Sunday, November 7, 2010
A Sister. A Brother. And a Loaf of Bread.
It's Sunday afternoon and Jeff and I are blogging while watching SVU...relaxing...after a very fun weekend with my sister and brother-in-law. We have had this trip planned for a while and were SO excited for the first weekend of November to finally arrive! Although Lauren had been to our tiny apartment before, Jeff hadn't...so we were able to show him around town.
We started out our morning in downtown Port Jefferson with breakfast at Toast of course. Maybe one of the these days we will try a different breakfast place. Maybe not.
I didn't take any pictures of our food because 1. it was early and 2. the lighting was bad. But let me tell you...it was GOOD. As always.
After stuffing our faces we walked around a bit. We showed Jeff the boats & ferry then drove around trying to find big houses to stalk.
We then headed out East to Wildwood State Park (one of our favorite places for summer BBQs) to spend some time on the beach and hiking! It was a beautiful fall day. We took LOTS of picture...so I won't post all of them.
Since we ate a pretty huge breakfast we kind of skipped lunch. We packed some snacks though...bananas, cashew crunch, and some g-free pretzels.
You would think after a long day of hiking we would be tired. But how could we possibly be tired when the Tanger Outlets were only 15 minutes away? Of course we went shopping :) And by "we" I mean Laur and I...the boys sat outside and chatted about manly things.
After shopping, we headed to the movies. We saw "The Town." GREAT movie-highly recommend it. Its a boy movie, but has some romance in it, so Lauren and I really enjoyed it. By the time the movie was over we were all starving, so we went to my favorite place in the whole world (besides my Mom-Mom's house)...Whole Foods to grab some grub.
Jeff Bryant ate: chicken, ceasar salad and mashed potatoes.
Jeff Jensen ate: some kind of stew and BBQ chicken pizza.
Lauren ate: chicken and rice soup...and I copied because that is what little sisters do.
We of course had to do some shopping...so Laur and I ate quickly in order that the guys wouldn't get too bored while we shopped at our favorite grocery store. This is Laur, deciding if she wants to buy $12.00 gluten-free cookies or not. Yes, gluten-free anything costs at least $12.00...it's horrible.
Our favorite brand of gluten-free bread: udi's.
Whole foods inspired us. Last week my dad found a bread maker at a yard sale for 5 dollars and bought it for his gluten-free girls :) He loves us. Laur brought it with her to NY and we didn't think we would have time to many any. But after a visit to Whole Foods, we were all hyped up and ready to give it a try. Note to self: bread takes 3 hours plus to make, so don't start making it at 11:00 at night. Or else you will have to set an alarm for the middle of the night, wake up and take the bread our of the machine. However sometimes you can't get the bread out of the machine without a little help, so you have to wake up your husband. Oops :)
Here is the recipe we used for gluten-free bread.
Ingredients:
First: combine the yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Add the water while stirring the yeast and sugar. Let this mixture sit while you work on the other ingredients (it is GOOD if it foams, don't be alarmed).
Second: combine the flour, xanthan gum and salt in the largest mixing bowl and stir well.
Third: in a third bowl, mix the eggs, oil and vinegar until the eggs are a bit frothy.
Finally: the yeast mixture should be foaming at this point, so you pour the two liquid mixtures into the bowl with the flour mixture. Blend together for about 4 minutes. Finally add it to the pan in the bread machine and follow directions for baking whichever bread you have chosen to make. Our took 3 hours.
I have to admit...I didn't love it. It tasted somewhat sour. Maybe we added too much vinegar and not enough sugar. I think next time I will try cinnamon and raisin bread. It didn't taste as bad with some peanut butter & banana on it though...but then again, nothing tastes bad when peanut butter and bananas are involved :)
We started out our morning in downtown Port Jefferson with breakfast at Toast of course. Maybe one of the these days we will try a different breakfast place. Maybe not.
I didn't take any pictures of our food because 1. it was early and 2. the lighting was bad. But let me tell you...it was GOOD. As always.
After stuffing our faces we walked around a bit. We showed Jeff the boats & ferry then drove around trying to find big houses to stalk.
We then headed out East to Wildwood State Park (one of our favorite places for summer BBQs) to spend some time on the beach and hiking! It was a beautiful fall day. We took LOTS of picture...so I won't post all of them.
Meet the Bryants. They are my favorite.
I love my sissy and can't wait until we live closer so we can go on double dates like these ALL the time!
Since we ate a pretty huge breakfast we kind of skipped lunch. We packed some snacks though...bananas, cashew crunch, and some g-free pretzels.
You would think after a long day of hiking we would be tired. But how could we possibly be tired when the Tanger Outlets were only 15 minutes away? Of course we went shopping :) And by "we" I mean Laur and I...the boys sat outside and chatted about manly things.After shopping, we headed to the movies. We saw "The Town." GREAT movie-highly recommend it. Its a boy movie, but has some romance in it, so Lauren and I really enjoyed it. By the time the movie was over we were all starving, so we went to my favorite place in the whole world (besides my Mom-Mom's house)...Whole Foods to grab some grub.
Jeff Bryant ate: chicken, ceasar salad and mashed potatoes.Jeff Jensen ate: some kind of stew and BBQ chicken pizza.
Lauren ate: chicken and rice soup...and I copied because that is what little sisters do.
We of course had to do some shopping...so Laur and I ate quickly in order that the guys wouldn't get too bored while we shopped at our favorite grocery store. This is Laur, deciding if she wants to buy $12.00 gluten-free cookies or not. Yes, gluten-free anything costs at least $12.00...it's horrible.
Our favorite brand of gluten-free bread: udi's.
Whole foods inspired us. Last week my dad found a bread maker at a yard sale for 5 dollars and bought it for his gluten-free girls :) He loves us. Laur brought it with her to NY and we didn't think we would have time to many any. But after a visit to Whole Foods, we were all hyped up and ready to give it a try. Note to self: bread takes 3 hours plus to make, so don't start making it at 11:00 at night. Or else you will have to set an alarm for the middle of the night, wake up and take the bread our of the machine. However sometimes you can't get the bread out of the machine without a little help, so you have to wake up your husband. Oops :)
Here is the recipe we used for gluten-free bread.
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon bread machine yeast
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 1/2 cups of water (a little less than hot, 105 degrees)
- 2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour mix
- 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
Ok so this is about to get somewhat complicated...hang in there with me...
First: combine the yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Add the water while stirring the yeast and sugar. Let this mixture sit while you work on the other ingredients (it is GOOD if it foams, don't be alarmed).
Second: combine the flour, xanthan gum and salt in the largest mixing bowl and stir well.
Third: in a third bowl, mix the eggs, oil and vinegar until the eggs are a bit frothy.
Finally: the yeast mixture should be foaming at this point, so you pour the two liquid mixtures into the bowl with the flour mixture. Blend together for about 4 minutes. Finally add it to the pan in the bread machine and follow directions for baking whichever bread you have chosen to make. Our took 3 hours.
We went to bed with a flour-like mixture kneading loudly in a bread machine and woke up to this!
I have to admit...I didn't love it. It tasted somewhat sour. Maybe we added too much vinegar and not enough sugar. I think next time I will try cinnamon and raisin bread. It didn't taste as bad with some peanut butter & banana on it though...but then again, nothing tastes bad when peanut butter and bananas are involved :)
