Lupus

Pink Lemonade Cake

Hey, y’all.

Hope things are great in your world. 🙂

I have been so sick here in my little corner of the world. I don’t know if y’all noticed or not but prior to mid July I was doing a lot better. I went back on Plaquenil in Sept ’15 and if you’re not familiar with that medication it takes a while to build up / start working. Spring of this year it definitely started to kick in and I was feeling better all the time. I started a business and was a lot more active than I’d been in a while.

The business is starting to take up more of it’s allotted space in the house so right after I blogged the last time I started working on clearing out some more space. I was on the floor cleaning and didn’t see a baseboard nail that was sticking up. I ran my cleaning hand over it and shredded my index finger.  It bled for 9 HOURS straight (because my INR had spiked)  AND I got a staph infection.

If you’ve never had a staph infection…yeah don’t get one.  It is horrible.  Had to get a tetanus shot too. The antibiotic was making me sicker than the staph. I ended up with a reaction to the meds and that led to more meds which I’m currently on.

So yeah…it’s been one big party over here.

I guess it could be worse…;)

I did manage to cook a couple things in the middle of all that.

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Banana muffins.

Started watching this new Netflix show The Get Down. It’s set in 1978 and is the story of a bunch of kids in the South Bronx. It’s pretty good and definitely has the potential to keep me interested.

So perfect for this election season.

So this has turned out to be the summer of cakes around here. I was thinking about it and it seems like all I baked all summer was various cakes.

This was another keeper and is perfect for squeezing out these last few weeks of summer.

Once again I took gfJules perfect vanilla cake recipe and tweaked the liquids.

I used her recipe and subbed butter for the oil plus 1/4 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of frozen pink lemonade concentrate for the 1/2 cup of milk. I added some red food coloring to get the more vibrant pink color.

For the icing I just did a basic icing recipe and added a couple tbsp of the pink lemonade concentrate.

This was delish and I’m definitely making it again next summer. 🙂

Ok that’s all for today. Hope y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂

 

Biscuits and Crumbs

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Happy Friday.

Me lately. 🙁

Did y’all have a good spring break?

Did some baking this week.  It’s never a good sign when you get all your dry ingredients measured out and then something falls off a shelf and into said dry ingredients bowl sending flour all over the place. That recipe turned out awful.

 😉

Got my new Hill merch. I feel the need to clarify that I’m not channeling Meme and planning to wear it with that stripedey skirt under it 😉 I just forgot to crop it out. Anyway the first time I washed it the color on that one spot of the logo washed completely off.  I didn’t think they’d do anything since I’d already washed it but I sent them the pic and they’re sending me another one.

Got another load of gfjules flour. 🙂

This week’s human garbage? Joe Osborn. Watched this docu about The Carpenters.  I have some younger readers so The Carpenters were a big deal brother / sister duo in the 70’s and early 80’s…before the sister, Karen died of anorexia.  This docu was filmed in 1997 and is horrible picture quality but is the story of their career.  This Joe @ss__ was talking about the first time he heard Karen sing in the studio after she’d played the trumped and he said “forget the trumpet this chubby girl can sing”.  OK so it’s the late 60’s and he’s an @ss__ that’s one thing but again this was filmed in the late 90’s and 14 years after the women he’s talking about STARVED herself to DEATH to look thin.  Seriously you’re such garbage you can’t even fake acting like a decent human being for the docu?

🙂

Now about that baking…

2 cups gfjules flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp sugar, 4 tbsp chunked up cold butter.

1 cup buttermilk.

Mixed up. Should look messy.

Pressed together in Saran and into the icebox overnight.

Rolled and folded 4 times til the butter is all incorporated and the dough is silky smooth. No cool rest between rolls and folds.  I only did the finger press thing to show how soft the dough is.

Back into the icebox for several hours.

Then I rolled it out and made the flakiest layered biscuits.  It was a dream to work with.  I used one for a little cheeseburger slider.  Everyone else ate theirs breakfast style.  Then…

I took the rest of them and made panko style bread crumbs…they’re in the bag on the left.  The bag on the right is regular crumbs made from old bread.

I needed some bread crumbs for a recipe I’ll post next week and I had the idea of making layer style biscuits so I could separate the layers, dry them, then get a thicker crumb when pulsed.  I remembered one of my Meme’s biscuit recipes and tried it out gluten – free.  Loved it.  I also made a batch for the freezer where I didn’t do all the rolling.  I just grated the butter into the flour, mixed it all up then rolled out a little piece of dough for a tester to see how it would taste. It was delish too…but of course had no layers…and a lot less work.  I’ll try to remember to post pics whenever I bake the freezer dough.

Ok that’s all for today. Y’all have a great weekend and I’ll see you soon. 🙂

 

Individual King Cakes

Hey, y’all. 🙂

It’s little Friday.  AKA Thursday.  🙂

Do y’all have big super bowl plans this weekend?

No health news this week.   Trying to fight thru the pain while I get my insurance situation settled.  I might write about the insurance drama soon.

 

😉

Did y’all watch the OJ show this week?  I was addicted to the OJ drama / trial when it was happening.  I think the casting for this new tv show is pretty spot on except for Travolta playing Shapiro.  I can’t buy that at all.  I also think it’s a sign I’ve been watching too much Roku content when I can’t stand the thought of having to wait 10 weeks of watching to get to the end of the series. Instead of being able to binge it all in a few days.

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All the talk about the new Barbie lead me to an article about this other body positive doll, Lammily.  100% cool with her but the pic above?  You can order a “Period Party” kit for her. A booklet about periods plus period underwear with sticker ‘pads’.  What?  I get the whole point of the doll is to give girls a realistic body image and I’m all for open body talk with kids but I mean wouldn’t the kids playing with these dolls be a little young for period pad stickers?

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Watched this docu, Iris. About quirky stylist Iris Apfel.

This lady.  She’s just as quirky as you’d imagine her to be.

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My latest coloring book creation.  Coloring really does zen you out.  🙂

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So next Tuesday is Mardi Gras and of course King Cake time.  I decided to make individual King Cakes this year.

After rolling up I had a few busted spots…

…which were easily covered with the icing and sprinkles.  For size context that’s a square salad or side sized plate.

Y’all know how I feel about tightly / multiple rolls King Cakes…it’s not a King Cake if it’s not flatter / loosely rolled. 😉

This was the best gluten – free King Cake I’ve ever made (or eaten).  I used half of my usual recipe which is just the Southern Living recipe which calls for sour cream.  I used gfJules flour and instead of sour cream I used vanilla yogurt because I’ve been playing around with a base / do it all type dough for a while and I’ve been using plain yogurt in it and really loving the results.

I still can’t say enough good stuff about gfJules flour.  I just ordered 32 pounds. Of course about 5 hours after I placed my order she sent out a 15% off everything coupon so I missed out on that but I think it’s still going on if y’all want to check out her store.  I’m not sure but you might have to subscribe to her daily email to get the discount.  If you’re at all interested in ordering some you should sign up anyway.  She sends out a recipe each day and the email has different sales / discounts each week.

That’s all for today.  Thanks so much for reading. See ya soon. 🙂

 

Catching Up

Hey, y’all. Are you staying safe and warm?

It’s supposed to get up into the 70’s for us this weekend.  I’m so happy.  I hate this cold weather. It’s nice for a couple of weeks but it’s time for it to go back where it came from.

So when we last met I was heading out for a TNE procedure.

Looking out the window of the office.  I don’t know if y’all can see that in the bottom pic but it’s a rainbow that went from down in the trees on one side of the road to down in the trees on the other.  When I saw it I thought maybe it was a sign that things were going to be ok.

Well that turned out to be a disaster. The scheduling doctor’s office didn’t make it clear that I needed the scope that goes all the way into the stomach and when I got there all they could do was the scope that only goes the to the bottom of the esophagus. I need both scoped and can’t have it done two separate times. So now I’m having trouble getting scheduled somewhere else where they can do the entire procedure. I’ve had several good long cries and I just feel like this is never going to end. 🙁

But let’s not dwell on that…and get on with the randoms. 🙂

Are any of y’all addicted to this tea?  My addiction is getting out of hand so I’m trying to wean off of it.

So I bought some of this and am filling up the empty bottles.  Yes, it has Splenda. No I do not care. 🙂  It has the Splenda in the bag.  You just steep it and it sweetens at the same time.

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Love this so much. 🙂

So thankful for my once in a lifetimes. 🙂

If you know me in real life or followed the old blog you know I love all things UK and love love love me some britcom Coupling.  There’s this episode where Sally (who is obsessed with aging) has to go to a funeral and says something about how she’s scared to be around all the elderly people there because they’ll be like the desert trying to soak up all of her moisturizer.

Had to take Papa B to the SAS shoe store…and felt so much like Sally. 😉

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So Cruz wants to sit down with Trump one on one? That ought to be riveting television.

Cruz: me.

Trump: Me.

Cruz: ME!

Trump: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!!!!!!!!

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Went to London and Germany today. 😉  This grocery store I go to has what they call the Ethnic aisles.  They added stuff from the UK and Germany.  The can is rice custard pudding and the box is boil n bag potato dumplings.  Can’t wait to try them out.  This particular box of dumplings had an English list of the ingredients stuck over the German list printed on the box and they’re all celiac safe but they had some other brands that were not safe.

On the baking front…

I wish y’all could feel how soft and stretchy these are.

Gluten – free rolls to go with Mama B’s gluten – free fried chicken bits.

Used part of the dough for the rolls and the rest for these cinnamon rolls.  An early Valentine’s Day treat.

I’m playing around with the gfJules flour and dough.  I’ll share when I get this where I want it. 🙂

BTW…big congrats to Jules…the flour and mixes won a bunch of awards last week. 🙂

Okay that’s all for today.  Stay warm and I’ll see ya soon.  🙂

Keeping with the UK theme…you’re welcome for the earworm. 😉

 

 

Hodgepodge and Raisin Bread

Hey, y’all.

So when we last met I was getting ready for the Scleroderma specialist appointment I’d waited 3 1/2 months for.

I didn’t take a bus instead I took…

That’s right this spoiled girl took the metro. It wasn’t bad.  I parked at a park n ride right at the train stop and then it dropped me off literally right in front of the office.

Riding by Reliant.  A lot of good things (and days of my life) happened in the building on the right (the Astrodome) not so much in the one on the left. 😉 Y’all can call it NRG.  I’ll keep right on calling it Reliant.

Anyway the appointment went really well.  She was one of the best doctors I’ve ever seen.  The appointment was almost 2 hours long and that was 2 hours spent in the room WITH the doctor. She went over every single thing that’s happened from day one with my lupus, celiac and everything in between.  She ordered some more tests which left my arm looking like this…

And tomorrow I’m going back to see an ENT in the same group of doctors for a Transnasal Esophagoscopy (a non-sedated endoscopy thru the nose).   If everything comes back ok or no worse than the original blood work / scans then she said that right now she’ll classify me as having mild sclero and it’s predominately internal.  The only skin issue I have is dry / disappearing lips.  (They’ve shrunken up and like into my face over the last few months.)

She was a dream and I feel so much better and feel like no matter what comes back from the testing I know I’ll be in good hands.  🙂

Stopped at Fuddruckers after the appointment and this note about them being the official hamburger of the Texans is on the cups.  Uhmm I’m gonna go ahead and suggest a switch to Whataburger next season.  😉

RIP Glenn Frey. 🙁  Such sad sad news.  Not only was he an awesome singer / musician but he and his wife gave both a lot of time and money to the Lupus foundation.

If you love music and have never watched the docu History of the Eagles…you should.  Like tonight. 🙂

If you’re a sports fan you’re probably at least a little bit familiar with the ‘mess’ that is Bill Simmons.  He says it best though in this article he wrote about the docu…”In my humble opinion, it’s the finest documentary ever made about the rise and fall of a memorable rock band, as well as a superb commentary on the dangers of fame and excess.”  Right on, BS.  Right on.  He says at the time of the article he’s watched part one five times.  I know we’ve at least equaled that in the texas girl home. 🙂

Hey, Sister B.  Look familiar?  🙂

Did y’all see this story going around last week? This Mom knit a doll that looks like her son so she can hug it since her son is older and doesn’t want to cuddle with her anymore.  I hope she’s also setting aside some money for therapy.  So creepy.

Snapped this while sitting at a red light.  What do y’all think they serve at ‘Hoggs n Chicks – a fine food shack’ ?

Remember last week when I showed y’all the gfJules mixes I ordered? Well I’ve tried two more…

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The pancake mix which I made into blueberry waffles.

And…

Have y’all ever made bread with Ginger ale as the liquid? I’ve made a lot of bread in my life and had never seen this before.

I did a long overnight icebox rise.

I wish there was a way to show you how soft the inside of this bread is.  There’s also no doubt that it would have risen to a full size loaf if I had the right size pan.  My bread pan is smaller so I had to bake part of the dough as a round otherwise I knew it would have never baked all the way thru.

So I took the bread mix and turned it in to raisin bread by adding some sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and raisins.  It. Is. Fabulous.  Since it was the first time using the mix I went light on everything I added to it but next time I will definitely add more cinnamon inside the mix.  It wasn’t cinnamon-y enough for me at all so I just made raisin bread cinnamon toast.  I can’t wait to make plain bread with the mix.  Good thing I ordered three boxes. 🙂

That’s all for today.  See y’all soon. 🙂