Lemon Poppyseed Banana Loaf (GF & DF)

I love banana bread and lemon anything... why not make both?!

Lemon Poppyseed Banana Loaf


2/3 C butter- softened (I use Earth Balance sticks)
1 C sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas- mashed
6 T FRESH lemon juice
2 C GF all-purpose flour blend (I use Sarah's)
1 t baking soda
1 t vanilla
1 t salt
2 T poppyseeds
zest from one whole lemon


Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a 9x5x3 loaf pan.  Cream the butter and the sugar together.  Add the banana and mix.  Beat in 1 egg at a time.  Add the lemon juice, flour, baking soda, vanilla, salt, seeds, and lemon zest.  Scrape the  batter into the pan.  Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick says it's done.  Cool before devouring!


Original recipe is from Something Swanky (what a fun name!)

BLTs NEED Chipotle Mayo!

I love BLTs!  Mostly because of Chipotle Mayo!!

So easy and soooo worth it!!




Chipotle Mayo

3/4 C mayo (make sure it's GF & DF!)

1 chipotle pepper with 1 T adobe sauce

1/8 t garlic powder

1 t lime juice

Mix it all up with a hand blender. Store it in a cute squatty mason jar!

Bruschetta Dip



Happy basil plants!

Bruschetta Dip

6 Garden Fresh Tomatoes

1 Red Onion

1 Handful Fresh Basil

1 t Italian Seasoning

1 T Nutritional Yeast

1/4 C Italian Dressing (Make your own, or make sure it's GF & DF)

Chop up your tomatoes, onion, and basil.  Throw everything together and let is marinate a bit before serving. 

Fresh & colorful!



I love to serve this with these guys!

The Secret Ingridient of my Mojitos!

I have been told numerous times that my mojitos spoil people for all future mojitos! 

Now I will not share my mojito recipe with you all... mostly because I don't really have one!

Most people don't even bother to ask for my mojito recipe because it's just easier to be the mojito drinker than the mojito maker...These muscles don't just come from cleaning cars! :)

It's really just fresh mint, lime, rum, ice, club soda and this!

Fresh Mint Syrup

1 1/2 C Water
1 1/2 C Sugar

1 1/2 C fresh chopped mint

Mix the water and sugar in a small saucepan.  Bring it to a boil and let the sugar dissolve.  In the meantime clean and chop the mint.  Throw it in a heat safe bowl.  Once the sugar mixture has dissolved and cooked down a bit pour it over the mint.  Immediately cover it!  That's the important part to keep all that good mint flavor in the syrup and prevent it from evaporating.  Let it steep until it has cooled down to room temperature.  Strain it into a funnel and then into a glass bottle and keep refrigerated for mojito making!

I also love to squeeze a whole lemon into my water and add a bit of this.  Fresh mint lemonade!  Yum!

Mojito Fruit Salad

I keep my mint in a Jack Daniels Whiskey barrel planter so it doesn't take over my whole garden.  (And also so it is right up by my house for easy access when it's mojito making time!)  In the summer it goes CRAZY.  Like out of control.... I could never mix enough mojitos to use it all... if I did we would all be in trouble! 

So much mint!!

This is a great way to use at least some of it.  This is the perfect summer-time fruit salad to take to a cookout! 


Mojito Fruit Salad

10 C fresh fruit- chopped- use whatever you like
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C water
1/4 C lime juice
1/4 C rum (if you don't want to use the alcohol just add another 1/4 C lime juice)
1/4 C fresh mint- minced

Combine the sugar and water in a small pan over low heat.  Heat til sugar dissolves.  Stir in lime and/or rum.  Cool.  Drizzle over the chopped fruit until lightly coated.  Stir gentley.  Sprinkle with the mint before serving.

Look how pretty and yummy that looks!!

You can use whatever fruit you like or have on hand.  I have done it with all kinds of different things.  I love to use a lot of berries, mango, plums, nectarines, pineapple, grapes, peaches, kiwi and of course watermelon! 

Gluten Free Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Mug Cookie

Of course I'll smile for a mug cookie!!

I'm not claiming this is healthy...

I'm not claiming that this is a good idea..

I'm not even recommending this...

All I'm saying is that life happens...

So sometimes this might be necessary..

And of course I am claiming that this is gluten and dairy free.... And so delicious it should be illegal!

Again... Not recommending it...

GF DF Chocolate Chip Mug Cookie

2 T Butter- I use earth balance

1 T brown sugar

1 T white sugar

1/4 t vanilla

1/4 C GF flour blend (Sarah's always works best for me)

A pinch of sea salt

A pinch of baking soda

A pinch of baking powder

Enjoy Life dark chocolate chips- don't be chintzy with the chocolate!

Pick your fave mug.  Soften the butter in it. Stir in the sugars and vanilla.  Stir in the flour and pinches of sea salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Put your mug in the microwave and microwave for 40-60 seconds depending on how you like your cookies. I like mine gooey and a bit doughy still! Smile & enjoy!

New Live GFree Stuff.... and my new fave snack!

Have ya'll seen all the new stuff from Live GFree at your local Aldi stores?!?!


My store got it all a few weeks ago.  Let me tell you what, my grocery bill was much higher than normal!  I wanted to try everything!


The Live GFree brand can be hit or miss for me.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the effort that they put into being allergy friendly and loud & proud of their GFness!  But some of the stuff I just don't like.


The mixes for one thing.... the first ingredient in most of them is sugar.  Ummmm... no thanks!  I grabbed the cornbread mix one time because I needed something easy to take to preschool for our thanksgiving "feast".  I was really in a rush and apparently just checked to make sure it was GF & DF and threw it in the cart.  When I made it, it tasted more like cake than cornbread!  I was like I must have done something wrong.  I checked the box and finally looked more closely at the ingredients.  Cornbread should have a bit of sugar.... not sugar as the first ingredient!  The brownie mix is ok though... but that makes sense to have a lot of sugar.  I really am just not a store bought mix kinda girl so maybe I am being a bit hard on them.   But I am warning you... Don't buy the cornbread mix!


Their only pastas they offered before were made of white rice and corn.  Not only are those things not very nutritious, but they also don't taste or cook very well in my opinion.  However, they have new pastas now!  Brown rice and quinoa!  I have made any yet, but I plan on doing so ASAP!


So it appears to me they are making efforts to improve!


I have always loved their wraps and their whole grain bread.

Love this stuff! 
You can actually make a sandwich with it!

Perfect for quesadillas.... hold the queso!

The granola bars are pretty yummy too!  I keep them at school to have for snack when the kids are eating something "that will make Miss Kat's tummy sick."  I love helping them learn about food allergies!  And it is so funny to hear a two year old try to say gluten free! :)

These are my favorite flavor!
It tastes like you are eating a brownie!

These "sticks" are another thing I love to snack on at school.
They are great in Chex Mix too!

This stuff is all old news compared to all the new stuff that they got in!


There are so many new kinds of cereal.  I'm not really a big cereal eater, because I live on green smoothies for breakfast!  And when else does one really eat cereal?  But I wanted to try one of the new ones anyway.  I got one that has flax and chai seeds... haven't tried it yet but we will see.


But what I really have to tell you all about is my new favorite snack!  The Brown Rice Crisps in the Sweet Chili flavor.  I am telling you guys... buy them!  Or maybe don't... because I'm warning you, you will eat the whole entire bag!  They are seriously so delicious and are made of good stuff too!  They are great to put on top of a salad too.  In fact I used them for the Taco Salad that I made for a work luncheon!  Everyone loved it!


I buy every bag in the store each time to go grocery shopping!

So basically the cliff notes version of this whole entire post is don't buy the cornbread mix, but buy rice crisps!!



Gluten Free Breadcrumbs... with Chex!

This is so easy and convenient... I want to kick myself for not doing it sooner!

So many recipes call for breadcrumbs.  I used to buy the super pricey gluten free breadcrumbs until I decided that was really really dumb.

I just crushed up some Rice Chex... same damn thing! 

I love that Chex is so happy about being Gluten Free!  Sometimes I do buy the knockoff version at Aldi, they are also very happy about being GF!  Both work just as well.

I was making them fresh each time I needed them for a recipe.  That took longer, made a bigger mess, and was just a bit of a pain.

I was worried that if I made extra they would get stale by the time I needed them.  But I figured what the heck...lets try it.

Gluten Free "Breadcrumbs"

1 box of Rice Chex*

1 Vitamix with the dry grains container- I LOVE this thing! 

     You can use a food processor if you don't have one of these.

All you gotta do is add the cereal a bit at a time into the container.  Grind it up, not too much so it is too fine though.  Do this until you have done the whole box.  Store them in mason jars and they will be ready whenever you need them.   They stay fresh, I promise!

*I always use Rice Chex, but feel free to substitute corn if you want.

You can leave these just like this or you can add in any seasoning you like.  I usually leave mine just the way they are so that I can season them however I need to based on what I'm making.

This is just like mine... of course it's red!
I use this thing at least once a day!

Gluten Free Waterproof Mascara! Finally! Thanks, Tarte!

Last weekend we had a girls shopping trip!  We were in Sephora and as my friend was getting color matched for some new foundation I overheard one of the sales girls explaining to another customer that "oh yeah, gluten in cosmetics is very important!"  I was like OMG, they understand...It is a real thing, it really does effect people!




I found the girl and asked her what products they carry that are gluten free and she was able to name a few brands right off the top of her head.  One of those was Tarte.

ALWAYS FORMULATED WITHOUT:
parabens • mineral oil • phthalates • triclosan • sodium lauryl sulfate • gluten

I always knew that Tarte was celiac friendly, but I don't live anywhere near a Tarte retailer and hate ordering makeup online if I have never actually seen it in person.  I was like a kid in a candy store checking out all the different products!  I was overwhelmed with so many choices!  It could have been really bad... but I told myself to choose just one thing!


I finally settled on the waterproof mascara since I had been on the hunt for a good one for years!!  And I just liked the name... Lights, Camera, Splashes!  How fun is that?!?




Click the picture to order your own!

This stuff goes on beautifully, doesn't get dry and flaky, and most importantly doesn't bother my eyes at all... and my eyes are really sensitive, and I wear contacts.


I haven't been actually swimming with it on yet, but it has lasted in the shower well, but it does come off easily with my makeup remover.


Now I don't know what I want to try next!  Suggestions??  Check out their stuff here.