Crumblin' Down

Artwork by CJ

Last week was so incredibly busy! The whole family was split up!! Even though R traveled more miles by flying, I felt like my east side-west side-all around the town pick-ups and drop-offs surely must have come close. Wow.... Things didn't really come to a pace of relaxation until after Sunday's bell-playing concluded. Enjoyed a very "regular" day today. Whew!....


Amidst the bustle of our busiest week this summer, there was a lot of cooking done last week. The gluten-free pantry was a bit bare. Even though I complained about having so much bread in the fridge, I copped the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude and made some gluten-free bread! Helped to finish off some cold cuts and condiments. (HA!) The best part about this was deciding to try the King Arthur Flour Gluten-Free Bread mix--the best gluten-free bread I have had so far. Loved every single slice--especially toasted, but, not necessarily. That's how good it was! (Now, today, I made a mistake and bought K.A. G-F FLOUR mix. OOPS! Fortunately, K.A. has directions for making bread with the flour mix on their website. Of course, it's not as good as the bread mix. Doh!!)

R left us three of his bananas when he left town. RJ2 helped me make some very tasty G-F banana muffins--half with chocolate chips. She eats one of those every day!



And with the cool breeze blowing--yes, this was last week, when the cool breeze was blowing, and I was cooking like it was Fall outside!--I peeled up the last apples from the beach trip and whipped up a crumble. Because, any day can be a crumble day! (And I think some of last week's truly were. "Crumblin', crumblin' -- dowwwwwnnnnnn.....")



Grabbed the last of the strawberries and tossed them in. (I love this gadget! I asked for a strawberry huller for my birthday, and this crazy syringe-looking thing is the coolest huller ever. Works great on tomatoes as well. And, since strawbs season is wrapping up, it's getting much more use with tomatoes now.)

Last of a bag of frozen raspberries? Sure, why not. Dried cherries. Oh, yeah!

And the crumble part--G-F oats, brown sugar, butter....

You know when it's done when the juices overrun the sides. No, not really, but.... YUM! Have been enjoying it with a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt--trying to use up both, actually. What really makes it is being able to heat it up, to re-live the just-out-of-the-oven experience. Unfortunately, the microwave is shot, and I just don't feel like heating up one more thing on the stove at the end of the day. But, it's fine cold, too. (Gosh, we really did used to heat up things without microwaves once. So spoiled!)

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One more apple story....

Our neighbors planted an apple tree in their front yard a couple of years ago. It is a really nice tree now but, they have struggled with keeping their fruit. No, not a bug problem. Not a mold/fungus problem. Not even a kid problem! No, the squirrels have pretty much claimed the tree theirs. Most nights, while we're eating dinner, I spot a squirrel with a huge chunk of bright green in his mouth. You would think he would dine at the source. But, no, it's take-out, every night--on top of our swing set!

We have since found parts of apples stashed all over the yard. I found a large uneaten one buried under a pile of leaves! But, the funniest find so far has been the one that was left on the swing set the other night.

Mrs. Cardinal, enjoying herself some apple crumble....