Our Valentines/ Birthday weekend

I know it's a few days after Valentines Day but I still want to share our holiday with you.  It was my husband's birthday on the 12th, so we got a hotel in Dallas at the Rosewood so we could celebrate his birthday and Valentines.   Very fancy!  This has become our usual thing to do every year, get a fancy hotel and go out to a fancy dinner.  We decided not to go fancy with dinner this year.  We ate at HG Supply Co. in Lower Greenville.  If you are not familiar with Dallas, Lower Greenville is a hip area with lots of Twenty-somethings.  My best friend and I used to cruise down lower Greenville in high school, we thought we were cool!  Anyway, if you are looking for a cool restaurant with real food, I highly recommend it!  I had the DelMonico which was a ribeye with an egg on top, and some awesome brussel sprouts!  My husband had the beef short ribs with charred cabbage and it was great!  To drink, I had the Moscow mule made with Kombucha and my husband had the old fashion, one of his favorite drinks.  We shared a dish of sweet potato hash as well.  It was a great meal! After dinner we walked across the street to Dude Sweet Chocolate and picked up some amazing chocolate to have in the hotel room.  It was a great night!

               

Valentines morning, the boys had Almond flour waffles with strawberry sauce and coconut whipped cream.  They had a cute heart shaped egg on the side.  

  

Since it was on a Tuesday we decided to cook at home and make it a Taco Tuesday!  No one can argue with tacos, especially in our house!  I made tortillas out of almond flour.  My boys love them and think they are better than wheat tortillas!  That's always a good complement to hear.   We had regular ground beef tacos with guacamole and a salad to go with.  

Here is the tortilla recipe I use.

 1 1/4 cups almond flour

1 1/2 cups  Tapioca flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Baking soda

3-4 ounces of Water

2 tablespoons nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening, melted and cooled

2 Egg whites

Combine the dry ingredients, then make a hole in the middle of the flour mixture and add the wet ingredients. Start with 3 ounces of water and add more if needed.  Mix until it is in a dough form.  Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for at least 30 minutes.  Then, take a ball of dough and roll out on to a surface lightly covered in tapioca flour.  To make them perfectly round, I take my sauce pan lid and use it as a cutter.  Place tortilla on a heated pan and cook on both sides until they are slightly browned.  

It's all very similar to a "regular" tortilla recipe, just different flour!  Don't get too frustrated if they break the first few times you try to make them.  It takes practice and then you will be a pro!  

     

For dessert I made Fed and Fit Flourless Chocolate cake.  Yea, that was awesome!  And I had made some Elanas Pantry Mexican Chocolate Ice cream to go with it.  

 

Kids and Valentines Candy

Every year, our kids come home with a ton of Valentines candy.  This year, I didn't say anything about it. I wanted them to make their own decision as to what to do with it.   One of our boys gave his candy away before he left school, the other asked if I would pay him to throw the candy away.. Uh yea!  And the third ate a few pieces and decided he wanted to be paid for the rest.  Not bad!  So how did I get to this point??  It has taken some time, sometimes bribing, but also educating.  They know the candy makes them feel bad.  They know that the ingredients are not even recognizable.  Plus, I made them a super cute chocolate box for Valentines with really good chocolate!  Some of the chocolate I made and some I ordered online.  They were happy and so was I!  I have learned if there is something I prefer that my kids don't eat, I need to have an alternative ready.  They have learned that really good dark chocolate with strawberry filling, or homemade mounds bars is way better tasting than a package of gummy worms.