Hey friends! When you’re stuck at home, any kind of creativity and innovation can make the days feel lighter and happier (and less like groundhog day!). That’s why our family decided to start CoronaDays for Instagram, where each week is themed with our favorite holidays. It gives us something to look forward to each week and breaks up the monotony. Plus I was so ill and bedridden for many of my favorite holidays last year, so it's kind of a do-over! So this digest gives you a look at the fun things we did to celebrate Halloween Week, a brand new recipe, and a review of the Wake Up With the Walkers episodes you may have missed!

We went on a date!!
To my vacant office. But still.
I could tell the kids were missing our one on one time, and so was I.

Whether it was Asher missing our drives to and from baseball or school where he can talk about things he wants to talk about without interruption, or Easton missing his time going to soccer with just me or Ryan. And of course, we’ve all missed our actual dates that I like to do with each of them.

So I took each of them solo to my office for a few hours this week and had some simple but special activities planned for them.

I set up a tent with twinkle lights and blankets and we watched a movie of their choice, played board games, did crafts, had ice cream and French fries, and read books. It was only a few hours for each one, but it was so special and will forever be a memory of mine, and hopefully theirs too!

Wake Up With The Walkers – Easy Roasted Chicken and Grain-Free Gravy

Lunches have been difficult for some reason lately, so I decided to do a quick roasted chicken to have on hand to eat with veggies or on top of salads throughout the week. Roasting a whole chicken is much more economical than purchasing it in pieces, plus you can use the bones to make bone broth afterward! Ryan loves eating it with mashed potatoes, so I'm also going to make a simple gluten-free pan gravy afterward.

Did you know that the ice cream sandwich ranks as the number two ice cream novelty in America? Not a shocking fact, it’s a perfect duo. ?

One of my favorite desserts has to be a warm chewy gluten-free brownie topped with dairy-free ice cream. This new recipe for Brownie Cookie Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches has to be the pinnacle of that. Chocolate, ice cream, coffee, and brownies all smashed into one dessert. The cookies are sweet and chewy and they hold together a generous scoop of this rich creamy ice cream.

These are a treat! If you’re not feeling carrot cake for Easter dessert, give this one a try! You can find the recipe here.

Wake Up With The Walkers – Homemade Chocolate Eggs

True or a myth? Reese’s eggs are better than regular Reese’s. ?

Ryan is convinced that the eggs have a better consistency- probably because there’s so much more filling! Since we don’t tolerate most of the ingredients used in the classic candy, I created a copycat recipe that can be found on page 210 in my book Celebrations!
We love this recipe for holidays like Halloween and Easter because everyone can enjoy it! It is nut, refined sugars, and dairy-free!

I definitely saw this idea either here or on Pinterest so I won’t take credit, but my kids' faces lit up when I brought it out to the family room yesterday to our makeshift movie theater to watch Trolls a World Tour! Not an ad- but it’s our new favorite movie! The music is SO good! We’ve already watched it 3 times and are going to cry when our 48hr rental period is over. ?

Wake Up With The Walkers – Gluten-Free Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

What is an Easter brunch, or any spring celebration for that matter, without a classic carrot cake? This recipe is from my Celebrations cookbook and I adore the trio of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in it. I also love the shredded coconut and raisins. It's tree-nut free too!

We're going to treat ourselves to a real Cream Cheese Frosting this weekend, but I have a paleo version in the cookbook if you can't do dairy! I'm using lactose-free cream cheese today, and I'm going to save half the frosting to use on my grain-free Cinnamon Rolls (page 268 of Celebrations) for Easter morning!

This definitely didn’t make it to Easter ?
????
If you missed us making it live, you can catch it on my IGTV!

Finally, the famous recipe is here! My roasted “Burnt” Broccoli is covered with a special seasoning mixture and a squeeze of lemon for a boost in flavor and then roasted a little extra to make it super crispy.

The idea was borrowed from my bff’s husband Chris and I added an awesome mix of some of my favorite spices that really dress up any roasted veggie. It was made crazy popular by all of you after I showed it in my stories a few times, and it’s easy to say that #burntbroccoliisthebestbroccoli ! I have never published this recipe anywhere except Instagram, @daniellewalker, and so many of you ask me for the recipe, so this is a momentous day!! ???

Wake Up The Walkers – Walker Family Chili

This week is Halloween Week! Hence, the adorable costumes Kezia and Easton are in! Check out my highlights on my Instagram, @daniellewalker, to see what recipes, crafts, activities, books, and movies we'll be partaking in to celebrate!

I serve this Walker Family Chili with my grain-free Corn Bread every year before trick-or-treating, so we decided to kick off our Halloween Week with this for dinner! The Chili recipe has been added to the blog with an Instant Pot conversion, but it is originally in Eat What You Love as a Chili Cornbread Pie. It is gluten-free, paleo, and dairy-free!

Would you rather have mint chocolate chip or chocolate mint ice cream?? For me, I would choose chocolate mint, meaning chocolate ice cream with mint flavor. This Double Chocolate Thin Mint Ice Cream might just be the best ice cream I’ve ever created! The crunchy gluten-free Thin Mint cookie remakes are crumbled and added to a rich chocolate ice cream with a thick mint fudge swirl throughout. Every ingredient is something you can both pronounce and be proud of! It is grain-free, paleo, and dairy-free!

If you feel intimidated or don’t have all of the necessary ingredients for the Mint Slims (Eat What You Love pg 283), then you can use any gluten-free cookie that you have on hand.
I made this recipe a couple of weeks ago on our live cooking show Wake Up With The Walkers if you want a video to follow along with. Find it on my IGTV channel or in the blog post with the recipe!

Wake Up With The Walkers –  Jack-O’-Lantern Rice Crispy Treats

Following the theme for Halloween Week of #Coronadays, we made Jack-O’-Lantern Rice Crispy Treats! I have had lots of questions asking “why Halloween?”, and my answer is simply that it breaks up the monotony, and is a sweet opportunity to celebrate holidays that I missed when I was so ill and bedridden last year. It’s also giving us something to look forward to each week and is totally making the time pass more quickly. Plus my kids are LOVING it.

I have never published this recipe because it calls for rice and…Against All Grain ? However, my kids and Ryan do enjoy organic sprouted rice on occasion! I made this recipe with my homemade marshmallows and we used dairy-free chocolate to paint the cute jack-o-lantern faces on top! This entire recipe is refined sugar-free too!

Check out my highlights at @daniellewalker to see what recipes, crafts, activities, books, and movies we'll partaking in to celebrate! Check out my previous IGTV videos demonstrating the marshmallows, and follow along here for the Crispy Treats recipe. Plus keep a lookout for it to be on the blog sometime next week!