Highlights of my first week back!

It should come as no surprise that I open this post with a cupcake!  I really had some baking withdrawals that I had to honor upon my return.  We were invited to a small social gathering with wonderful St. Lawrence friends less than a week after I got back and I was just a little nervous about introducing something "raw" so instead I brought something a little more familiar but still a bit of a risk.  I brought a gluten free, dairy free, coconut layer cake.  I only made a six inch cake to bring, so I had plenty of batter leftover to make some cupcakes.  Good thing because I had unexpected company.  Here is one of my little friends, enjoying her second one of the afternoon! 

She loved them.  They are gluten free, dairy free and instead of refined sugar, I used organic evaporated cane juice, so this probably isn't the worst thing she could have, is it?


The cake was four layers, with strawberry jam, buttercream, and organic unsweetened toasted coconut between each layer.

Did not have much time before we had to leave so the only thing I could do to add a bit of color and decoration was to add some organic strawberries to it.

That helped.  I meant to take photos of the sliced cake so that you could see the layers but once the cake was sliced and served it was consumed fairly quickly so the photo never happened.  I was very pleased to see clean plates all around!  


Shared the remaining cupcakes with my friend Tracy when she came for tea the next day!

Yes, we ate them all. 


One of the first things I got to work on with regard to pulling my home back in order after being gone so long was a lot of purging and cleaning out of food items in the pantry, refrigerator and freezer to make some much needed room for some "raw" items that I plan on making ... soon.


I found myself finishing some gluten free, dairy free, sugar free brownies.

The recipe is from The Spunky Coconut Cookbook, by Kelly V. Brozyna.


Also in my freezer waiting for me to bake were some cranberry scones.  This is my own recipe.  Gluten free. 

Some Udi's gluten free toast begged to be eaten, too.

I also could not resist purchasing and trying a new gluten free product for pancakes.  I have a good one already, but so many people ask me for my opinion on gluten free products, I feel compelled to try about as many as I can.

They were delicious!  I am supposed to say here that another young visitor, Jordan Porter, also thought they were incredibly delicious!  This is the plate I had prepared for my breakfast when he walked in the kitchen that I gave to him to eat instead.  Once he gave the two thumbs up, well, I quickly made some more!

Here is the mix and the syrup I used.

The last priority was collecting spring water!  We were completely out!  It was quite a different excursion going myself and in the spring when the ground is soft and muddy but it is all worth it! There is no comparison to any other water!  A constant cool clean stream of beautiful water just 40 minutes north in Kenosha!

In this beautiful setting.

It streams down into this lovely little natural rocky pond of sorts.

Finally all done collecting, after many trips uphill and back.

Time to go.  Definitely had plenty of time for reflection going back and forth up and down the hill carrying water container after container.  Realized how incredibly fortunate I am because, I am making the choice to collect clean water, when so many others must collect water under far worse circumstances because they have to.  The fact that my shoes got so muddy, well, that really isn't such a big thing, is it?

Thank you for sharing my journey with me.  It is good to be home.