Neewollah

Our Sunday morning "Young Adults" Group got together on Friday night and had a Halloween party and game night. We enjoyed some tasty food - including my mom's white chicken chili a la Kimberly, tasty sugar cookies lovingly cut to festive shapes by Terra, nachos, gluten free corn bread from Katie, coffee, and caramel cereal and nut mix. The Jubas bravely opened their home for us, and 9 of us descended on their home.

Brian Muench won the costume contest as Charlie Chaplin -- complete with an authentic mustache, split toe shoes, and pants held up by string. Jordane Ripke won second with her 1940s private eye costume, sporting a skirt set, shotgun and holster, and a badge. Luke Arledge won third with his impressive Clark Kent costume -- such a secret superhero that we couldn't even tell what he was. Honorable mentions are Ryan Lindsey with his Scottish Rugby player, Josh as the Therapist, Katie as a crazy chemist (crazy added for effect), Morgan (Jordane's friend) with the flower child, -- although we could have believed "blind girl from Shyamalan's The Village." The Jubas came as "proud college parent" and "tired but cheerful teacher." I was a barista -- I know, big departure!

Dietetic Internships

The days in Pueblo seemed to signal the arrival of Fall -- the days were reaching highs of 50s and 60s. This week; however, the weather has ventured up to the 70s, and today is supposed to be 80s. I am ready for fall! Where are the fall colors? Well, the leaves started to change and then fell off the trees because we had some really cold nights. Man... I want to move to an area that has nice long fall days.

Health Expo

On Friday I participated in a Health Expo. It was at the Transportation Testing Center east of Pueblo. It took me about 45 minutes to get there! There was a pretty good turnout -- there were about 150 employees, and I probably met 50. They had incentives to go: prizes were being given out. Several asked good questions. Most of them "knew what was good to eat but didn't do it." Yah, that's a typical response about good nutrition.

Enjoy the pics.

Gluten Free Pizza

One thing Josh and I haven't enjoyed since going GF is pizza. I finally broke and bought a package of $5 pizza crust mix. We've tried the frozen pizzas -- they're all right. The crusts are crispy and flat and bland. So I tried the Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza mix. It makes 2 10-inch pizzas. Very thick. Like a giant biscuit spread out and topped with pizza toppings. I bought yeast, so I think I'll try make my own with my flour substitute. The only thing is that you can't knead GF dough. It's like a sticky blob of too-thick pancake batter. So just spread it out on parchment paper directly on a cookie sheet and bake as directed.

Check out the picks below. Flavor was good -- for a giant biscuit.

Ah...nice chewy pizza crust... alas... no more. But for a decent substitute, I recommend it.

Cookies at the Tailgating Party

That was super fun!  The cookies went pretty fast.  I had taken nearly three dozen cookies there -- probably somewhere between two and two-and-a-half.  I took back one baggie of crumbles.  A few people had more than one cookie.  I had sneaked a few Betty Crocker cookies into the bag, and everyone agreed that mine were better.  The top photo of the Three Musketeers showed the three.  The BC cookie was much lighter colored -- I had used whole wheat flour in my regular cookies -- and it was flatter and crisper.  My cookie had a mix of white and milk chocolate chips, and I think that may have sealed the deal.  The other thing is that I used Rolled Oats rather than instant or quick cooking.  That resulted in a fuller cookie with a real oat bite.  It sure was fun!  

Here's the Christian Challenge group at CSU.  Ryan Lindsey, who shows up in our picture with the Muench's, and his wife Terra are the ministers of the Christian Challenge ministry.  Terra designed their site: http://www.challengepueblo.com/

Well, I must make breakfast -- gluten free pancakes topped with yogurt (Josh's homemade kind) and peach preserves (from Palisade).

Enjoy the pictures.