Month: July 2013

I was looking at Pinterest when I came across this recipe for Gluten-Free Meatballs.

I have been avoiding corn for while, so I was curious what this recipe used. It was a pleasant surprise to find oats in the recipe! Oats are one thing that doesn’t contain gluten, but it can be cross-contaminated from being grown close to other grains. I always buy gluten-free oats for this reason.

I also avoid beef, so I used 1 pound each of ground chicken and ground turkey. Skotte bought some mild poultry sausage for the sausage portion. I mixed them up and baked them yesterday, early in the morning before the heat really set in.

For the sauce, I sauteed an onion in olive oil and butter with a sprinkle of garlic powder before adding an organic jar of roasted garlic tomato sauce. We need to restock some garlic bulbs soon. The extra onion really adds a nice flavor. My dad had some cooking sherry in the pantry and I also added about a tablespoon of that.

I was thinking about adding a can of stems and pieces of mushrooms but Skotte doesn’t like them, so I was nice.  I ate my mushrooms during my breakfast today instead.

The last thing I did was prepare some brown rice pasta.  Dad usually made the pasta, so I don’t have much experience with the exact timing. The pasta ended up being a tad too crunchy, but still edible.  The meatballs were the best part by far!

It was my intention to get myself up and moving by June 1st. I got myself moving on May 27th, when my father went into the hospital for dehydration. Unfortunately, he never came home. It turned out that he had T-Cell Lymphoma, and an aggressive form at that. He died on June 25 while I was watching him. I still can’t believe it. Before Memorial Day, he was still driving us around and making us breakfast and loads of other things. I miss him so much.

But, in order for me to not fall into another horrible depression, I have to move forward. I am not going to beat myself up for all of the things I said I was going to do and didn’t. I am going to take what works and do it more, and what doesn’t work, I will leave it behind. Life is too short!

My dad lived a very full life of 76 years, but it seems much too short to me! I always told him I expected him to live to 120 years old. He gave it his best shot.

This is my family at Easter 2013.