Where I've been, and where should I go

Yellow ceiling, orange wall, purple trim

Two weeks ago a bunch of excuses captured me. I have only just escaped.

First some pictures of what I have been doing instead of writing recipes. My daughter's sixteenth birthday is Friday the 28^th.. I've been helping her redecorate her room in her favorite colors. Wild, man.

purple wall, orange trim, green curtains 

green wall, yellow shelf

Husband, Ken and his Takamine 1987

Second, my husband said what I was afraid he would say about the picture of him I posted in my last blog. “That's not my guitar. That's the mandolin.” The truth is I liked the angle of the shot. So here's my hubby and his Takamine.

Finally, I have been giving some serious thought to my writing. I believe I am a writer. I have believed that about myself since I was eleven. In all that time I have been far more raw talent than educated and/or polished skill. My first love has always been to be a homemaker and I have done that for the past 33 years. I haven't regretted it. I have loved it and I am proud of it.

Ken, his banjos, and his dog, Jack  2009

However, my sons are grown and married, with children of their own. My daughter, after years of consideration has chosen to follow my footsteps into homemaking, is doing an academic/ apprenticeship home education. I have the time to be serious about what I want to do with my writing.

I have this cooking blog, but I tend to focus a lot on memoirs. I have a Tumblr where I post mostly stuff connected to the indie band Louden Swain, an occasional thing or two about the TV show Supernatural and I write about bringing peace to politics. It started as a place for my angst about politics, but I've realized that it wasn't going to bring me civil discussions no matter what angle I chose. Finally, have another blog where I post my fan fiction and other things I'm sure I'm not going to sell.

There isn't any doubt that writing is a part of who I am and from looking at my blogs I see that I lean heavily toward story telling. It is time to learn how to make money at it. The question is, and I'm posing this to my readers, do I:

a) Develop this blog into a professional gluten/allergy-free cooking blog,

b) Get serious with what I am learning about script writing in my fan fiction and have a go at being a writer for TV (a really hard business to get into, but I'm having so much fun),

c) Create a professional blog for my little stories, forsaking all other blogs, or

d) Give up blogging in pursuit of freelance writing?

Gluten Freestyling With Lisa

The great thing about families is the way everyone pulls together when your hurt. Every weekend our family gathers on Friday and Saturday for dinner, games, and movies. My broken arm might have stopped me from cooking, but it didn't my family from gathering for our special time together.

Lisa, is twelve years and can show you how easy it is to cook gluten free family meals. She of course received a lot of coaching from mom. On Friday Lisa simply made sloppy joes using gluten free ketchup and spices. She then made a simple salad. Twelve is a little young to be doing deep fat frying, so big brother Jared cooked up the French fries.

For Saturday's meal, Lisa first put on a pot of rice to boil. She then chopped vegetables for a roasted vegetables dish. We were going to roast them part of the way in the microwave and then finish in the conventional oven, but once things got busy with the distraction of her older siblings and nephew showing up it, we forgot to move the dish to the oven. So, we needed to just cook them in the microwave to have them done on time. Lisa topped off the meal with steak and gravy. She did a good job. Her cooking was so delicious I think I might be fired. There were no leftovers.

The amounts in this recipe is all to taste and mood. What I give here is what Lisa choose. My daughter-in-law makes this same dish with fresh onions, the steak in it and uses rutabagas instead of celery.

Roasted Vegetables

1 tsp dried chopped Onions

3 small cloves Garlic

2 chopped Parsnips

2 stalks chopped celery

6 skinny Carrots chopped

Roast in conventional oven at 350° for an hour or until vegetable are tender. For microwave, cook on high for 10 minutes, stir, and finish by cooking for 5 minutes more.

Variation: Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil or butter and some spices before roasting.

Steak and Gravy

This is usually done with leftover steak, but since there wouldn't be enough we started out by browning some fresh steak.

1 and ½ pounds of chopped, browned steak. Stir in 2 – 3 tablespoons potato flour. Pour over this enough gluten free broth to more than cover the steak. Simmer on Medium heat until desired thickness. Serve over potatoes or rice.

For my vegetarian needs I tossed some tofu with low sodium Tamari, which is a gluten free soy sauce. I find it both at the health food store and the local grocery store. I tossed the tofu with my roasted vegetables.