FiddleBabies

Dipping my toe in...I'm ready to return to you, Blogland.

Tradition

We've been eating 'this way'* for long enough now that I hardly notice the ways in which we are different than the norm but I do have a couple of boo hoo hang up moments and one of them is pizza.

Pizza has always meant family night to me. When I was little, my dad would pick up two pizzas from Little Caesar's and rent a video and we would eat together on the couch. For a family that always, always did sit down dinners, pizza night was a rare and cherished treat.

We've been loving our pizza stone for when we have our friends over for a pizza lunch but poor Yossie has not been reaping its benefits until I discovered Bob's Red Mill gluten-free pizza crust mix. For $3.63, I can buy enough to make two pizza crusts on our afore-mentioned super awesome pizza stone. The cheese is more of an investment, but we are loving the Mt. Sterling goat milk mozzarella. It's almost $8, but I grate it up and use it on two pizzas. Beyond that, it's a spoonful or two of marinara and then we just throw on whatever veggies look good. The last one was finely chopped summer squash and basil because that's what we had on hand. So, we're talking a minimum of $8 per pizza which is probably the most expensive homemade pizza solution out there, but add a salad and maybe a nice vegetable dish and it's a pretty cheap dinner. It's not like we can call up Pizza Hut and order a pizza that we can eat anyway so the cost is relative.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Tastes even better, I assure you. And now family pizza night is a reality for us too! There is nothing that my two little lads enjoy more than squishing dough, sprinkling cheese, and eating all the olives before they can even dream of a life as a pizza topping.

*For those new to the program, 'this way' means gluten free for Yossie, dairy free for me except for a little goat cheese and occasional yogurt, very little animal protein (eggs and occasional seafood being the exception). I don't like the kids to have too much bovine dairy because their eczema flares up really badly when they do so we stick to goat milk/goat cheese/coconut milk ice cream at home and they just eat whatever they like when we're out in the world.

Scarce

A blast of summer before we hunker down with the woolens and the soup spoons.

Images from the second annual hootenanny for my fiddle studio.













Followed closely behind by one of our favorite events...Irish Fest!









And then SOMEBODY turned 2!!!





A little knitting too, of course. One of my dear friends from high school had her little baby girl a couple of months ago. My friend has always been a Hello Kitty fan and this is her first daughter so I couldn't resist.



Another friend from high school just had a new baby boy. He and his wife are outdoorsy so I was going for wee hiking boots here.



And I made a little wind shield for our guitarist's microphone.



Perhaps I will soon have two words to string together instead of a dozen pictures, but a picture's worth a thousand words, right?

Isabeara

I made this for my friend's baby Isabella Ann Rosario Lastname. She was born in May *blush* but I'm just now getting it done and in the mail. Hopefully the cuteness makes up for the lateness.

I'm calling her Isabeara.





Next up, a Hello Kitty baby hat and Saartje's booties. Both are free patterns that I found on the magnificent Ravelry website. Come find me on Ravelry if you are a member.

Homer

Meet Homer



Between the schnoz and the thin face, he (unintentionally) looks a little like Beaker from the Muppet Show



Can you see his belly button?



His wee feet (they're not actually different lengths, he was wiggling)



The jam-faced recipient (still sleeping, hasn't met his new friend yet)



Thanks for peeking!

Make

We've been busy making stuff.

Like salad (marinated kale with tomatoes and avocados)



Ribbit.



Homer (in progress)

Isabeara (still needs a face)

Patterns for the last two toys are from Zoë Mellor's Knitted Toys. I found a sweet blog when I googled for that book link.

Still working on a shawl for my brother-in-law's girlfriend.

And plenty of other free form art!

Emerge

I've been spending the last few days trying to scrabble my way out of this dark pit of somnolence and sluggishness. A lovely morning with our dear friends yesterday seems to have been just the ticket and I find myself coming alive again.

Yesterday was a day of experiments and I didn't manage to take any pictures of them but definitely had some great successes to recreate!

First up, pizza dough in the bread machine. Nothing could have been easier. Add to that a $9 pizza stone and we had a delicious birthday lunch with our favorite 5 year old. I have dreams of finding a gluten free pizza dough solution for the whole family. Any suggestions?

For dessert, we made chocolate coconut milk ice cream in my friend's Hamilton Beach ice cream maker. It was beyond delicious and so easy. By the way, my friend, I finally read through this recipe and the comments connected to it (after the fact, of course) and it looks like for this recipe the texture is like soft serve right as it comes out of the machine but you can freeze it for an hour to get a texture closer to the Purely Decadent version. Who can wait an hour though?!? It was heavenly just out of the machine.

There will be many more experiments to come because my friend gifted me with a treasure of a book called Make Your Place; Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs. It is a gem, all hand lettered and illustrated in a style similar to Mollie Katzen's original Moosewood Cookbook and it is filled with recipes and concoctions for everything from salves and ointments to face oil and deodorants to everything there is to know about getting a garden started. I love this book! I also want to give props to the publishing company Microcosm Publishing. Definitely check these folks out.

I think I'm going to need to be more conscious of getting my iron and B vitamins because I think that was what really tipped me over last week. I assume at some point my cycle will become more regular as the breastfeeding wanes and I can't afford to be totally knocked out for a week out of every month.

A work in progress, that's me!