GF Menu

Wake up with a cup of tea with milk

Saute chard with garlic
Fry a couple eggs over medium

Still hungry
Cup of yogurt plain then I add Maple Syrup

Mid morning I have some corn chips and salsa

Lunch
Veggies with hummus
rice cake with sunbutter
corn on the cob

Afternoon
Chocolate
Pear

Before dinner snack
more chips and salsa

Dinner
Salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, hard boiled egg, bacon, dill goat cheese, and scallions
I make a dressing with olive oil, mayo(GF) rice vinegar, dill and crushed garlic.

Dessert
Tapioca pudding

Before bed snack
bowl of GF cereal with milk (rice chex)

GF Desserts

Here are some desserts that are typically GF. 

Tapioca Pudding
Custard
Fruit Compote
Ice Cream

You could make a crustless pumpkin Pie or use a GF crust.

Nut Balls are good.

Mix together
1/2 cup of
nut butter
honey
sweetened cocoa
sunflower seeds
shredded coconut
1 cup of nuts
make into balls and roll in powdered sugar

This is a nice easy snack to have in the fridge that is sweet and yummy.

GF baking can be tricky.  Cakes often are dense, sticky or crumbly
Cookies are easier.  You need to have a GF flour that you can use.  A combination of bean flour, rice flour and tapioca flour is what I use.  Before you experiment with your own combination there are GF all purpose flours you can buy.  Bob's Red Mill is pretty good and you can find it at Hannaford.  Xanthan Gum is an important ingredient to have also.  I would say try making chocolate chip cookies using GF flour and Xanthan Gum probably at least 1/4 of a teaspoon or up to 1/2 of a teaspoon depending on how many cookies you are making.

Let me know what you think.

Hummus

This is my hummus recipe
 I don't use exact amounts so feel free to vary the amount to your liking.

1 can of Chickpeas/Garbanzo Beans
2-3 Tablespoons of Tahini (sesame seed butter)
1-2 or more garlic cloves
Olive oil to make it the right consistancy
salt and pepper to taste

Optional additions
1-3 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice
any fresh herbs you have on hand or curry powder

Put 1st 3 ingredients in a food processor and blend up
add optional ingredients blend again then add olive oil until it is the consistancy that you like.
Taste
Add any salt or pepper or more lemon juice etc.
Blend and serve

Garnish with either one or three whole Garbanzo Beans
Fresh herbs or
Curry powder

Enjoy

Gluten Free Snacking on a budget

Things to have on hand.
carrots
celery
apples
bananas
rice cakes
corn thins
nut or seed butter
hummus (chickpea spread-recipe soon)
yogurt (plain)
honey
maple syrup (the real thing)

Veggies and hummus are a great snack.
Yogurt with sliced bananas and/or apples and maple syrup or honey is a nice sweet snack. 
Corn thin or rice cake with nut butter and sliced banana is the snack for the supper hungry.
Potato chips and corn chips are usually gluten free, but when you buy salsa look for gluten free salsa.
For those of you who are just trying this for a few weeks to see if it helps you these snack will do.  Those who are on a gluten free diet because you have to be or you will be sick may want more variety as you go.  Eventually I would like to post lots of recipes, easy ones for the busy moms and dads who have way to much going on to deal with anything else.

Journal Entry

So today is June first.  I have been looking at flowers and decided that I am going to begin drawing flowers.  If only I could paint or draw a lilac and show how wonderful it smells.
I have been busy and been trying to find direction.  Life draw is going well but I am tired from the 3 children and lack of sleep.
I hope to have time to post one of my drawings from life drawing soon.

Journal Entry

Ok sick family again, more rain and I have lost my motivation.  I am working on it.  I have been to another Life Drawing Group Session.  It was interesting.  I used paint this time.  I need to find something to get me motivated.  Sun please come out.  I may need to move on to the art of food.  We will see what happens in the next couple weeks.

Life Drawing

I am now part of a Life Drawing Group.  There is very little instruction, but I had fun.  I played around with drawing without looking at the paper.  I think it would be more fun to paint.  Maybe I will try that next time.  Lucien was fine while I was gone.  I didn't have to worry so much.  I will try to remember that next Saturday.

New Artist of the Month

OK so I couldn't come up with an artist because I am to busy.  So I will paint then find an artist that has a similar style.  I need the fun in my life of free painting.  I will also be taking a life drawing class so that might inspire me.  I figured out that I can do anything I want to do with this blog.  I am not stuck to a particular format especially if it is not working for me.  So onward into my discovery.

Journal Entry

I need to get re energized with my art projects.  How do you re energize when you are running on empty?   Am I just dragging because it is cloudy and gray and spring just will not come soon enough.  We keep getting these gray and windy days.  How do you feed your soul when it is hungry, but you don't know what to feed it.  I have little 20-30 minute chunks of time and I think I need a longer chunk.  I will be starting a life drawing class in May but still don't have a babysitter for that chunk.  I feel like I have to work really hard to be able to do anything, which when you have little energy to do something you don't what to use it all up before you get to the fun part.  I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me but that is OK because this is a journal entry.  Maybe I am just tired because I am just getting over being sick.  This feeling doesn't seem to be a new one.  I have felt it before.  It is maybe most comfortable to not do anything so I don't fail.  Is it failure I am afraid of?  But if you don't try you have failed even before you have done anything so that doesn't make sense.  OK positive thinking ---- I am successful at everything I do.  Yes that is right, I am successful at everything I do.  I am not doing, OH maybe I am afraid of success? That is an interesting twist now isn't it.  What positive thinking statement can I come up with for that one??????

New Painting

This is not the best photo of my new painting.  I had a lot of fun with this one.  I like abstract expressionism,  I will be looking for a new artist to study.  Anyone have a suggestion for a May artist?

Springtime

Springtime is so busy.  I have not done much painting but have been to a couple museums.  I love looking at art.  Sometimes I get it and other times I wonder what might have been going on in the artists mind that I just don't get.  I went to the Art Museum at Colby college, it was great.  They have a collection of John Marin paintings.  My favorite painting at the museum was one called Night Rain, I can't remember the artists name but plan on going back and finding out.  I always think I am going to remember things then I forget.  I hope this is not a sign of me getting older.  I also went to the Portland Museum of Art.  That was fun but I was starting to get sick so it was not as much fun as it could have been.  I was not as impressed as at the Colby museum.  I am working on a painting and will post a new picture soon. 

Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan was a painter during the time when abstract expressionism  was just moving from Paris to New York.  She was a struggling artist in New York and became friends with Pollock, de Kooning and more who were at that time also struggling.  I was curious about Grace Hartigan because she was also a mother, but she gave her son to her ex-husband to raise and really hardly saw him if ever.  She lived a life of poverty and made are history by being the first woman artist to be internationally known.  The Museum of Modern Art bought one of her paintings and she is known for moving Abstract expressionism to Pop Art.  The love of painting took over her life completely.   It was her great love.

I don't know if we would have gotten along.  I do not understand how someone can give up parenting to do painting.  Love doesn't run out, it grows.  I have a hard time not judging on this one.  I like to think of myself as non judgmental but sometimes it is hard to understand the diversity.  I do like some of her art work and I respect her passion for painting but I can't get past some of the personal choices that she made,  I guess I have some growing to do.

Now the search for a woman artist who is a mother and an artist at the same time.  None of this one or the other crap.

Circles

I had fun painting this one too.  I guess I will be moving back to the more challenging work and my artist study.  Grace Hartigan here I come.

Finding Order in My Life

Well I needed to find some order and have fun with paint.

This is what I made.  It was fun. 

Now circles.

April Funk

Please help me get out of this funk.  I had a beautiful sketch and then ruined it with paint.  I hate that.  I was too attached to an idea.  This growing into an artist thing is hard.  I haven't had any time to paint except at night, then the colors are not right because I don't have good lighting.  OK I am done complaining for today.  I am going to try to repair the painting, or just paint it all white and start over.

Grace Hartigan

So I missed yesterday.  We had a blizzard for April Fool's Day and we lost power for the whole day and still do not have power back.   I can't use the internet at my house, so I made a trip to town so I could post my April Artist.

Grace Hartigan is a woman abstract expressionist.  She was not professionally trained.  So I can identify with her a little.   I will do more research and post what I find in the next week.

I will also be getting some more pictures posted as soon as I have internet at my house.

Last Day of March

I want to paint.  Parenting is so tiring, I haven't been able to stay up after the children have gone to bed so I can paint.  I am hoping tonight I might.  We are suppose to have a big storm tonight and tomorrow, maybe I can paint then too.

Early Spring Chickens

I was looking for a landscape to paint.  I looked outside and there before me was the chicken coop.

So I watercolor for a few more days, then onto a new artist. 

Who should it be?

Grace Hartigan or Cezanne

New Portrait

Hello
I am in a much better place today.  I was able to sleep in, Lucien decided to take a long nap and I think I finished the self-portrait that I have been working on for a few days now (in little 20 minute blocks of time).  It is my first acrylic self-portrait.  I really like having a painting project.  I am also looking forward to beginning a life drawing class.  That I hope will help me learn more about how to see the shadows.

So first I drew a pencil sketch of my face, then I transfered it over to the canvas. 

The next step was finding time to paint, I did that and my chin dimple looked like a life saver. 

I went to repair that lifesaver but my color was a little orange,

so then today I fixed the orange and lost some of the lighter colors, but gained some clothing. 

 I guess I could redo over and over but I am calling it done for now.

Day in the life of me

Wake up
nurse baby
bathroom if I am lucky
change baby
make breakfast for kids
eat if lucky
feed the dogs
keep baby out of the dog food
feed baby banana
keep dogs from eating the banana
nurse baby
drive older children to school or acting class or track practice or dance class or music or friends house
baby sleeps in car
if I am lucky I can sketch something from the car while the baby sleeps
home again
baby wakes when I try to move him
nurse baby
change baby
pick up the toys
do the dishes so I can make lunch
make lunch
feed baby
uh oh last diaper quick do a load of diapers
pick up the toys again
keep baby out of dog water
block the stairs baby is halfway up
pick up the floor
nurse baby
dry the diapers
pick up older kids
oops baby sleeps 5 minutes  no nap at home today
change baby
nurse baby
snack for kids
clean up after kids
nag kids to clean up
make dinner
clean up
nurse baby
ah sleeping baby
feed dogs
older children to bed
now I finally get to paint unless I take a bath or have already fallen asleep
This may not seem like alot but boy is it tiring.

I want a whole day to just paint and read and draw and nap if I am tired.