey and I were able to enjoy a night out as adults without kids, thanks to Casey's mom.  Casey and I were able to enjoy dinner tonight at Zolas.  It is one of our favorite places to catch dinner together.

 

[caption id="attachment_117" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Casey and I at Zolas"][/caption]

 

At Zolas, we both enjoyed a 2007 bottle of Amayna's Sauvignon Blanc.  Casey enjoyed her dinner which included a salad of Apples and Dried Cranberies and grilled Chilean Salmon.  I enjoyed a dinner which included the same salad and a jamacian jerk pork tenderloin.  For desert, I had the pumpkin cheese cake dumplings and Casey had the Crème brûlée sampler.  Yummy.  Zolas is a great place to enjoy great and uniquely prepared food.

After dinner, we caught up with some of my co-workers (Andy and Tom) and enjoyed drinks at Champs. 

Happy New Year!

iPod Touch Ordered

I ordered a 16GB iPod touch today with some of my Christmas gift money and Apple gift cards. The Apple store tells me it should be here between Dec 30th and Jan. 5th. I hope it comes sooner than later, I really want to spend some time playing with it before I have to go back to work on Jan 5th.

Does anyone have any favorite Apps I should check out/purchase?  If so, comment this post.

Update:  It shipped today (Monday Dec 29th) from China. According to FedEx, it should be in my hands on New Years Eve.

Christmas 2008

This year's Christmas was great! The kids had a lot of fun opening their gifts from Santa.  Hailey and Tyler were so excited to see all the gifts that Santa left and they had even more fun opening them.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="Santa Left Lots of Gifts, click the image above to view the gallery."][/caption]

Christmas day events...

Opening Santa's Presents

Of course, first we opened Santa's gifts.

Lunch

I took my grandmother out for Christmas lunch at Toftree's.  They had a nice buffet consisting of breakfast and lunch foods.  Her and I had a great time and really enjoyed everything they had to offer.

Grandma Presents

Casey, Hailey, Tyler, and I went to my grandmother's house so we could exchange gifts with her.  The kids had a great time and really enjoyed their gifts from GG (great grandmother).

Casey's Parents Dinner and Presents

Casey, Hailey, Tyler, and I went over to Casey's parents for a wonderful dinner (Ham, Scalloped Potatoes, Corn, and Cheese Cake).  After dinner, we exchanged gifts.  We all went over to Casey's aunt and uncle's house to visit.

 

Christmas Eve 2008

We went over to my Dad's place for Christmas Eve dinner again this year.  My aunt and uncle were also there, so we got to spend some quality time with them.  The dinner was great, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans.  For dessert, I made a gluten-free pumpkin pie and my aunt made her awesome cookies.  After dinner, we exchanged gifts.  It was great time and the kids were pretty good for the most part.  Tyler kept pointing for another one of my aunt's cookies, it was cute!

Cold Winter Day

This morning I woke up and noticed the digital weather station with a very cold outside temperature reading.  Yes kids, that is 5°F outside,

[caption id="attachment_76" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="5 degrees outside!"][/caption]

That also didn't take into the fact that we had 40mph wind gusts, so just think what the windchill must have been.

I warmed up the car for 30 minutes before driving to work.

Sick Times

Well this sure has been a fun week!  Casey and Hailey both got some sort of Stomach flu Monday and it lasted through the week.  I was on a business trip Monday to Boston and that evening I also developed the same symptoms as Casey and Hailey!  I spent all day Tuesday in my hotel room.  Luckily, my sickness was only for 24hrs.  

We are all doing better thanks to a trip to the doctor office and lots of fluids.

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Dinner Plans

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year for thanksgiving Casey and I will be serving the following for our family Thanksgiving Dinner.

• Roasted Brined Turkey - Wegmans Food You Feel Good About Grand Champion Free-Range Fresh Turkey


• Cornbread Stuffing based on two great recipes: gluten-free cornbread and Betty Crocker's stuffing


• Mashed Potatoes


• Mashed Sweet Potatoes


• Gravy


• Sweet Corn


• Green Beans


• Wegman's Cranberry Sauce


• Homemade Pumpkin Pie with gluten-free cookie crust.

Update: The food turned out great!  The turkey was super juicy and everyone left with their belly's full.

Gluten-Free Chicken Alfredo and French Bread

Tonight Casey requested her favorite pasta dish, Chicken Roasted Garlic Alfredo w/ broccoli.  Casey also requested some kind of bread to accompany the pasta dish.  Hmm, I pulled out my favorite gluten-free cookbook (“Gluten-Free Baking Classic”) and made the French Bread recipe.  This took awhile (10 mins prep time and 25-30 mins cook time.  This was my first time making this recipe.  I didn't let the bread rise as much as the recipe called for, but that sure didn't affect the end result, yummy.  

Gluten-Free Macaroni and Cheese

Tonight I made Gluten-Free Macaroni and Cheese for the family.  Spoiler: unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the finished product.  I use Betty Crocker's recipe and convert it to a gluten-free recipe using the following substitutions:

• regular pasta - Instead use a gluten-free pasta of your choice (I prefer Dr. Schar's Gluten-Free Penne pasta, available at Wegmans, Celiac.com).


• regular all-purpose flour - Instead use a general gluten-free mix (I actually use the brown rice flour mix from "Gluten-Free Baking Classic" ).

The other substitution that I make is to use half sharp cheddar cheese and half Monterey Jack. This recipe when converted over to a gluten-free version tastes just as good as the original.  Give it a try and enjoy it.

Gluten-Free Pizza

Tonight was pizza night at our place (gluten-free of course).  I make my pizza crust using a recipe from "Gluten-Free Baking Classic" 1st Edition by Annalise G. Roberts.  If you don't own this book, get it.  This is by far the best pizza recipe that I have come across.  I have tried many and this one just comes the closest to the real thing.  The aroma that this dough gives off when making it is also wonderful.

Halloween 2008

This year for halloween Hailey wanted to be cinderella again, and we dressed Tyler up as Superman.  I was able to snap this shot of the two of them while they sat still.  

We ended up just staying home and not going trick-or-treating because Hailey was not feeling well.

New Host and Site

I finally moved my domain to a host (bluehost.com) that provided some sweet options and for $1 less per month than my previous host.  As you may have noticed, the site is powered by the blog engine, Wordpress.  I chose Wordpress for its ease of use and large community base.

My goal is to actually keep the site fresh with updates and information about my life; family, friends, cooking, wine, etc.  My wife Casey has celiac disease, so there will also be lots of posts related to gluten-free cooking. 

So come back soon and I hope you enjoy the new site.