Easy Gluten Free Blueberry Tart

Posted on July 19, 2013 by The Next Martha

I’m still getting used to this whole gluten-free lifestyle. Today I had friends over for lunch and it was truly the first time I was sad I couldn’t eat something.

I served a white wine chicken salad (calm down, Trader Joe’s) on their pretzel croissant rolls.

I took a deep breath of the gluteny goodness as I prepared mine on a less pretzel and even less croissant like bread.

Sigh.

Now that I’ve become one of “those people” who has dietary restrictions I knew that I needed to start baking gluten-free or risk losing weight.

We can’t have that now.

I came across this recipe on pinterest and decided that it fit the bill.

Almond meal

Except I didn’t have almond flour so I used almond meal

Lemon curd

And I didn’t make lemon curd, I just bought a jar of it.

Hey now, I said this was easy.

Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe with Almond Crust:

Crust

2.5 cups Almond Meal

5 tablespoons butter

1 egg (Oops, it says egg white but I used a whole egg)

Now that I’m reading the original recipe I realize I forgot to add the pinch of salt. Huh. You should probably do that.

I also did 3 tablespoons of sugar.

I used a pastry cutter to cut chilled butter into the almond meal. I then added egg and just mixed it all by hand. I pressed it into my pie tart pan that I first sprayed with cooking spray. The crust was sort of goopy feeling so I stuck the whole thing into the freezer to chill. I don’t know how long. I was very distracted. Maybe 15- 20 minutes?

While it was in the freezer, oven was on 400. Once it was chilled I put it in oven for 15 minutes. Honestly, I think it could have used a little longer but I was in the middle of throwing chicken nuggets at my kids for lunch. The original recipe said not to over cook so I didn’t. It was perfectly fine and it’s possible I’m thinking CRUST and this was more chewy than crispy. It was probably perfect.

Curd:

If you want homemade follow original recipe. I’m sure it is delicious. Even though I’ve made curd before, I was short on time so JAR CURD IT IS. You can find this in a grocery store by….I think the Jelly section?

I thought the curd was a little too strong on its own so I added the whole jar of curd to a whole package of cream cheese and blended it using a blender. I then squeezed some lemon juice (one slice?) and added some zest too. I did this all to taste.

Put it all together

I took the crust out of the oven, I let it cool and then put it in freezer to cool quicker because I was running out of time. (I’m very poor at time management)

Once cooled, I used a spatula to spread the filling and then topped with blueberries because the store was out of strawberries.

In the end it turned out delicious.

P.S. But seriously, can you believe I took that picture? #WorstPhotographerEver

Tween gets an Ocean Themed Room

Posted on March 19, 2013 by The Next Martha

Mission: Give kid a new room

Length it took: Forever

Results: Pretty damn good.

I’ve been promising my older son a newly decorated room for about a year, or longer.

First, his brother needed a room so once that was complete, it was time.

Space Room

Space was an interest of his for about 4 months but he ended up with a space room for about 5 years. This is the before I took when I started dismantling the room. There were planets mounted on boards in planetary order around his room with the name of each planet listed underneath in the silver stripe.

I didn’t start right away on his new room because he kept changing themes. He went from Mario to jungle, and then settled on “The seven layers of the ocean.” room.

We had different ideas about what the room should look like. It’s not that I didn’t let him have some say but I am the one doing the work and my kids have this idea that I can do anything.

Huh.

My thoughts:

I knew I didn’t want the room to be cartoonish. I also knew that I wanted it to be a space that reflected him now and that it could grow with him.

His thoughts:

His original idea was to stripe the walls with the different layer colors. Or he thought I could paint it to look like an aquarium and the ceiling would be his actual room. Ok then.

The colors he originally picked were SPECIFIC to that ocean layer and ranged from black, to grey to aqua.

Besides costing a fortune in paint, the end result would have looked like a mess so I guided him to picking a color palette to work with.

Layers and wave wall

I made a “wave” stencil and used a sand tan color to ground it all.

Then I used 4 colors on the one wall and sort of blended them instead of striping them.

I told him it’s like five layers if you count the ceiling color.

He picked out that ocean fish poster from posters.com.

He loves to collect those plastic sea animals and I used a fishing net to display them on this corner in his room.

I build that shelf to hold all of his ocean books. The map is for marking all the Aquariums we visit in the United States.

I built that shelf to hold all of his ocean books.
The map is for marking all the Aquariums we visit in the United States.

When he was 5 he said he wanted to be a marine biologist. (I like the rope detail I put on there and painted grey to tie in with curtains and bedding)

That shelf cost less than $15 to make.
The rope trim gives it a nautical feel.
I painted it grey to match curtains and bedding

I was originally going to make a mobile with these but ended up using these shell xrays above his bed.

He picked two different pillow cases. I got them on Etsy. Narwhal and Octopus (next photo)

When my son was 5 he declared he would be a marine biologist.

I guess some day we’ll see.

___________________________________________________________

Doing this room took longer than I thought it would. But if I have one piece of advice when it comes to doing a space it’s this: Don’t rush just to get it done. Sometimes building a room takes time to find just the right elements and design features. It’s often when I rush a project that I decide in 6 months I don’t like this or that. By taking your time you’ll end up with a room that you’ll enjoy for longer than a year.

Oh, and never paint a ceiling a dark blue!

Teacher Gifts. Martha Style.

Posted on May 21, 2012 by The Next Martha

It’s the end of the school year here and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved my kids teachers this year.

Which brings me to the end of the year teachers gifts.

I usually do gift cards but this year wanted to make them special some how.

After finding this youtube video, I modified it to fit into my idea.

(Note: I don’t have any of those fancy folding tools. I used my hands and the back of a pen cap)

The box opens into four “flaps.”

Each flap is a gift card holder.

The “Eat” one is for Panera Bread.

The “Drink” one is for Starbucks.

The “Read” one is for Barnes and Nobel

So what do you think? I love them and really this sort of gift card box can be used for any occasion. Costs just a few pieces of paper too.

Reasonable and cute.

Voila.

Now pass me the wine. I’ve got 4 more to do.

(Though I did not come up with the box idea, the concept of Eat, Drink, Read is all my own.)

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Easy Gluten Free Blueberry Tart

Tween gets an Ocean Themed Room

Teacher Gifts. Martha Style.