Menu Plan

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Monday: White Bean Chicken Chili in the crockpot (made with homemade stock from yesterday's chicken in the crockpot...pretty easy!), w/creme fraiche, avocados, cheese, tortilla chips & Fresh veggies
Tuesday: Pasta Dish (undecided) and I will have mine over zucchini strips
Wednesday: Taco Salad
Thursday: Split Pea or Lentil Soup in the crockpot, fresh bread from bakery
Friday: Burgers and homefries (class was moved to the morning this week)
Saturday: Clean out the fridge (also a bday snack/meal out for Daniel and I!)
Sunday: Birthday meal at home...possibly some seafood or some nice cut of beef as a treat!)

For breakfast we have eggs, fruit, toast or some combination of eggs & toast (ie eggs in a window, french toast, etc.). I've just started making kefir and sometimes we have that with nuts, raisins, fruit, honey and I'm making granola right now:). We'll be having squash pancakes in the morning, that are almost grain free.


What's on your menu? Merci!

French Swing Dancing?

We check out a few french videos each week from the public library and one that Daniel got this time was "swing dancing" because he though the girls might like it. As in swing dancing lessons. It was pretty dorky, but the girls had an excuse to be crazy and dance (as if they need an excuse!).

Rockin' the crib (w/sis)

White Bean Cake (gluten free)

I know a few of you will appreciate this recipe (my MIL especially)! It was adapted from this recipe for White Bean Cake, but I had to modify it because not only did I not have coconut flour, but coconut flour is way to expensive (and I have never seen it here). So... not having any other flour to replace it with and also wanting it to be a grain free recipe meant I...just left it out. And it was still really good! My judgement might be slightly off since i really haven't had any real "dessert" in about a month but that's okay. I'll eat it all and you don't have to have any!!;)

Vanilla Bean Cake:

2 1/2 cups cooked white beans (very well cooked or canned...must be soft!)
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3-1/2 cup honey

Puree well in food processor or use immersion blender.

Add:
1/4 cup oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Puree again.

Bake at 325-350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Very moist and dense cake, but its very filling. Pair with a glass of raw milk for an almost nutritious dessert!

Quote on suffering

I ran across this quote in the book I'm reading right now and thought it was excellent.

"Suffering- especially in the forms of potentially ominous pain or significant longer-term suffering-tends to produce clear benefits. So how does it do this? It does it in part by challenging our shallow confidences. As long as things seem to be going well for us, we tend to harbor a number of false beliefs. One of them is that our lives are largely in our own control." Mark R. Talbot (from "For the Fame of God's name")

I tend on the optimistic side of personality (it will all work out okay...) and I needed this reminder to "challenge our shallow confidences". Putting our hope in Christ is always far better than trusting in some circumstance that is fleeting in the moment.

New Haircut, Chapeau and big boy

Louis has gotten very fast in pulling himself up...and he can do it on pretty much anything. He's still a little unsteady on his feet probably because of his pigeon-toedness. He's still the cutest guy in the world (next to his daddy:)

Marianna learned more about the Gallette tradition in school today and everyone made crowns. Olivia is just a ham.

I decided it was time to start getting Marianna's hair evened up with her growing-out bangs. So out came the scissors and here's what we ended up with. I was originally thinking of going shorter, but I decided to try to keep it long enough for a partial ponytail.

Foil and Grunts

Yep, he's all boy. Unlike the girls, Louis has developed a language of grunts. He makes the age appropriate letter sounds too, but enjoys grunting especially when he is "conquering" something. For example: mommy's foil. Enjoy.

Beware of the creepy leg sneaking into the background;).