Did you know?

Did you know that 2012 is almost here? Yeah, it is. Like, just 2 weeks away...oh-em-gee!

Hm. This weather actually feels like Christmas-time (as in winter in Hawaii). We did have a half-day of glorious SUNSHINE yesterday :) :) :) That gets triple smiles after days of dreary clouds fillled with rain ready to be dumped.

This is a poppy flower (like in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy falls asleep without reason in that red, flower-covered field - maybe she was gluten intolerant?) before it blooms. See the wet stuff on top? That's remnants of rain.

But who wants to hear me complain about the rain? We had some fun Christmas festivities at BJ's house yesterday (where I live). BJ has movie night nearly every Friday and this week was Christmas week. Dinner is beforehand and everyone is meant to bring a dish that ties in with the movie (or whatever they want, really). Sometimes a movie's theme isn't so food friendly. Anyway, last night's theme was Christmas Dinner.

The movie of the night a very musical version of "Scrooge" from the 1970's - wow, talk about special effects! Albert Finney was Ebinezer (Did you know that this is the same guy as the old guy in "Big Fish" and Daddy Warbucks in "Annie"). I didn't know that. But IMDB did.

We had a Secret Santa gift exchange (the kind where you can steal gifts) - I won Christmas themed cookie cutters - yeah! KF and I will have to back gdcsyeb-free cookies on our trip.

GDCSYEB-free stands for Gluten, dairy, corn, soy, yeast, eggs, bell pepper-free - I bet you didn't know that. These are the things that I KNOW 100% for sure give me negative reactions when I ingest them :( :( :( triple sad face for that.

But back to :) :) :) triple happy face (cause happy is more fun than sad)...I made gdcsyeb-free brownies yesterday - did you even know such a thing existed?! I didn't. But now I do.

Recipe is from BJ's cookbook which is also from Healthy Food Guide http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/recipes/2007/june/chocolate-brownie

Ingredients
1 cup unsweetened apple purée/sauce
1/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup self-raising gluten free flour (or self-raising flour)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup (70g) walnuts, chopped

Mix together and bake at 175*c (347*F) for 25-30 minutes in greased brownie size pans (usually the square ones?)

I had to find a super dark chocolate (as in 85% cacao) cause with anything less there is milk and soy (an emulsifier!). Mmm mm good. The result is above the recipe...doesn't it look super moist, delicious, and super unhealthy? It all the above except super unhealthy - maybe halfway unhealthy. If you need a deceivingly healthy dessert for the holidays - give this a shot!

The photos below are just a few more super-macro love from BJ's garden.

The crapilio weather has prevented me from playing outside much, but we've had fun guests braving the weather (because they are in the middle of their tour and have no choice). I will soon post about our recent Warmshowers guests www.warmshowers.org. Warmshowers is essentially like Couchsurfing.com but speficially for touring cyclists. You can either sign up to be a host or touring cyclist (and change whenever you go home or leave for a tour) and put you status as such on your profile...it's pretty cool...and a great way to meet fellow tourists, who are a fun bunch.

Til next time!