We all remember when I accidentally set my grandmother’s oven on fire this summer, right? I had completely forgotten she stores cookies & crackers in it, and had simply started preheating it. I check every oven before preheating now, though!

Well, anyhow… I’m still getting used to cooking in my mom’s kitchen. There are some differences in how we organize things, and in which products we buy. I was never a big fan of canola oil spray, but she has it, so I use it. It works well, too. I wonder why I was opposed to it? Well, that isn’t the point.

Today was a high-pain day, and I was making dinner in a bit of a rush. I had started the chicken cooking in the oven, and was prepping two more 9×13 pans with potatoes and vegetables. When I sprayed the oil on the pans to prep them, it pooled up, and wasn’t smelling right. I was about to add the potatoes into the pan when I noticed what I had used to spray the pans.

It wasn’t canola oil.

It was Resolve Carpet Cleaning spray.

Both are red bottles. One is great with food. The other, not so much. eeek!

I washed the pans about 5 times before I trusted them with food. I’d have preferred not to use hem, but we only have 4 pans that size, and I already had one in the oven.

So, please people out there – don’t put carpet cleaning spray near the food!

Over the past couple weeks, as part of studying Ancient Civilizations, we’ve studied the ancient Jewish people and specifically, Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. It turned multi-media when we learned about the musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! In our Homeschool Coop, we even had a mom who knew the music! On Friday, we also had fun making individual coats of many colors using paper the movers left behind, then pieces of construction paper as fabric. They were really cool.

On Saturday, MG had a birthday party to attend, which meant we needed to make cupcakes! I futzed with an existing recipe, and ended up with the perfect chocolate cupcakes, which were fluffy, moist, and looked beautiful, too! In the spirit of many colors, I set up 5 ziplocs of frosting, each in a different color. Then I snipped the end off a corner of each ziploc, and the girls were able to decorate with many colors. It was so much fun! And much less messy than I was expecting! Plus, multi-colored cupcakes taste better than solid-color cupcakes!

We’re settling into our temporary home, and finding little joys like little bursts of color. We hope all our friends are also having brilliant days.

After 5 years of living up the hill from a beach where you can dig for clams, I got a dairy-free clam chowder recipe perfected enough to post it. Of course I could tweak it for years, but this is delicious, and I couldn’t stop eating it. When BG cried because it was gone, I knew it was good! LG and MG disliking it means nothing, of course!

I loved watching this peacock wandering around the zoo yesterday, it reminded me of a park we frequented in Austin that had peacocks and peahens wandering around in it. We had some wonderful times there.

Today was a lovely day. It started with sleeping in a bit and some chocolate chip pecan pie for my breakfast. (The girls had healthy breakfasts) How can a day that starts with chocolate chip pecan pie be anything other than amazing?

BG, MG, and I were baptized this morning, which was a truly amazing experience. My heart felt so warm, and I felt such joy! The girls described it very similarly. LG is not old enough to be baptized (you need to be 8 ), but she watched happily. One of my step-brothers came to the baptism, as did my dear friend Nanny Ogg and some new friends from our church family. It was an experience I can’t describe well, because it was just so awesome.

My step-brother came back to visit with us at the house for a few minutes (and did some guy work of removing some proof that our cat is a huntress). After he left we had some lunch & desserts, and then Nanny Ogg arrived and agreed to eat some dessert. Then, of course, we went geocaching! We found 3 caches, and also found a path that led to another 3 caches, but figured 11 minutes until sunset wasn’t enough sunlight to to walk a half-mile and search for caches. We saved that path for next time. We figured that finding the cache from the place we were kicked out of last time was good enough.

LG spent all day asking to go to the grocery store and get chips, so after our geocaching, we went to the store to buy the 4 major food groups – soda, potato chips, bananas, and hot dogs. Those supplement the full pantry and freezer. Eggs would’ve been a smart idea too, but since we have the van!, we can get more Monday.

Finishing the day with some turkey noodle soup (with nummy turkey stock) and some experimental cinnamon-craisin bread was perfect. And more chocolate chip pecan pie, of course!

Today was a joyful day, and I am so grateful for the many blessings of family, friends, food, and our new church! May all of you have many days filled with joy!

This was our Thanksgiving dinner, thanks to all our friends – one friend who brought a box of root veggies, another whose agency gave us some gift cards to the grocery store, another friend who came with some pantry staples to stockpile, and another who helped with a paypal gift that covered the rest of the groceries. Their generosity was amazing, and brings tears to my eyes.

And just like no dinner would be complete without dessert, this Thanksgiving wouldn’t have been the same without the incredible support, love, and friendship of so many people. So many amazing and wonderful people have helped or inspired us, helping us along a road that isn’t an easy one.

We were lucky enough to share our dessert bounty with a couple of young women from the church, it’s always wonderful to share joy. And it sounds better if you have 6 people and 5 desserts than 4 people with 5 desserts!

I appear to have done too much, so I’m in some pain. Hoping to go to the zoo tomorrow, though! It’s freeeeee!

My wonderful blogging friends have helped me so much this past year.  I feel so blessed, and wish many many blessings for all of you! May you have a day filled with friends, family, good food, and joy. May you also get great Black Friday Deals from the comfort of your own home.

We will be well fortified by our meal, and spiritually fortified by our guests at dessert. I will have a few recipes to post soon, too! This is our first Thanksgiving as a family of 4 rather than 5*, so I wanted to be special and still have our favorite foods.

We might have dietary restrictions with allergies and celiac disease, but we don’t let that stop us from eating well!

Dinner:

• Ginger Butternut Squash Soup
• Bread
• Stuffing
• Candied Yams
• Cranberry sauce
• Mashed Potatoes
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts
• Gravy
• oh, and Turkey!

Desserts:

• Apple Crisp
• Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie
• Pumpkin Bars
• Pumpkin Pie
• Peach Pie Cake Cobbler

I hope all of you have a wonderful feast!

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The girls spent some time yesterday and today working with their Easy Bake Ovens. Since the mixes have gluten & dairy, we adapted some recipes, and created Chocolate and Cinnamon Easy Bake cakes, which they have proudly baked and given to the whole household. Yum!

The girls did great with measuring stirring, etc – they followed the recipes beautifully! I’m so proud

Current status:

• 41 pages of recipes

• 11 pages of writing
• Outline – 8 pages

So, as distractions, I’m playing scramble on Facebook, learning Skype, finding a Sarah Palin doll, and playing with the Sarah Palin name generator.

No matter what else is happening around here, I still need to make meals. Last night I made Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo, and it was a big hit. I will be emailing people about recipe testing in the next week or so (I’m listing folks as vegetarian or not, too).

Currently the girls are making baked donuts in their Easy Bake Ovens.. they smell divine.

As another note, I’m traveling again to CT this week, and the girls are coming down with me. Visiting both Nanas, one of whom will be 91 a week from Monday! Life keeps chugging along!

My colleague and I have signed the book contract! I’m just waiting for the advance check now!

Updates will be minimal. I still have some hand and wrist pain, so I’m trying to limit most of my typing to book-related work.

I’ll contact people in the next couple weeks about testing recipes to be testers.

A quick linky post this morning to alert you that the new food allergy blog carnival has been posted.

My post last night about my upcoming dairy-free book is part of the carnival.

Don’t forget to check out the new recipe for Lentil and Sea Veggie soup. We will be testing the egg free version of the Chocolate Donuts today. We really suffer

Now off to write more…