Extremes

First of all, thank you guys so much for your kind words after yesterday's post. You're all too sweet! I hope I didn't sound like too much of a Debbie Downer - in all honesty, days like that, I can't help but to laugh a little! Keeps ya from crying, ya know? But in all reality, nothing seriously catastrophic happened (okay, well, the computer crashing stinks, but it really wasn't my fault, lol) but how often does everything happen all at once like that? haha.

Secondly, I don't think I can ever ask what your favorite ______ is ever again! Why? I'm way too jealous of all the awesome jams you guys can find in your areas! Fig? Creme of Dates with Almond? Ginger? Vanilla chestnut? Seriously - every single suggestion about had my mouth watering! I think I would especially kill for Creme of Dates with Almond ;)

But anyways - on to today!

Lets just say...it was the extreme opposite of yesterday!

In the Base: bulgur, oats, TVP, and wheat bran mix, with cinnamon, nutmeg, goji berries, 1/4 banana, and orange zest.

In the "Icing": greek yogurt, chia seeds, sliced pineapple, and almondmilk.

On the Top: flax, toasted coconut, toasted macadamia nuts, 1/4 banana, orange zest & wedges, pomegranate strawberry jam, Naturally Nutty White Chocolate Coconut PB, and poppyseeds - just because!

Holy Yum! Sometimes there's no such thing as too much of a good thing, I guess!

I realized that this PB will still last a year if I don't refrigerate it. Safe to say - it won't last that long, so I'm leaving it out now! It gets too hard in the fridge. I like it to melt in! And with the new knowledge - I'm not so afraid to open the others *gasp*at the same time. For some reason I thought they went bad way faster.

This peanut butter is seriously amazing. I love that it's not very chocolatey, and the coconut is allowed to take center stage :) Probably because it's white chocolate, not dark. Which, I actually just realized this morning as I was thinking to myself how glad I was that it wasn't overly chocolatey. Uh, duh, Jess....just read the label. lol...

floating oats!

Yes - these were taken outside.

It was cold. But they look so much pretty outside, don't you agree?

Sorry - I got a little photo happy this morning, I'd say. 

Before I left for my first classes I threw together some "overnight oats" consisting of plain oikos, almond milk, chia seeds, oats, goji berries, maple sizzurp, and a crumbled mate energy bar. I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it home for lunch like usual because there was a possibility - weather permitting - that I would be shooting someone's senior portrait. It was supposed to start snowing right around noon - when I get out of class - and we were supposed to shoot then, too. 

Well, the shoot got rescheduled because she was too sick - and good thing, too! It's finally storming pretty darn good! Started right when I got off the phone with her. So, I [slowly!] made it home - the snow really started sticking to the roads, and fast.

And, with the wintery weather, couldn't decide if I still wanted cold "over morning" oats! So I opted for the best of both worlds:

In the Pita Panini: turkey bacon, spinach, roma tomato slices, red onion, almond mozzarella, and maple-dijon mustard.

On the side: sundried tomato hummus, Schneiders butter bites pretzels, carrot, and Suzie's spelt multi-seed flatbreads.

This. Was. Perfect. I think I'm in love with just about every component. That almond mozzarella is pretty awesome, as ws my first turkey bacon experience! 

It was made even better that I could see this every time I looked out the door...

I love the peaceful beauty of snow when it falls like this :) Isn't it gorgeous?

Are you a snow lover or hater?

It's funny - I've never gone snowboarding or skiing a day in my life, and hate being cold. But I love, love, love, watching the snow fall.

Lunch was followed shortly with my dessert, something probably only appetizing-looking to me, but oh well!

Some seriously good oats. Everyone must put dried goji berries in their next batch of overnight oats. They get deliciously moist and...delicious. haha. Same as rehydrating them while your oatmeal boils. So good! I don't really care for them dry...

It was about this time that I decided I would not be driving back for my night class! The roads were much too sloppy already - and even if the commute in wasn't bad, I only knew the one home would be awful. I hate driving at  night in snow storms. It's like driving in a tunnel - and really exhausts your eyes! Not to mention the conditions in general.

This is a really nice professor, though - so hopefully he's relatively understanding. I feel bad because I hate looking like I'm copping out!

With this information, I could have ditched my plans for a quick, easy dinner since had I gone to class I'd be getting home quite late. But, I'd grown rather fond of my idea and decided to roll with it. It incorporated two new finds - one from my co-op trip the other day, and one from my Bob's Red Mill order I received today!

I knew the hot dogs would come in handy, and have pretty good nutritionals, and have been dying to try out nutritional yeast since reading Mae's blog.

So, I decided on Turkeys in a Blanket!

Okay, so this dun' look so hot.

It. was. so. good.

There's just something so great about comfort food made quasi-healthy, don't you agree?

What's the "blanket" you ask?

Oh, you know...just the Naan I made up the other day!

Crafty.

Turkey dogs all cozy in a Naan dough with sundried tomatoes and a cheesy ranch sauce?

And burnt broccoli?

Yes, please!

And, verdict on the turkey dogs? Oh my goodness. So quick, so convenient, and so good! They're really moist - I was kind of expecting...I duunno. Dry weirdness? haha. But really. They're quite good!

But that's about it from me!

What's your favorite "comfort food"? Whether you healthify it or not!

Also! Is everyone familiar with Tastespotting? It's a relatively addictive website, and where a lot of my ideas stem from - it's picture and one-liner based, so it's easy to grab an idea and run, rather than follow a recipe. And, if you're a recipe-follower, the recipe is provided via a blog link.
Well anyways! There's a new website similar - but just for desserts! It's called Dessertspotting, and Donalyn is looking for more participants, photos, recipes - be it a healthy recipe or not! Breakfasts, sweets, etc. I know even though I try to healthify many things, I view websites like these on a daily basis because it's not forcing a recipe on you before seeing a photo or one-liner description. You can pretty much take the flavors and idea and adapt it to your nutritional needs and desires! That and - I know tons of you dear readers have beautiful and delicious recipes that are certainly deserving of a feature. So go ahead, get on the boat and start submitting to this wonderful community!

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!

Beans, Beans, Beans...

Is everybody's Saturday turning out to be a good one? I hope so - I feel like mine was pretty productive!

Started out with a relatively simple bowl of pumpkin hot cereal:

I felt it was time to go back to basics again :)

Today incorporated pumpkin puree and a couple slices banana while cooking, and topped with some pumpkin chia-seed yogurt pudding for topping, as well as some toasted coconut, toasted walnuts, raisins, banana, wheat germ, raspberry preserves, and almond butter. 

Delicious no matter whether simple or complex!

The morning was then spent getting some groceries with mi madre and then I went into town to clean the office and finish my valentine's day shopping. We're not big Valentine's Day people obviously, but we usually tend to get each other random cutesy nick-nacks. I was back by noon (I love waking up early and getting the "grunt work" over with before it's even the afternoon!) and opted for a small snack incorporating this beautiful creation:

Ahmahgaw. Sooooo good. I received my Naturally Nutty order yesterday, but didn't try any then, and nor did I have it with my breakfast this morning - will power, I tell ya! But when I got home I needed a snack (I like eating lunch later) so opted for an orange and had just half a Joseph's Flax Pita left after last night's dinner. So I made a quick little PB&J panini! White Choco Coconut + Pomegranate-Cherry Jam + Soft Flax Pita + Panini Press = Heaven. This isn't Jess talking right now, it's her spirit. The end.

Have you tried any of the Naturally Nutty line? What's your favorite?

I also got two other flavors - but you'll have to wait and find out what they are :)

After getting some schoolwork done for an hour or two, I was ready for lunch.

After last night's Garlicky Butter Beans & Scallops with Bacon, I had a big spoonful or two left-over that I added to. Normally if there's such a small amount left I don't bother saving it (It's just a tease!) but I knew I'd be using more of the beans for a wrap for lunch today (whole can open!) and thought I could just add more beans and veggies to the already-deliciously flavored mixture. Worked great! I just heated last night's mixture up in a pan, added some more butter beans, dijon and garlic, and spooned that over a pita that had some romaine and red onion. Tri-Fold and Press!

Delish. Other snackins included this Luna Cookie:

It was on clearance for 90 cents at P-Chop. Couldn't resist.

The verdict? It's basically a brownie Clif Z-Bar but with peppermint icing! I definitely think it's the same recipe, haha. Which, since as you all know, isn't a bad thing because I love Z-Bars. But I was definitely expecting something more like a cookie! The peppermint icing made it not too chocolate-y though, which was my only issue with the Choco Brownie Z-Bar. I heart chocolate peppermint.

I have made so much progress organizing my recipes! I am finally getting things out of my over-crowded bookmarks online, and organizing and printing from Word. I feel like my web-based collection is too small now,though! Gotta start bookmarking again.

Dinner tonight was...you guessed it...more butter beans! I actually don't think I'd ever used butter beans much prior to last night, but they may very well be one of my new favorite beans. Of course, since I love all beans I don't know how valid that statement is. I opted for a Butter Bean Curry with Homemade Naan!

Okay, so my Naan is nowhere near as gorgeous as Jen's is, but I tried! I'd never made Naan before, and I was terrified after having a failed Roti attempt not too long ago. I wasn't sure how thin to roll them out, and I am pretty sure I went a bit too thin, but it actually came out really delicious! I'd type out the recipe, but I want you to go read it on this amazing blog instead! Jen has so many amazing recipes, and she's not lying when she calls it "Ridiculously Easy Naan." A few notes, however: I halved the recipe, used 1 c. bread flour and 1 c. whole wheat flour, used garlic salt with parsley in place of the salt, used half almond milk and half water, and used olive oil rather than canola. Mmmm!

The bean curry was helped along by the Good Housekeeping Coconut-Chile Curry Sauce that I've mentioned on here previously. I sauteed butter beans, carrot slices, red pepper, diced plum tomato, and onion in minced garlic, added 1 T. of the Curry sauce, and seasoned with ginger, curry powder, cumin, and pepper. When it was all done, I topped with some shredded coconut (key!!) and had a side of sugar snap peas, as well. The craving for them hit - I used to have them on a daily basis, ya know!

A simple, easy dinner...but definitely hit the spot. The curry was perfect scooped up by the Naan! You really must make it. If I can, I'm pretty sure anybody can. 

I'll leave you on this note:

I've got some Moguls and speed skating to watch!

Night everyone :)

What's your favorite Indian dish?