This new auto-immune diet is consuming vast amounts of my time and energy. I seem to be spending every spare minute in the kitchen cooking all manner of auto-immune friendly food. I'm so hoping that it will be worth it - it's not a cheap or easy journey by any stretch of the imagination.
AIP snickerdoodles - yummy but went a bit soggy the next day
mint ice cream - very moorish
Wraps made out of nothing but coconut - a revelation for our Mexican nights
Zucchini cheese - not sure I can get past the yeasty smell to make them again though
salmon and parsnip cakes
Smoked fish, kumara and kale patties
I have made a myriad of different foods so far - some with more success than others - zucchini cheese (not sure I can get past the smell to ever make it again though), garlic breadsticks (went a bit soggy), mint ice cream (yum!), blueberry cheesecake bites (yum!), salted caramel blondies (too good!), salmon and parsnip cakes (so good on my lunchtime salad), smoked fish, kumara and kale patties (yeeha!), and my all-time favourite smoky maple breakfast sausages (the stuff dreams are made of!).
Smoky maple sausages - these are so much like our favourite New Yorker Porker sausages it's unreal!
I've also made lots of vege soups (that tends to be my breakfast these days) and been trying to eat a lot more fish and red meat with my dinners to go along with all the veges.
In between all this, the past couple of weekends the boys and I have also made chocolate caramel slice, rocky road, honey rice bubble cake and lolly cake for them to eat - although not all at once ha ha! It's a huge test of my stamina not to indulge in any of this stuff or to lick the bowl while we are doing the baking - it's almost like a slow torture sometimes, but I'm proud of myself for sticking to my guns so far, and I love that they are enjoying their baking experiences. Next weekend we will be doing our share of baking for the great NZ ninja baking drop for some lovely local people.
Last weekend we had our dear friends Emily and Ezra come to visit - they relocated from Wellington to Auckland about 18 months ago so we were comparing notes on long distance moves and settling in. The kids enjoyed catching up together and we checked out the velodrome and the bike skills park before sitting down to a tasty lamb roast before they had to get back on the road north again.
Soon we hope to have some good news on the house building front - we are still waiting on the title and building consent but once that's through we expect things should kick off next month - there's a chance we might be in by Christmas but we are trying not to pin our hopes on it.
One big frustration for me is that I haven't taken a damn photo in months - not since Rarotonga - I really do need to get out. It's not as if I'm not seeing lovely skies morning and night or admiring beautiful sights on my drives to work and around the countryside but driving and taking photos are a bit mutually exclusive - funny that! And finding the time (and non-frosty mornings) to go out on my own is proving challenging in the weekends but with the footy season nearly finished (only 2 more weeks after this one) and lighter/warmer mornings/evenings on the way I really hope I can get back into my snap-happy groove soon.
Blogging has also fallen a lot by the wayside - I think back to the days of posting 3-4 times a week and wonder how the heck I found the time to be honest - maybe I'll find that mojo again one day but it won't be any time soon. At the moment I don't really feel like a have a whole lot to offer. Most days seem to be a cycle of sleep (never enough!), exercise, go to work, cook, eat, sleep and repeat and that doesn't make for terribly exciting reading for you readers!
But I'm trying to tell myself that short and sweet and erratic posting is still better than not at all!
