What a Buffalo

Happy Valentine's Day, beautiful people!

Did you all treat yourselves to Valentine's goodies, I hope?

My day actually started with a real cookie - and I'm not talking about another crazy oatmeal concoction! Part of my valentine's gift to my mom was some Cherry-Almond Ginger Cookies from a local bakery. We each started our mornings off with one. Hey, we've gotta do what we've gotta do, right? It was so delicious that I'm sure its' flavors will appear in a future oatmeal bowl.

But this morning's was to die for, as well:

I didn't want this bowl to end.

Remember when I used to have blueberries non-stop with my breakfast? Well, I still have some from that craze, and they may be coming back after this delicious-ness!

In the bowl: The usual mix (including banana) with frozen blueberries and ground ginger. Obsessed with ginger lately! I also have been putting goji berries in with the mix while it boils. They get deliciously soft. Does anyone know if this affects their benefits, though?

Toppings of the morning: ground golden flax, toasted coconut & macadamia nuts, chia-seed yogurt icing, sliced banana, blueberry-cherry jam, and Naturally Nutty Chocolate Coconut PB.

Heaven in a bowl. But when don't I say that lately?! I only wish the Naturally Nutty didn't get so solid in the fridge. I like when PB or AB gets all melty :)

Most of my morning was spent typing a paper for my family violence class (I hope new readers don't get the wrong impression when they read that...lol) and getting photos together for our first photo critique. I'm actually not really sure what the teacher is looking for because she won't answer my e-mail, and I definitely feel like I'm missing something. But I guess I'll just march to the beat of my own drum?

So, I'm doing a couple comps, with two pictures - including the black and white portraits I posted the other day...

And a couple just as-is. These look kind of bland on here since they're being res'd down so much, I apologize. They are HDR photos - High Dynamic Range - so they are really quite vibrant in their original forms. I need to upload some to my flickr.

HDR photos are the compilations of at least three different photos, of varying exposures. So, I would shoot each image at the correct exposure, then one image 2 "stops" under, and another 2 "stops" over. This allows you to capture the details in what would otherwise be overexposed highlights (i.e. the sky) and underexposed shadows (i.e. the windows). It's really quite fun! I think the reason I enjoy this moreso than regular digital captures is because I like film so much - but this is something that you can't do with film. I guess I'm still of the belief that film is superior, so if I'm going to shoot digitally, I might as well be doing something I can't do with analog.

But, I'll stop with the photo-geekery. That's my little knowledge tid-bit of the day rather than a foodie one :) If you're interested in HDR photography, check out the blog link above. Definitely some good explanations there.

Breaking for lunch, I did something new that I initially found to be a very odd idea indeed:

A sweet potato on a sandwich?! But...but...aren't those textures too similar?

I guess it just never occured to me that a sweet potato - already a starchy, carb-y food, would  really fit in on more bread. But after seeing this panini I decided it was worth a try. And I mean really. How can you go wrong with a sweet potato? Worse comes to worse, just dismantle it and eat everything separately, right?

Well, it was fantastic, and you should go make a sweet potato panini right now.

I didn't quite follow the recipe - I dislike avocados quite a bit, actually - but did attempt to mimic the dressing, and the idea in general, of course.

I first panini'd half a sweet potato cut into rounds and seasoned with salt, pepper, and curry powder until soft. Meanwhile, on a pita, I spread a mixture of dijon mustard, greek yogurt, poppyseeds, and maple dijon mustard. On top of this I layered baby spinach, red onion, roma tomato slices, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and curry powder. Placed the sweet potato rounds, folded, and pressed the whole sandwich in half. Oh. So. Good.

My intentions were to use feta cheese, but before opening the container, I noticed it had a feb.28 use-by date and decided I'd rather bring it back to the store considering it was just purchased yesterday, lol. Ah well. 

I also decided to try baking the rest of the butter beans! I loved making curried baked chick-peas so I decided to do the same thing with these butter beans - rinsed and patted them dry before shaking in a bag with curry powder and french fry seasoning. French fry seasoning = bad idea, baked butter beans = good idea.

They were good, but I guess I didn't realize how salty the french fry seasoning is, and it became overbearable halfway through :( This from the girl who is relatively liberal with salt, too.

I had one of the best snacks today, too:

Okay, looks simple. But have you ever heated up applesauce with butterscotch chips before? Before this, I hadn't either. After this, I will be doing it often. Once the butterscotch chips are replaced. Who leaves four butterscotch chips in a bag? I think it must have been my mom. I've noticed she'll think she's doing a nice thing by just taking a small nibble of something, which just results in leaving a small nibble. Or, as I say, tease. Just eat the whole thing! I'd rather not know what I'm missing, I guess. haha.

What's your take - do you want to be left a tiny little "tease" of something and wish there was more, or not even know it existed in the first place?

It's funny, because just that morning I made fun of her for doing it with some of my leftover banana, haha.

Anyways; in addition: homemade trail mix [kashi, total, crumbled mate energy bar, walnuts, and goji berries], raisins, Spelt bread toast with PB & Blueberry-Cherry jam & a Choco-Mint Yerba Mate Latte! Well, quasi-latte.

Naan also made an appearance again tonight! I just put all of the dough balls in the fridge so I could make them as I wanted them. Sooo handy!

Has anyone else noticed my food tends to have an orange-y hue to it lately? With all this curry, sweet potatoes, pumpkin puree, and Franks, I think I'll be orange soon!

Buffalo-BBQ Chik'n Naan Pizza!

The Naan recipe makes the perfect size for one slice. I was afraid it'd be way too small, but my eyes are also way larger than my stomach.

For the chik'n mixture, I simply sauteed 1 c. chik'n tenders in minced garlic, added half a cooked sweet potato, chopped (leftover from lunch!) and then 1 T. Honey-BBQ sauce and 3T. Frank's Red Hot. Meanwhile, I rolled out and made the Naan in a cast-iron skillet. Assembled by layering baby spinach, mozzarella, slices roma tomato, red onion, chik'n mixture, and more mozzarella (actually, I used the almond mozzarella - so good! just looks a lil funny) and then baked in the oven until the cheese was melty. Next time, I'll just cover it in the skillet. I think it'd be easier than turning the oven on just to melt some cheese!

Served with some delicious homemade ranch dressing on the side :)

Question of the Day: Is there anything better than buffalo anything?

haha, okay, besides that, did anyone do anything special for Valentine's Day?

p.s. loved reading everyone's favorite indian dishes. I wish we had a real indian restaraunt around here. I want to try more indian food!

Rejuvenated

Today I woke up feeling so rejuvenated! 

And no, it's not because I went and got a free Denny's Grand Slam :P Pretty sure if that was the case, I'd be feeling dead. lol.

I ended up going to bed relatively early last night, around 10, and slept really well, too! Usually I wake up a time or two, each time wide-awake and ready for it to just be morning...and then a little groggy when 6am does roll round.

Not today! I was ready to be up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 6am. Unfortunately, it's my day to "sleep in" until 7, but I decided tojust browse the web and watch the news and relax until then. It was quite nice! I love waking up ready to go and in a good mood. The good mood definitely carried on throughout the day, too. I think this repeat bowl of brekkie helped that :

More gingersnap oats! This time I used a little more than 1/4 t. ground ginger. I'd be lying if I said my tongue wasn't a litttttle tingly by the end! Mmmm.

And some food for thought: did you know that 

"Ginger is an anti-inflammatory, which means it may be useful in fighting heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease and arthritis. Plus, it's high in antioxidants that fight all kinds of diseases."

Pretty cool, huh? Click here for the source, as well as other tidbits about the 7 most potent disease-fighting spices. I'd like to start "showcasing" random facts about stuff I utilize...mainly foods, spices, etc, but I'm sure some photo stuff will work it's way in here, and some soc. stuff :) Whatcha think?

Today's new bar was a Kashi GoLean Crunch Bar in the chocolate caramel flavor

How is this bar so healthy? It baffles me. It's got some seriously awesome ingredients, and tastes just like a peanut buttah rice krispies! That's probably just me, though, because it is not actually peanut-butter flavored, but I always combine peanut butter with caramel. I dunno. Don't ask.

But! This made an excellent mind-refresher in between classes. Why is it that I get way hungrier and tired sitting at a desk listening to people talk than I do on my feet all morning at work? 

Does that happen to anybody else?!

I was super-duper ready to come home for this, though! It took my already great mood (don't you love being in a good mood for no given reason?) to entirely new levels

Buffalo Turkey-Meatball Wrap!

Two summers ago I just about lived off of Buffalo Chicken wraps. For some reason I have let an entirely too-long period of time before having a buffalo something wrap. And those buffalo turkey meatballs were just the ticket! I mixed up a version of Clean Eating's homemade ranch dressing sans buttermilk with just some greek yogurt, dill, chives, garlic salt with parsley, black pepper, and onion powder. Better than ranch dressing, I say. In addition to that, en la wrap es sliced meatballs, more franks, red onion, half a cheese wedge, romaine, dill pickle, and tomato. Oh. So. Heavenly.

Con carrot y the rest of the tomato and dressin' for dippin'.

Afterwards, Kaia and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful sunshine and slightly warmer weather and go for a leisurely walk! I've never been much of a gym person. I much prefer getting my exercise by working outside, going for walks, helping with the horses (or, soon, riding horses, lol) going for a run down my road or doing some cardio kickboxing or pilates. I guess it kind of works out, since - I don't have much time to spend at the gym! I am thinking about getting a membership and starting swimming, though.

What's your favorite form of exercise - be it intentional or unintentional?

I didn't dress very appropriately (yes - I live in Converse, no matter the weather, and I also forgot gloves) because I failed to recognize that yes, while it was quite warmer than it had been, 25* is still pretty chilly.

So, we were only gone about 30 minutes. It was quite refreshing, though. I was cooped up inside most of the weekend, and like going on short ganders whenever the weather is enjoyable :)

Before our walk, I had thrown together some almond milk, pure pumpkin, greek yogurt, chia seeds, cinnamon, and a dash of cheesecake pudding mix and refrigerated to create this delicious pudding that I enjoyed before leaving for class once again:

Gah. So good. Love the chia seeds!

And then this was waiting for me after class:

Not photographically pleasing. But oh-so-good. Lately every meal I've eaten I say to myself after "okay. I never want to eat anything else ever again." Somehow, I keep coming through for you guys and creating new things :P haha.

Leftover strata and some "burnt broccoli" and carrots with a raspberry-honey dijon & balsamic vinegar glaze/dressing. And some parmesan. Perfection.

Aaaaand, that's about it from me! I hope everyone else's Tuesdays were as equally terrific!

(ah, I get it...I need to stop with the corny alliterations.)