You pin? I pin too!

Last week when Ike  Ike’s mom  Michelle from Décor and the Dog announced there would be a Pinterest Challenge, I was still having withdrawals from the mad dash of costuming for my son’s school play. I figured it would be too hard to choose a “pin” and be creative at this juncture…

But here I am…I’d been pinning “altered bottles” for some time. But then I ran across this one by Barb of “Treasures from the Heart.” Her Psalm 139 bottles reminded me that for a long time I’ve wanted to do something with the verse Psalm 56:8 where David says,"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (NLT)

Here’s what I did:And then I:(thank you, Graphics Fairy!)Do you ever feel like your oft-broken heart is just held together with gold jewelry wire? I’m overwhelmed by the fact that God cares for each tear that rolls down my cheek! I love the language of the King James Bible, so that’s what I used for my tag:Well, here she is:Linking up to the Pinterest Challenge with Megan (The Remodeled Life), Katie (Bower Power), Sherry (Young House Love) and Michelle (Decor and the Dog).

A Gluten-Free Linzer Cookie

Soooooooo, this Improv Challenge is all about hearts & “flours”… which gives me the perfect opportunity to try out some more GF options in nut or grain meals & flours.My boys had been asking for “those heart cookies with raspberry jam that you haven’t made in a long time” but I wanted to make a shortbread to use with my clay mold.Turns out, fortunately because my cookies did not (turn out, that is…)  the dough worked for both. Perhaps shortbread molds work better with traditional butter & wheat flour dough, huh?Since it baked up slightly puffy, I had great hopes for a nice base for my Linzer cookie.The dough is a little sticky once it warms up from refrigeration, so I found it best to roll between sheets of plastic wrap. (With the first batch I placed the cut-outs in the freezer for 20 minutes prior to baking. Then it took forever for them to bake! The second batch I baked directly after cutting them out & they turned out just fine.)This, according to my youngest, is the most important ingredient of all!After the cookies have cooled, we topped the bases with the spread.Of course, a bite sneaky taste quality control test was next. I loved that I could taste the cream cheese in the cookie, & that the sweetness was just right after being topped with the spread.I contemplated drizzling the hearts with melted chocolate, but there seemed to be plenty of that going around…Here’s my recipe for the dough:

...just a little teaser...

His play is next week, so I've been sew busy!

his birthday baklava

We celebrated our oldest son turning nineteen last month. He chose homemade pizza for dinner (we had 5 guests…) and wanted baklava for dessert.The pizza was special, because we haven’t made that in forever – since I embarked on this gluten-freeness that is no fun for family celebrations!

The baklava was my labor of love, as anyone who has ever made it will attest!I bought my dough at a local grocery. We decided to make it a chocolate almond baklava.I used coconut oil instead of butter between the layers of pastry.I also added finely shredded unsweetened coconut to the filling mixture.The almonds were toasted then slightly chopped before their addition to the mixing bowl. I didn’t use much sugar in the filling because of how sweet the syrup will make it when it’s done. I sprinkled a portion of the filling every 3rd or 4th layer.Look at the precision on those diamond cuts!  GAH!Filling turned out a bit “fudgy” – yum!