Little Miss Muffett...Not!

Sticking with the fairy tale theme, I'm moving on to Little Miss Muffett for breakfast.  A lot of celiacs struggle with good breakfast ideas...obviously--ask the average Americans what they eat for breakfast and 95% of the time it's going to be: cereal, waffles, pancakes, toast, bagel, muffins, biscuits, etc...
You're probably hoping that I'm not about to promote curds and whey.  It does sound gross.  Some scientists actually hypothesize that it was not the spider that truly scared Miss Muffett away, but the curds and whey itself.
Haha, but seriously, did you know that Ricotta and Cottage are made from curds and whey?

Cottage Cheese is the curd and Ricotta is made from the whey when all the curds are removed.    So combine these two and technically, you've got curds and whey...right?

"Way Out" Curds and Whey:

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons Ricotta Cheese
2 Tablespoons Cottage Cheese
Lettuce
Fresh Oregano--a few leaves
Fresh Basil--a few leaves
Cherry Tomatoes (or diced)
Sunflower seeds 1 Tablespoon
Bacon (Optional)
Portobello Mushroom--a few slices (optional)
1 teaspoon Romano or Parmesan Cheese
Fresh/dried Garlic--a pinch
Pepper--a pinch

Directions:
Layer a serving bowl with lettuce.  Scoop the cheeses on top--mix around a bit.  Add the other ingredients to suit your tastes.  Eat.  Fall in love with your food.

Sometimes I eat something that was so delicious that my glutton side takes over and demands "MORE!"  So...I decided to relent in a not so naughty way and share a few scoops of my Pepa's sweet pecans (organic!) with my family.  ....And sip on some Bolthouse Farm Mocha--sooo smooth and yummy.

Our City Garden

We live in Los Angeles, in a small house with a tiny backyard.  Our big dream right now is to 'one day become homesteaders with a real self sustaining farm'.  This, of course, means leaving LA.  We'd like to move to Tennessee ideally, since I'm a native.

     But for now, this is our lot.  Or, at least, our little box garden.  We're growing eggplant (my favorite), brussel sprouts, lettuce, two types of tomatoes, corn, squash, basil, carrots, potatoes, onions, stevia, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, bell peppers, watermellons, cantelopes and random flowers (and there are several unopened seed packets that my husband keeps buying). 

Yes, that sounds pretty ambitious for people with a backyard the size of most people's living room, but we've squeezed stuff in everywhere we can.  And amazingly, the plants seem to enjoy all the crowded company. 
Our last year's garden looked like a small jungle had exploded in one corner.  We had tomatoes off and on all through the winter.  And the strawberries began blooming before spring had rolled in.  This is due to our very mild weather (some say we don't actually have 'weather' here at all).

These February photos, with beloved cartoon characters, show what our garden looked like in the midst of a massive Tennessee snow storm.  We know all about it because my family called us several times to tell us about it and sent us 'invites' to view their web albums of the said snow storm.  Meanwhile, as you can see, we were hanging out at the beach and enjoying vine ripened cherry tomatoes...  But yes, we want to leave all of this LA 'goodness', for a bit of affordable land and less madness.  We can't wait.  So we're studying up about farming and gardening.   We highly recommend Nature's Harmony FarmCasts, if you want to learn more too.