Gluten Free Saints' Days- St. John the Baptist

I've heard from a lot of people lately about the frustration of adapting old saints day traditions to new gluten free diets.

So I thought I'd post up another of our GF treats we made for St. John's yesterday.

I will try to post our other planned recipes a day or two before the feast day.

St. John's Locusts and HoneyOriginally I made these with a plain wheat biscuit recipe and I have heard of them being made with crescent rolls too.

Now I make them with a scone recipe. The original recipe can be found in Bette Hagman's The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread I believe they are listed as "Devonshire scones" (I highly recommend Hagman's books to anyone who is G-F!)

Here is my adapted recipe:

2 cups White Rice Flour1 cup Tapioca
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
8 tbs cold butter-grated
3/4 cup vanilla yogurt.

Preheat oven to 400 and grease your cookie sheet.

mix all dry ingredients very thoroughly.
mix in butter until crumbly
mix in yogurt until a soft ball of dough is formed

I knead it slightly on a rice floured board and break off balls
and pat them into ovals on the pan.- about 16

We add G-F pretzel legs and antenna. and almond wings. ds ate all the
cranberry eyes before we could add them.

Bake about 12 minutes until golden and serve with Honey butter!

Enjoy!

Why the neighbors think we are over the top...

Ok it wasn't my idea exactly but I did go along with it.

On Sundays we have peanut butter balls at lunch-(it's on the menu!)
As I rolled out the dough dd read the calender on the fridge..."what does beheading mean mom?"
I dropped a handful of dough on the floor.

Turns out that the Memorial of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist is coming up.
I've told the story of Our Lord's cousin before...I just never got past the baptizing part.
Dd with her usual enjoyment of martyrs' tales was enthralled.
Snatching a peanut butter ball off the tray she remarked " look it's a little head."

That got the wheels turning. We have had difficulties replacing our saints day traditions since going gluten free.
Lucia Buns out... Lenten Pretzels out... Angel cake out...
But hey woo hoo peanut butter ball heads! All right!
Totally gross, and the kids loved it. I doubt they will ever forget the bible story of St John.
Ds of course added the jelly to the plates.




We used our favorite peanut butter play dough recipe- rolled it into balls dipped into coconut for hair and added chocolate chips for eyes.
Dd ran right outside to share some with her friends.
I'm afraid we've reinforced our neighbors' opinions that we are nice but a bit on the odd side. But hey they ate a lot and learned a new bible story. And we have a bunch tucked away for Wednesday's tea time.

Happy St. John's! Happy snacking!

St Monica's Prayer Board

Many thanks to Sarah at Plainsong for organizing the Craft of the Week Club. So here I am with week 5.

In honor of that champion of Pray-ers, St Monica we decided to make prayer reminder boards. Dd said "we are always telling people we will pray but I don't remember what for!"

In keeping with the guide lines of using simple materials from around the house we pulled out our "Barney Bag".
We keep big plastic grocery sack with every odd, end, and leftover from the last several years worth of projects.



The kids picked out a picture of St. Monica, buttons, ribbon, a piece of cardstock and something for their messages.

Dd found a piece of "white board" off the back of an old workbook but you could use an actual mini-white board from the dollar store, a piece of laminated paper or as my ds did glue a pad of post-its to your cardstock.


The kids glued the cards together, added the embellishments,
hole punched the top and strung the ribbon. Dd even dug up some
stickers.



Add a dry erase marker message and you are all set!

Dd hung hers by our home Atrium.

Happy crafting!

Saint Apollonia is Not the Tooth Fairy...

Our oldest child just discovered her first loose tooth.

This posed a bit of a dilemma for dh and I. Although dh and both were visited by the tooth fairy as children neither of us we comfortable with this tradition. Also being the last of her friends to lose a tooth she has heard plenty about the tooth fairy and frankly didn't buy it.

She is an odd combination of sceptic and believer. While loving the playful aspects of fairies and gnomes and the like she knows them to be fanciful. So she came to me with the question..."Fairies aren't real...isn't there a saint for teeth?

A saint...now that is something my dd connects with. She has an amazing grasp of the concept of the communion on saints. For her turning to a saint is no more extraordinary than turning to Mom or Grammpy with a specific need. A phrase we use a lot in our home is "church family". It can mean our parish, Catholics from around the world or deceased family members and Saints. Just as we work and play and pray together at home dd envisions a Heaven full of happy people working and praying and playing along side us.
So all we needed was a Saint and a timely thread on the 4-real board gave me the answer...St Apollonia.
And here she is:



For her symbols we chose the palms and the gilded tooth on a necklace. I considered embroidering the bonfire on her apron but it was already way past bedtime for me. The "tooth" is a large gold seed bead. I just couldn't figure out what to use for pincers and it was easier to string it on embroidery floss.

I wrote down this little prayer and decorated and laminated it:

Saint Appolonia, I lost a tooth today. I am getting older and want to be closer to God. I want to offer up the little pain of losing my tooth as a sacrifice. You made a big sacrifice for Jesus. Please pray to God that I may grow closer to Our Lord with every tooth I lose.
Amen.

We will let dd read the prayer when she loses her tooth and put it on her headboard with our little Apollonia. The wooden doll is a finger puppet so she can tuck her tooth underneath.

Dd has let us know she would like her tooth to "disappear". So we will sneak in to take it and pop a quarter in the apron pocket.

She is very comfortable with the idea that saints work through people as does God so it wont be a disappointment if she sees us -just a reinforcment of what she know...it's still a mystery and she is very excited.

Back In The Saddle...

Do you remember those stress tests in high school Psych class?
The one that determined the level of stress you experienced in the last year.
Here's mine:

Spouse Changed Jobs -CHECK
Pregnant with vomiting for nine months- CHECK
Started homeschooling- CHECK
Moved- CHECK
MIL hospitalized-CHECK
Holidays- CHECK
Gave birth -CHECK
To the world's fussiest baby- CHECK
Dh, ds and baby diagnosed as celiacs-CHECK, CHECK, CHECK
Major lifestyle and diet change- CHECK

Throw in severe anemia from blood loss, 2 deaths in the family, a chronic pain condition and a
pay cut for dh and you have a little stress.

Id like to say I'm naturally tidy and a good housekeeper come what may...I'm not.

Which is why 3 weeks ago the house looked like this:
I remember crying to dh because I was frustrated at how horrible the year has been and I couldn't seem to keep up with it all. He assured me that it was getting better... BETTER?!

It had been worse?!

So I dug out the camera and took a bunch of pictures. I needed to see if I really was getting back on top of things...

And he was right it is getting better...

So my house today looks a little more like this:



It has not been easy You'll notice there is only HALF a room in these picture...I did say getting better not perfect :)

I focused on the 2 "school supply" areas first since it is August (ACK!) and our learning projects will be gearing up soon.

So now if I trip over a box a least I can find the phone to dial 911...and hmm... the sewing table is cleared off...maybe there is time for a few crayon pouches before bed? :)

So hey as dh reminds me daily I'm human and a messy one at that but it's getting better and that is enough for me.