New Possibilities

My absolute favorite quote and life mantra to start this post off:


"Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart" - Confucius 

You know how everyone always says, "everything happens for a reason"? Well I am finally beginning to let life take my reality by the reins and show me where I am meant to go. Deep down, my dream was to work/own a high end jewelry store in a mountain town. Unfortunately, I tried for months and months to alter the path of my life in so many directions, all of which coincided more with what I felt I should do after college based on societal norms and not nearly enough with what I actually wanted to do. After waiting out months of no job offers and trying to convince myself that I could actually enjoy being an administrative assistant or working HR for a huge corporation in a foreign city, finally my life corrected it self and landed me right where I needed to be, in the mountains exploring my passions in life.


I am lucky enough to have several well-paying, extremely flexible part-time jobs right now. I am learning a lot from every single one of them and it keeps life interesting to not do the same routine job every day. I have gotten to explore my creative talents in baking and cooking while working at the Avalanche Cafe, hence the food aspect of this blog. I also got to go to a barista training course and learn how to create the best tasting espresso drinks starting from the most important part, pulling the perfect shot of espresso.  I have also gained so many good financial and organizational skills from doing bookkeeping. I also love the cleaning and organizing business, because I can actually see instantly the improvements I'm making in peoples lives, especially since I border on OCD at times. Needless to say, the past six months have been really good to me!


Recently, I've been missing the jewelry industry quite a bit though. Maybe it's because my last big jewelry purchase was an entire year ago, only kidding. I just miss the excitement I feel when I see an incredible stone that is set in such a perfect way that it creates a masterpiece that will live on for decades, if not centuries. I love old jewelry and new, I love diamonds and semi-precious gemstones. I love it all! Since I can remember, I have always been scoping out other peoples jewelry and then later I'd ask my mom "did you see that women's ring?!" and she would respond "what ring?".  My eye has always been drawn to jewelry, a blessing and a curse really.


So this is the part about how life really does work out for the best, because in the past month I have been put in contact with two galleries who actually want me to work for them. I jumping for joy on the inside about the opportunity to work in the jewelry industry again! The best part is that my entire dream is actually coming together though, because one of the offers is in Telluride, Colorado and the other is in Durango, Colorado. Both of which are absolutely amazing mountain towns! 


Aside from that exciting news, it is also my mom's birthday today. She is the most generous, loving, beautiful women I know and I am grateful to call her my best friend and mother! I bought her some stock and lilies, which are her favorite flowers. I arranged them in a fairly gorgeous bouquet, if I don't say so myself (see picture at the beginning of post). I also bought her some gardening magazines to help her get ideas for gardening season, since it is just around the corner now. Also, we have both been trying to eat gluten free for the past few months, but have been missing certain things, like banana bread. Today I made her some gluten-free coconut banana bread, which turned out to be pretty delicious. It looks pretty good too, except like a lot of gluten-free breads I've made, it didn't rise nearly as well as I would have liked. All in all, the flavor is great and I will keep experimenting to hopefully get it to rise better. 
Here is the recipe:

Coconut Banana Bread

4 eggs
2 bananas (mashed)
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
3 tbsp coconut sugar (or honey)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup coconut flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the eggs, bananas and coconut oil. Make sure the coconut oil is fully melted, but not too hot or else it will cook the eggs. Add the vanilla extract. Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then mix them into the wet ingredients. Pour them into a greased pan and bake for 45 min at 350 degrees or until golden brown and completely cooked in the center.

**FYI: When I mixed the wet ingredients into the dry, it made my coconut oil harden again and I had to place the entire mixing bowl over a pot of boiling water to warm it back up. I was using raw coconut oil instead of the processes kind, so I think that was the real issue. 


Also, the bread definitely turned out a much less moist than I had imagined it would, so maybe  using honey like the original recipe called for instead of my adaptation of coconut sugar would help make it more moist. Another option would be agave nectar probably. 

Recipe was adapted from: 

http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1142313/yummy-coconut-flour-banana-bread-not-too-eggy