Love with Food Gluten Free Box Review #1

I have been comparison shopping for gluten-free subscription boxes for awhile now.  I just happened upon the Love with Food Gluten-Free Box when I saw an ad for it on Facebook.  It looked like a good value and a lot of food, including snacks, which was important to me.  They also donate a meal to a food bank with every box sold.  I really appreciate that since I grew up poor and most of our food came from my mom's garden or the food bank.

I got my first box last month and the theme was Fiesta Fiesta.  It contained so much food, all from brands I had never heard of.  The food is all natural and healthy.  I loved most of it enough that I would definitely seek out the brands in stores (or just buy more for a discounted price from the Love with Food website).  Let's see what I got!

Here's the whole haul, aside from the product booklet and coupons.

I am bad at selfies but this popsicle was soooooo good.

tamale pie with sour cream and sliced avocado

My favorites were the tamale pie, the Smooze frozen treat, and the Beanfield's chips.  The tamale pie was easy to make and Jordan and I both loved it so much that we polished off the whole pan between the two of us in one night.  The Smooze frozen treat was like a grown-up version of those popsicles we would sometimes get with school lunches as a child.  It was guava coconut flavored and so refreshing and tasty.  I want a whole pack!  I also want an entire case of Beanfield's chips.  The pico de gallo flavor was so good and went perfectly with the bean flavor of the chips.  I gobbled them up way too fast and wished I had more!

My least favorites were the honey and the sweet salt.  The honey would have probably been better if I had used it in something instead of eating it straight up.  It was good enough but I wouldn't buy it.  I'm pretty sure I just haven't used the sweet salt on the right thing yet, maybe porkchops or chicken?  It's spicy, sweet, and salty.

Overall I was over the moon about my first Love with Food box.  My second one just shipped and I can hardly wait for it to arrive!

You can try the Love with Food Gluten-Free Box for $5.99 (50% off) or the glutenous Tasting Box for $12.49 (40% off).

This post contains affiliate links but I am truly 100% in love with the Love with Food box and want you to try it too!

What I Did this Weekend

This weekend I went to G's and cooked a lot of yummy food.  Since being diagnosed with celiac disease, I have gotten a lot more confident in my cooking skills, since I have to cook a lot more or become a bunny rabbit and just eat fresh fruits and veggies.  I successfully (and by successfully, I mean G loved it too and said it was restaurant-worthy) cooked corn pasta and hot dogs with veggies, chicken wraps on corn tortillas (gluten-free but not as expensive as fancy gluten-free tortillas), and omelets with the leftover chicken, green peppers, onion, and mushrooms.

I watched two football games and three movies.  The University of Washington Huskies won and didn't get scored on once!  And the Seattle Seahawks won too.  I got a new Seahawks shirt from the men's section at the mall.  They had women's ones but none of them had the player's names or numbers on them.  I got a Russell Wilson shirt.  I wanted Marshawn Lynch, but they were all sold out except for size XL.  We watched the Seahawks game at Roosevelt Ale House, which is a truly amazing bar because it serves delicious gluten-free food.  So far I've had a delicious breakfast sandwich there, a good burger, and amazing and ginormous nachos.  All of the food I've tried there has been really good, but I don't think I would order the burger again.  For burgers, my go-to restaurant is Blue Moon Burgers.  They are good burgers period, not just good for being gluten-free.

We got some movies from Redbox: World War Z, Now You See Me, and Olympus Has Fallen.  Have you noticed how many movies have Morgan Freeman in them lately?!  I've seen three recently that had him: World War Z, Oblivion, and Olympus Has Fallen.  World War Z was pretty great, and not just because I love zombie movies.  I really enjoyed it and I especially liked the look of the zombies.  They didn't look like their flesh was rotting right after being bit.  They were also fast zombies, which I'm not a huge fan of.  I give it a 4 out of 5.  Now You See Me was really good.  It kept me guessing the whole time.  It had a really original story (as far as I know) and a good cast.  Plus Jesse Eisenberg was in it, but not as the goof-off guy who never grows up, which was refreshing from him.  I give it a 4 out of 5 as well.  Olympus Has Fallen was better than G or I thought it would be.  It was the one I thought I might not like, but it was actually okay.  It was very action-y with lots of shooting and politics, but the story was pretty good anyway.  I give it a 3 out of 5.

We also watched The Office and The League on Netflix, which are always favorites of mine.  All in all it was a good weekend.

And in other news, my boss told me today that she's looking for another person to help out at work, which is fantastic and will hopefully relieve a lot of my stress.

Where to Go Near Seattle: Evergreen State Fair

On Sunday, G took me to the Evergreen State Fair.  It was about an hour away.  It was the perfect day for it, 70 degree temperatures and slightly overcast so I didn't get a sunburn.  We looked at so many cute animals, including bunnies and chickens.  There were these one chickens who looked like they had little feather afros.  Some of them even had their eyes covered by their feather afros.  We also played a carnival game.  We both lost.  It was my first time ever playing a carnival game.  It turns out that they're a lot harder than they look : )  Then we had Philly cheesesteaks and shared an elephant ear with cinnamon sugar.  I didn't take very many pictures, but here are the ones I did take.

This was the most adorable little ball of feathers I have ever seen.

No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to look at the camera.

These two baby bunnies were sleeping with their faces together and it was soooo cute!

Unfortunately my camera refused to focus on the bunnies.
I need to figure out how to change the focus settings.

Bacon Sundae and Sweet Potato Fries

I have been wanting to try Burger King's bacon sundae ever since I saw the first commercial for it.  I love bacon and I love ice cream, so it sounded really good.  Also sweet and salty is my all time favorite flavor combination.  We finally went to Burger King on Saturday and I got a bacon sundae and sweet potato fries, because Burger King has sweet potato fries now and those are one of my favorite foods ever.  The sweet potato fries box had a game piece on it for the new Family Food promotion.  We had to pick which answer out of three we thought more people would choose for the question "Where would a child get in trouble for saying a bad word?"  Then we scratched off the answer we thought was right (like scratch tickets) and we were right that most people answered school, so we won a free Whopper.  After that I ate some of my sweet potato fries, and HOLY SALT BATMAN!  These fries were seriously oversalted.  Normally sweet potato fries don't need to be salted at all, because they're already so flavorful.  Burger King did not get that memo.  So I dipped some of them in ice cream to tone down the saltiness and that helped a lot.  Sidenote: If you have not yet discovered the joys of dipping french fries in milkshakes, get on that pronto.  I didn't eat very many of the fries.  But we did reheat them and have them with dinner that night and they weren't overly salty anymore, so that was weird but good.


Onto the part you've all been waiting for, unless you're The Management or another vegetarian.  The bacon sundae was glorious.

You can see the little gamepiece that says I'm a winner.

Try not to drool all over your computer.

The ice cream was ordinary and delicious vanilla soft serve.  There was chocolate syrup and caramel sauce.  And the bacon was perfectly cooked, not at all greasy, very crispy.  The flavors mingled perfectly together.  It was so delicious and also so filling that I couldn't quite eat the entire thing.  But seriously, yum.


Something at Burger King that completely blew my mind was that they had a touch screen soda fountain.  It was insane.  You touch what kind of drink you want and then it brings up subcategories!  For example, G wanted Fanta and it let him choose from about 10 different flavors of Fanta.  Are these things elsewhere?  I didn't even know they existed.


Also, once we got home we saw on the back of the receipt that we could fill out a survey about our experience and get a code for a free whopper or free chicken sandwich, so I did that and in the survey I told them the sweet potato fries were too salty.  So much winning happened that day.

Where to Eat in Seattle: Broiler Bay Burgers

G and I tried this new (to us) restaurant on Saturday, and it was so good that if I could eat there every single day I would.  But alas, I am poor.  One of G's co-workers gave him a bunch of coupons and one of them was for buy one get one free at Broiler Bay Burgers.  I don't remember if I've mentioned this, but G is a borderline hoarder of coupons.  He always has coupons for various restaurants and rarely uses them before the expiration date.  It turns out that Broiler Bay Burgers has a popular restaurant in Bellevue and opened up a new location in Shoreline, which is much closer to us.  The new location hasn't gotten too popular yet.  Walking in, the restaurant seems like a fast food place: you order at the counter where you pay and seat yourself wherever you want while you wait for your order.  They seemed slightly understaffed (a few of the tables hadn't been wiped off after customers left).  We sat to wait for our order, two 8 inch long Philly Cheesesteaks, G's with fries.  When we picked up our order, it smelled so delicious.  G shared some of his fries and they were so much better than any fast food fries I have ever eaten, maybe one notch below Red Robin fries.  They were not at all greasy, fried to a perfect golden brown, and we couldn't wait until they cooled down to eat them because they were that good.  The Philly Cheesesteaks were easily the best I've ever had, way better than the delicious ones from the Bellevue Art Fair last year.  They were also really filling.  G and I could each only eat half of ours.  I'm having my other half for lunch today.  G had his for dinner that night, but my tummy was being obnoxious with the combination of heat, stress, and hormones, so I only had some broccoli.  The restaurant played quiet classic rock in the background which definitely seals the deal for me.  This restaurant is definitely in my top 5 now.  Right before we left I had to order a milkshake.  I could say it was to write a more complete review, but let's be real here.  Their website said they had hard ice cream milkshakes and had a list of flavors and I am an ice cream-aholic who hasn't had a good, or even mediocre, milkshake in a while, so I had to get one.  I only had room for a few sips right then, but it was so delicious.  I got a small banana shake and they asked me how much banana I wanted, so I said a lot.  I watched the guy scoop out the vanilla ice cream, put in half of an actual banana (none of this flavored syrup nonsense here), pour in some milk, and mix it all up.  It was easily the thickest milkshake I've ever had and so incredibly delicious.  So, in summary, I would definitely recommend this restaurant to everyone who lives in Seattle or plans to visit.  G and I will be going back many many times in the future.


And completely unrelated, I saw this picture on the Seattle Times website in the photo gallery for the Capitol Hill Block Party and I think I would get along great with this girl.  Seriously, a Darth Vader mask, a lightsaber, and Tetris leggings?!  We will be friends.  And her hair looks like it's cool too.

from the Seattle Times photo gallery;
click here to see the other Capitol Hill Block Party fashion

Healthy Fish and Chips

I made this a couple of weeks ago, but I've had so many other things to post about that I'm just now sharing it.  G's mom gave us a beautiful halibut fillet.  I'd never cooked fish before.  I learned that fish cooks waaaaaaaaaaaay faster than chicken.  The bottom of my piece got a little bit burnt but it was still delicious.

Sidenote: I think that I may have to do a broccoli intervention for G. He wants it every single night : )

I cooked the broccoli the way I usually do now, with a little bit of salt and pepper in a sauce of equal parts extra virgin olive oil, worcestershire sauce, and honey.  I just cook the broccoli, turning it occasionally, until it gets nice and bright green.  If you cook it to mush, almost all of the healthy nutrients get cooked out.  I battered the fish with flour mixed with some sage, some oregano, and salt and pepper. Then I cooked it in the sauce left in the pan that I cooked the broccoli in. 

For the "chips" portion of the fish and chips, I washed some potatoes, then diced them up without peeling them.  I cooked them with a seasoning of some sage, some oregano, salt and pepper, and a little paprika.  I fried them in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

To make this healthier, substitute olive oil with coconut oil.

This is a Post About Nachos

I could say that this post is an analogy for how it takes all kinds of people to make the world work, but it's not. I just like nachos. And I made some recently.  So there will be pictures.  Nachos are a great food for when you aren't starving to death.  If you think you'll be really hungry in about 20 minutes, then nachos are a perfect food to make.  The great thing is that you can put as many or as few toppings on as you would like and they still taste amazing either way.  They obviously taste amazinger with more toppings (Yeah, I know that's not a word.)  And you can put anything on them that you want, which is pretty much true of literally any food, but whatever.  Nachos are just melted cheese on chips.  That's all. Which makes them really affordable if you don't add other toppings.  But G and I like to add other toppings.  For one thing, we are meatatarians (also not a real word, so sue me, but don't really sue me please), so I browned a bunch of hamburger to sprinkle liberally on top of our nachos.  We also added some diced onions, as well as jalapenos to only G's half, because spicy food and I do not mix.  Then we stuck them in the oven at an arbitrary temperature (it may or may not have been 350, I don't remember) until both layers of cheese were nice and melty.  Then we pulled them out and piled on diced tomatoes, more onions, guacamole, and sour cream.  I couldn't even finish my whole plate before getting full.  But they were delicious indeed, so delicious that G ate all the leftovers by dinnertime the next day.  Here are some pictures, of G's plate, because I just fail at my sour cream dolloping skills.

Om nom nom

Now quit drooling all over your keyboard and go make your own.

How to Make Yummy Food

I feel like I should tell you guys that I have a wrist brace on my dominant hand, so it's really hard to type right now.  It sucks because it's putting my Etsy stuff on hold until it heals.  And I can't take pictures either.  Since my camera's battery door pretty much needs to be held shut with one hand while pushing the button with the other hand, that's basically impossible now.

Anyway, G is a culinary genius more or less.  I wanted a McChicken from McDonald's on Friday (Don't judge me).  G suggested that I make my own variation instead since we have some chicken in the freezer that needs used up.  So I did, and they were so delicious that we both wanted them again for lunch the next day.  So I made them again.  First, a picture of the finished product.

with sweet potato fries and this delicious vintage looking cream soda that I just discovered at Safeway

How to make the "Awesome Burger" (G named it):

First you take some thawed chicken.  You tenderize it and then cut it into the size that will fit onto a bun.  Set up a breading station which means you need one dish with an egg and a little bit of milk whisked together until it's smooth, then in the other dish put: enough flower to bread however much chicken you're making, some garlic powder, some salt and pepper, and some basil flakes (I never measure and you could actually use any spices you want, those are just the ones I used).  Mix the dry ingredients together until it's fairly well blended.  You can use a fork or your hands for that.  It just needs mixed enough that there aren't any places with way too much seasoning.  Dip your chicken piece into the egg mixture on both sides.  Then dip it into the flour mixture until it's fairly well coated on both sides.  Put it in a frying pan with a little olive oil (or vegetable oil).  Then you fry it until the chicken is fully cooked all the way through, which means that you have to flip it after a while.  What we did with it after that was put it on a toasted onion bun with a little mayo, then top it with lettuce, tomato, and pepper jack cheese.  It was delicious like that, but you can use whatever toppings and condiments you want.  And that's it.  Enjoy.

What We Did for Valentine's Day

G and I went to Safeway to get some ingredients.  Then we went back to his place and made a thing called chicken pillows.  They were super easy to make and turned out absolutely delicious.  G told me he had a bottle of tabasco sauce out just in case, but he didn't need it : )  We used vegetable flavored cream cheese and also roasted and chopped up some green peppers in the filling.   If you decide to make them yourself, I would recommend only making half of the filling and of the sauce, because we have half of each left over.  But the filling is pretty much awesome chicken salad with cream cheese instead of mayo, so if you do end up with extra, you can use it for sandwiches the next day or put it on crackers for a snack.  And the sauce is basically just a really creamy and rich soup, so you can eat that with your chicken salad sandwich for lunch, which is what I'm doing today (February 15th; this is a scheduled post).  I baked G a dozen banana chocolate chip muffins earlier in the day and made him a Legend of Zelda valentine.  He ate one of the muffins for breakfast this morning and said that they're perfect, and G tells it like it is, trust me, so that made me happy.  And he really loved the Valentine, especially after he had a pretty bad day at work.  He bought me some Scratch tickets for my Valentine's gift and I won $3.  We both agreed not to spend a lot of money on each other and our Valentine's Day was really great anyway.  Also, it was my first Valentine's Day ever not single, and I couldn't have asked for a better one.  And also my mom sent me a huge package, which contained chocolates and some jewelry she made for me to sell in my Etsy shop, among other things.

I went all out on my makeup and my outfit even though we weren't going out. I even did eyeliner, which if you don't know, is a thing that I will readily admit I am terrible at. I even ordered a plastic guide off eBay to help me. But I can't even use it because it makes my eyelid twitch even more!   Here are some pictures of what I wore.

the makeup

the outfit, all thrifted/ebay except the skirt,
which was on sale at a real store,
and the jewelry; bangle is DIY from a water bottle!

the lovely necklace which I bought after I won a giveaway to Doubledutch Boutique
I haven't taken it off since I got it; I love it that much

:)

Blue skies, done writing papers, eating delicious homemade nachos and watching Mulan.  Life is good.

Strikeout

So Casey and I are just friends, mystery solved.  Which is probably for the best, because I'm honestly kind of boy crazy.  And one of the cashiers in the convenience store downstairs has been flirting with me, so obviously that I can even tell.  So yeah, that's it.  Except, wait! I went to church today and I walked all the way there and back and went to Safeway and got some strawberries and marionberry muffins and awful Safeway Chinese food, which I've been craving. And now I'm going bookstore browsing, which I absolutely adore doing.  I love books, and great deals on books are even better.  And one of the bookstores is having a 70% off sale today.  5 books for $5. I am a happy camper.  Also, I got strawberries, Cadbury Creme Eggs, marionberry muffins, a new ring, and some Safeway Chinese food. It's a good day.  Watched Monsters Inc. and now I'm watching Yes Man.  Have I mentioned how much I love Zooey Deschanel? Because it's a lot.

my happy face

Yummy Yummy Yum

I had my second to last midterm today.  Then tonight was the delicious Finnish Crepe Party. I had two delicious crepes with strawberries and whipped cream and some blood orange soda.  I don't really drink much soda, but it was really good.  That's pretty much all I have to share today.

And here's some answers to some questions about how I talk:

- What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
TPing

- What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
a potato bug

- What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
soda

- What do you call gym shoes?
shoes?

- What do you say to address a group of people?
you all, not y' all

- What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
daddy longlegs

- What do you call your grandparents?
grandma and grandpa

- What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
a shopping cart

- What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
I call it rain. What else would I call it?

- What is the thing you change the TV channel with?
a remote

Fun fact: When I was first learning to talk, I had a Southern accent. I had it until I was 4.  I have never been to the South and nobody in my family has a Southern accent, so we have no idea why I had it.  I also couldn't say the letter r properly until I was about seven years old.

Um, so yeah, that's it. Valete.

A unique assortment of various miscellaneous randomness

I had my doctor's appointment today. I don't want to bore you with the details, but it went great.  I had the most ginormous and deliciously filling Philly cheesteak for lunch today.  It was like someone slaughtered a cow and then put half of it on my sandwich, after cooking and seasoning it. Sorry for any mental images that might have caused my non-carnivore reader-friends.  I had to remove half of the meat before I could close the sandwich. I hardly even touched the fries.

I really want to bake cookies, but of course, I can't.  Not only do I have a tendency to burn myself while baking cookies even when I can walk, but I don't have a cookie sheet or ingredients.  I think I'll compromise by getting a delicious frozen Oreo pie thing.  And that is a compromise because I said so.

I am going to work on my shirt designs today. I do realize that it is 6:00 and it's dark out, but it still today in my mind and not tonight.

There's only one week left until my birthday!

I finally got this nifty thing called a card fob that I can scan and have certain doors open for me automatically, because I'm in a wheelchair and they finally realized how hard it is for me to open doors on my own. I haven't used it yet.  One of the two elevators in our building is broken. That means waiting forever for the elevator.  I get that there are 11 floors in this building but if you live on floor 6 or lower, you should be perfectly capable of taking the stairs.  Some people are just really lazy and wait for the elevator and then they all cram in ahead of me so I don't fit and have to wait even longer. What happened to being nice to the handicapped person? They used to hold the elevator for me if I was still 50 feet away. </rant>

There were other things I planned to say but I forgot them, so bye.

I remembered one of them! I completely forgot to mention Portlandia! I watched the first episode last night and it was hilarious. I was laughing loudly the whole time. I'm pretty sure I have seen some of those people in Portland too. It's a relatively accurate portrayal + satire. A winning combination in my book. It made me want to join an adult hide and seek league, even though that would be difficult in my wheelchair, but I can imagine that really taking off on my college campus.