Cooking outside the Box

Shortly after discovering that I had a gluten allergy, I was at home, wondering what on earth I was going to eat. There is of food in the house. Pasta, bread, crackers, some veggies, soup, but I desperatly need to do some shopping. The problem being, most stuff is made with, or thickened with wheat flour. So I look carefully, an egg, rice crackers, but nothing else to put on them, and it hardly qualifies as a meal. All the soups are noodle somethings, or creamed. Since I'm newly allergic, I have nothing as far as gluten free breads, flours or the like in my pantry. Ugh, think outside the box. I have salad, AGAIN, so what can I put with the salad to add some variety. There are no chicken breasts hiding in the back of the freezer. Sigh. I went for a quick walk, because maybe the wild puff balls were ready. And sure enough, they are! Beautiful fat pearls in the grass! I walk, poking them as I go, spongy ones got to stay and spore out. But the ones that were firm, and broke the ground with a solid snap, those are my delicious little nuggets of happiness. When I get back inside with a good helping of mushrooms, I have to decide just what to do with them. Egg, rice crackers, oil, sea salt, mmmm. The rice crackers are crushed, and the sliced mushrooms coated with egg and the cracker crumbs. Once the oil is hot, I fry the little discs in olive oil until they are golden and crispy. With a dash of pepper and sea salt, they grace the plate next to my salad of field greens. Fantastic!

Paintballs are Not Good Dog Food

The other day, I am sitting on my couch, reading a book, when my husband walks in. We are chatting about something or other when he starts peering oddly at something over my shoulder. I turn around slowely to see orange spatter across my wall. Odd, to say the least. We investigate further, and find a handful of orange paintballs that have fallen behind our antique trunk/corner coffee table. Right about then I notice both of our, normally energetic and cuddly, dogs slinking off down the hallway. Now, our dogs have a minor obssesion with balls, so a ball, thats squishy, AND squirts if you bite it, I understand the draw. Today, when I got home, my dogs were peeking out of the curtains, very happy to see me, waging their little tails. That would be cute, except that my dogs are not supposed to be peeking out of the living room window. They are supposed to be secure in the kitchen, behind a baby gate. (yes, they are that small, yes, they still qualify as dogs) Add to my dismay, I already knew that there was going to be a mess to clean up, since, well... paintballs are not quality dog food. (no, I do not have a paintball gun, so then why do I have paintballs? I do not know!) When I got in the house, a mess is an understatement. There are many puddles, ranging in orange shades from apricot to tangarine across my kitchen, and one particularily large one that started on the couch, and ended on the area rug, at least it was a pale shade. I tip toe through the kitchen assessing the damage, and getting the mop bucket, only to discover that using the back of my couch and a viewing window between the kitchen and living room, they have been on my counter. And accompanying the orange rainbow on the floor, is a broken glass, that had been full of water. Now, now I can't mop the floor because of the glass, I can't vaccum the glass because of the puddles, I can't even pick up all the glass, and manage to avoid all the puddles. The dogs, mean time, smartly dissappeared into the deep grasses of the back yard within moments of my opening the door. To my amazement, the orange did not stain the floor, or the leather of the couch, and much to my relief, it seems that they at least got it all over with in one foul shot. But had you come to visit me that day... I would have happily given you two very cute Daschunds, at no charge what so ever. Who knew that paintballs taste good enough to eat, they smell awful, but that may have been the combination of... contents that I was smelling. I doubt I will ever go paintballing again.