Birthday Gifts and T-shirts

I received a bread machine for my birthday and some dark chocolate. The chocolate was yummy! It's almost half gone. The best part is that they are both gluten free!

As for the bread machine, I sought some advice from the celiac community on-line and as usual they were most helpful. They advised me what setting to use, what bread mixes to try and of course gave me some good TNT (tried and true) gluten free recipes to try. I haven't tried any yet, because I had a difficult time finding some bread mixes. It was recommended to start with a ready made mix so that I would know what the dough is suppose to look like in the machine. To order on-line was difficult also because I would have had to purchase the mix in bulk to off-set the cost of shipping! It was outrageous! I tried to order from Amazon, but many of the grocery items aren't shipped to Hawaii, which makes it really hard to get good deals on gluten free items and ingredients without paying an arm and a leg for shipping...and the search goes on! I'll keep you updated on what I find.

I am altering more shirts for dh...turning them in to tanks or muscle tees...perfect for summer! I also altered a pair of pants, which were torn at the knees, into shorts. Now he has another pair of shorts to wear at home.

Japanese Sewing Books and Sweet Potatoes

No. 2 daughter's ipod was acting up so we made a appointment at the Apple store in Ala Moana. While we were waiting for our appointment, we went to Shirokiya. Shirokiya has a new/used book/video section. We were browsing through there and I found these two sewing books. They were really cheap...I couldn't resist. One has bags and the other has all kinds of cute things.

Guess what! We found some potaotes! One was big enough to take out of the ground, but the other was still too small. My older daughter had the priviledge of digging it out.

Well, we scrubbed it, cut it up, and microwaved it, but when we tasted it, it wasn't sweet. (sad face) As you can see, it looked really nice, but... Anyway, I asked the Ag teacher at school, but he didn't know how to make it. There is another Ag teacher at school that need to ask, but I haven't been able to talk to her. In the meantime, there was some fertilizer on sale at Longs, so we bought that and my dh sprinkled some on the patch. We'll see what happens...

Sweet Potato Flowers and Mother's Day gifts

Did you know that purple sweet potato plants had purple flowers? I didn't. The flowers bloom in the morning and fall off the vine in the evening. If you notice in the picture there is a bud next to the flower. The flower was a pretty pale lavender on the outside. Near the center it was a dark purple. I asked the Ag teachers at school and they told me to dig around the area where the flower is because there may be potatoes! I asked them how far down the potatoes would be and they said not far, near the top, so I dug around the area where I saw the flower. I couldn't find anything (sad face), but the flowers are pretty. More on sweet potatoes in another post. :)

For Mother's Day I made a scrap rug and kaleidoscope hot pads.

Fabric and Muffins

I couldn't resist buying those two fabrics. They were $1.99/yard. I wish I bought more of the blue one, but when I went back, it was gone. (so sad) I'm not sure what I'll make from them yet, but the blue one would make so many nice things.

I made muffins using the Pamela's baking mix. They turned out okay. The recipe only made 6. I may have to double it or something if and when I make it again. I used the no fat variation. I had to bake it longer than the time indicated in the recipe.

Giveaway Winner and Sweet Potato Leaves

I entered a giveaway on Sew Mama Sew and won a rotary cutter. Yay! I didn't expect to win anything, so it was so nice to win something.

I harvested some sweet potato leaves, pictured in the plastic bag, then following the recipe on this website, I washed the leaves or immersed them in water, then blanched them for 2 minutes. I then drained them and chopped them. Next, I chopped garlic , stir-fried the garlic and the leaves. It was so good. The family loves it! We will be eating this weekly. Yum!