Photo Phriday: A Wedding Slideshow

My completely awesome photographers Kjeld and Melissa Mahoney put together a slide show from the wedding day that can be found by pressing play below:

Liz & Allen - A Bradley Estate Wedding from kjeld mahoney on Vimeo.

It's got a great soundtrack and even some video in it: enjoy!

A total recap of the wedding will be done within a few weeks once I receive all the photos from the day.

Happy Weekend!

I'm Baaaaaack: Maui Post #1

Welp, it's been about a month since I last wrote a post on my dear blog. I've missed it -- a lot, and the blogging community. And I will be back to normal blogging shortly.

Married life has been great: it's hard to believe that this is the longest amount of time that the A-man and I have had together consecutively. I know I'm being spoiled because another deployment and separation is looming come September.

But let's focus on the positive: we had an amazing honeymoon in Maui. We stayed at one of the Westin resorts in Kaanapali and as a wedding gift my sister and brother-in-law hired a Westin chef to come into our suite and cook us dinner one evening!!! How darn cool is that? I'll give a little recap of the dinner:

While the chef was prepping the food, we lounged on our patio:

Then our highly talented and very friendly chef worked some magic:

First course was a tuna sashimi dish that was amazing and so fresh. Those are crispy fried potatoes on top. Mine was made sans soy sauce.

Next up were two perfectly cooked scallops and a great salad (lettuce wrapped in a thin piece of cucumber: very pretty):

The main course was a piece of white fish that was delicious with a side of lightly sauteed veggies:


And lastly we had the best. dessert. ever. Now I'm a big chocolate person, so that's where I usually go with dessert, but this was amazing: a pineapple sorbet with lavender served in a almond bowl (made with sliced almonds and corn syrup). It was gooooood:

Inspired by our dessert I recently made my own version of pineapple sorbet that I will share soon on the blog.

A big thank you to my dear sis and bro in law for arranging this great evening. It was easily one of the highlights of our honeymoon -- and gluten-free and dairy-free of course.

I have a few more posts from Maui that I want to write about : dinner at Mama's Fish House, The Feast at LeLe and a trip to a goat farm. So on that note, I'll leave you with a photo of the awesome goats we got to hang out with in Maui:

If you look closely the middle goat is biting the ear of the goat on her right. Silly goats.

I'm Married!

This will be short as I'm blogging from my honeymoon, but what an amazingly touching and beautiful day it was. Everything went smoothly, there were a bunch of surprises, tons of dancing and the food was great. But most importantly, I married the love of my life.
P.S. Does my photographer not rock??? The photo above is of our wedding cake from Celia Cakes -- gluten-free of course.

Homemade Vanilla Almond Butter

Talk about a cinch to make! I think this recipe took me about two minutes to put together, and that includes cleaning my Vitamix. 

I'm a big fan of nut butter of any sort, so when I saw that Kath of Kath Eats Real Food was sampling some vanilla almond butter that a company had sent her, I knew it was something I had to try and make. And I did, and it was okay. So I tried again, and this time: score! 

The last batch I made was too crumbly and you could taste the alcohol from the vanilla extract, so I had a quick fix: use vanilla powder and add a little oil. And voila! Homemade vanilla almond butter. 

It's good on rice cakes, apples, in cereal, or by itself. I may even try roasting the almonds slightly and adding a bit of agave as well. 

Vanilla Almond Butter (gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan)

1 1/2 cups raw almonds
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder
2 (+/-) tablespoons mild tasting oil (I used light olive oil) 

Place all ingredients into a Vitamix, blender or food processor and process until smooth.

*To make an almond butter crunchy I will usually reserve a bit of the whole almond and add it in at the end until lightly chopped.  

Photo Phriday: The End of a Chapter

Big news in the life of Liz: not only am I getting married in two weeks, but I am leaving my job, moving to Virginia, and then moving to Illinois to begin a Master's program. Phew.

That's a lot of change. 

It's incredibly bittersweet for me. I love my job and I love the community that I live and work in, but in order to live like a married couple, I had to move. My co-workers and members from the tv station I work for threw a party for me yesterday. I was overwhelmed with the support I received from everyone and never will I forget this place and these people. 

My folks even attended and brought a giant, delicious cake from Celia Cakes -- it was absolutely amazing and no one could tell it was gluten-free.  



And in honor of SNL's Weekend Update, I threw my pen at the tv camera during my very last show today. I'm going to miss this place.

Gluten Free Fried Calamari

To make gf/cf fried calamari is soooo simple as I learned this past weekend. All you need is squid, cornstarch, salt and pepper and oil for frying. This is by no means a healthy meal, but it was a good way to celebrate Mother's Day this past weekend. 

I don't have a "recipe" for this because nothing was measured (my dear Dad made it), but the technique will work for sure: 

Cut squid into rounds, dredge in cornstarch and salt and pepper, fry until crispy. And voila, gluten free fried calamari! 

Gluten-Free Handmade Dog (and cat) Treats

How cool is this? Sugar Selections Gluten Free Dog Treats.

My sister passed this Etsy seller along to me with the heading "Henry's getting a wedding present!" so I have a feeling the little guy will be taste-testing these for you all soon. Here's what the baker has to say about her liver and flax seed biscuits:

Made with the folowing human grade ingredients:chicken livers and ground flax seed meal. Completely free of wheat, other grains containing gluten, corn, and dairy. Each biscuit is approximately 1.5" wide and each batch is made to order. Biscuits are very lightly baked and then popped into the dehydrator for 12 hours. The result is a fantastic treat for your dog with the taste (and stink!) of liver and all the health benefits of flax seed.

I'm sure you have all heard about the poisoned wheat gluten in dog food a few years back; that surely got people on the anti-gluten bandwagon, but there's another reason to stay away from it in my opinion: dogs aren't meant to eat wheat -- much like many humans. Sure, a lot of people do, and a lot of dogs do -- and they're just fine. But when you think about it, no dog would take down a stalk of wheat and nibble on it. It's just not edible in that form and they, of course, do not have the means to turn it into an appetizing cake or cookie (though that would be a funny sight -- cathcing Henry in the kitchen whipping up a pie).

I'm certainly not knocking people for feeding their dogs commercial dog food. I feed Henry the commercial stuff (though his is gluten-free) and in this economny when you have to decide between feeding your children healthily and feeding your dog healthily -- choose your kids. I'm simply saying that the less fillers (including gluten) that you feed your dog, the better.

And instead of leaving you with a photo of Henry enjoying these treats, I'll post one of the Etsy seller's adorable pooch enjoying one of her treats: