Best Freaky Friday ever!

Well hey there, hi there, ho there bloggie friends! Gosh, how I have missed you guys! It's 2:00 and I am finally sitting down for probably the first time today. I just thought to myself, Hey! What's that thing I do when I have spare time? Oh yeah! BLOG!! Which explains my lack of decent posting lately--no free time, lots of life getting in the way, but NO apologies :) After all, what's life without a little excitement, huh?

But what better day of the week to come back than Friday, and especially when we can finally make it a FREAKY FOOD Friday! My long lost buddy Janetha B. and I met up for a little blab n gab over lunch yesterday.

So fun! And guess what? She brought me the most amazing thing from her trip to Jamaica!

Betcha never saw this before! What could be more fun (and more freaky) than banana ketchup? Two of my loves united!!

The minute I saw this, I knew EXACTLY how I wanted to try it out. I thought it would be the perfect accompaniment to some baked yams--how delish. (The yams are paler than sweet potatoes, so it doesn't feel quite right to call them cheetas--perhaps leopards instead??)

Wow! This banana ketchup thing really needs to catch on in the U.S.! The ketchup was sweet, sticky and thick with a strong banana flavor and a bit of tang. I swear, with a little dip of this amazing condiment, my yam tasted just like a caramelly banana chip. Very tropical. I almost felt like I was in Jamaica for a sec...and then I remembered it was 30 degrees out side.

Just for fun, I'll show you guys what else I had with my phenomenal potato "chips"

Broiled broccoli, baby steak and massive amounts of caramelized onions--to go with my caramel banana chips, obviously :)

I will be catching up this weekend for sure, and I'm excited to see what everyone's been up to!

I'm off to some family adventures myself. The parentals are in SLC for sissy's birthday this weekend, so I'm sure there will be lots of yummy food, plus some more of this fantastic cake :)

Since I haven't heard from you guys in a long time, tell me: What's the freakiest food you've ever tried from an exotic locale? Maybe a trip to Mexico or Europe--or maybe just a trip to your grandma's house for dinner--do tell! Miss you and love you! xoxo

Bowl of Sunshine :)

Hi all! Thanks so much for all your Trader Joe's suggestions and obsessions--I can't WAIT to go! I've got to keep this quick as I'm about to head out for warm and sunny AZ, so I'll just let this bowl of breakfast bliss do all the talking ;)

A version of Susan's custard oats, using rice bran instead of oat bran. In my quest for more healthy fats as a part of fatbulous February, I had yet to conquer a WHOLE egg (as opposed to just the whites) and this was the perfect icebreaker.

I just added about 1/4 c. rice bran to 1/2 c. boiling water and whisked in a beaten egg--watch out cuz it cooks very quickly! I poured the hot mixture over 1/4 c. Fage 0% and 1/4 c. pumpkin. Topped with molasses, cinnamon swirl, banana and peanut butter.

Delicious, but not as custardy as I'd hoped--definitely would benefit from the added crunch of a little granola or Fiber One on top, too.

Well have a great week everyone--hopefully I will bring some warm weather and sunshine home with me--and some Trader Joe's goodies! xoxo

It's my birthday and I'll eat what I want to...

Starting with a giant bowl of my newest creation!

SMOATS (Spinach smoothie overnight oats)!! It may look disgusting as my husband so kindly pointed out, but it tastes delicious!

I simply blended together my favorite green goodness ingredients, in this case: blueberry pom yogurt, Greek yogurt, fresh blueberries, 3 handfuls of spinach and just a few drops of almond milk; making sure to add a little less liquid than normal so the overnight oats wouldn't turn out too sloppy. Then I dumped my extra thick smoothie into a bowl and stirred in 1/3 c. oats and cinnamon. In the morning, I added the requisite Fiber One, beautiful banana slices and a big fat blob of sunbutter. Magnifique!

Hey, it's my birthday and I'll use French adjectives if I want to, too! ;) I'm sure there shall be lots of other food adventures in store for today and the upcoming celebratory birthday weekend at home in Wyo with my parents--I can't wait!

Have a wonderful day today everyone! I know I will--birthdays are the best!!! xoxo

Super Duper NON-Meat-Filled

After that smokey, super-duper meat-filled post this weekend, this one will be a wee bit of a contrast! Here is my second go around of Meatless Monday, documented this time because I am smart(ass).

I have been looking forward to making this for a looooong time, ever since I saw it on Janetha's blog back in December! Of course I modified the recipe a little, like any good experimentarian. I almost used my leftover kelp noodles, but decided to keep the carbs up in this one :)

Sun dried Tomato and White Bean Pasta with Pesto

A while ago, Ronzoni sent me some of their pasta to try, and I have been hooked ever since. I know that some people find the taste of whole wheat pasta a little bitter, but I love the nuttiness and grainier texture.

This dinner came together super quickly. As the pasta was boiling, I sauteed up about 1/4 of an onion. I am cutting back. Um, just kidding. Then I added a few sliced mushrooms and some fresh spinach.

Janetha's original version had chicken in it, but since it was Meatless Monday, I went with some rinsed and drained white beans for protein instead.

Of course, I couldn't go without the sun dried tomatoes--they were totally the reason I was after this recipe in the first place!

I chopped about 5 or 6 of them, and then mixed them with the cooked pasta, sauteed veggies and the other star ingredients:

Delicious basil pesto and laughing cow. Yummy. It's basilicious. That's what it says on the package! Ha ha!

Rocks my socks. Anyhow, since Dustin is out of towners this week, I decided to take advantage of my alone time and do some healthified, also meat-free baking that I knew would be non-husband approved. BUT, definitely Emily-approved! And more importantly, April-invented!
I baked up a mini loaf of April's Low Carb Sweet Bread, with just a couple of modifications, using 3 egg whites in place of egg substitute, and halving all ingredients. I also subbed in 1/4 c. quick oats for some of the ground flax seed.

Sadly, my attempt turned out a little bitter--I should have added more stevia. April's original recipe calls for 2 tsp of pure stevia extract and I just threw in two packets of NuNaturals because it was all I had. However I remedied it in a hurry by creating what else? A cottage cheese concoction!

1/2 c. lowfat cottage cheese, suncrystals, powdered peanut butter and banana slices. Dang, should have made more than half a batch!

Oh jeez, I just realized I didn't really have one original idea in this whole post--just a copy cat! Oh well. That is one thing I love about blogging is gleaning new tips and tricks from all my friends and their fantastic minds! Luckily, I have the whole rest of the week to think up some crazy kitchen experiments with D gone. Truly, I miss him terribly, but it is really fun for me to come up with things to suit my taste alone. We'll see if any of them are decent enough to make it onto the blog :) What are your favorite ways to spend your alone time?

For me, reading, calling old friends to catch up, making up exercises and watching crappy TV top the list. I even got to catch Biggest Loser tonight, which D hates! I have such a girlie crush on Jillian! She is fabulous. And Bob has nice teeth. And I think the drama is hilarious. You can tell they totally play to the camera, big time! Ok, enough now. Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing evening. Happy Humpday tomorrow! xoxo

Random Monday

Well,l this just might be my most random post ever!

I have a lot of things to show you, but they're not really related in any particular way so.....

Now that October is over, I guess it's ok to begin appreciating the holiday season as opposed to the fall season.

Pee my pants tea find of the day:
I love this stuff. Maybe even more than the gingerbread chai. Maybe. Plus the box is pretty.

Oh Target, how I love you. Please jump inside my brain and come up with a more perfect yogurt flavor. Impossible.

Not only this, but I also picked up an eggnog and pumpkin pie flavor as well. It will be interesting to contrast that with the last pumpkin one I tried. Something tells me I will like this one better. I usually have pretty good luck with the Archer Farms products.

The bread pudding flavor didn't taste exactly like bread pudding, but it certainly tasted delicious. I immediately threw it in with some raisins, Kashi Heart to Heart and Quaker Maple Oatmeal Squares.
Almost as good as the real thing!

Inspired by my above pictured divine little lunch from Friday, on Saturday, I ventured out of my cottage cheese comfort zone and made another luscious mess for breakfast.

This one was decidedly unseasonally inspired--think more summer sunshine!

Look closely and you can see the crispy crunch-ness of my homemade pineapple chips! Pineapples were on sale a while ago at the Sunflower Market for 99 cents EACH! 99 cents! So I bought three of them and sliced ht em super thin to make these. Funny how three pineapples made a sandwich bag and a half full of chips :) Totally tropical with raisins, banana, honey almond butter drizzle, typical (cereal) trio and of course, some Fage down below. This was a winner! I know someone who'd agree!

I'm kind of curious about YOUR winners--I am SO stuck in a rut with my breakfasts and lunches lately. Bo-ring! Please share some of your favorites with me--I'd love to hear.

I know you guys are always the best source of inspiration for me, meals and otherwise :) Hope your Monday is off to a great start, and is slightly less random than these ramblings! have a great week! xoxo

Our House...

...in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our ...

Our house it has a crowd
Theres always something happening
And its usually quite loud
Our mum shes so house-proud
Nothing ever slows her down
And a mess is not allowed...

I love the 80's! You guys know this song?

Holy shamoly! I seriously have the most amazing friends and family! Our housewarming party was so much fun yesterday! It was quite busy trying to put everything together and get all cleaned up, but it was excellent motivation at the same time. I kept looking around thinking, "Dang, my house looks SO nice!" I'm a big fan of a place for everything and everything in it's place, but that so rarely happens in real life--it was nice to have all my shizz in order for at least a couple of hours :)

I made lots of food, and people brought yummy stuff, too. I didn't get the chance to take any pictures though, because I didn't have much of a chance to eat, either. My mouth was too busy jabbering to slow down for any food consumption! Here are some pics of my party people. We invited everyone to come check out the house and help us with our apple harvest. Obviously, I needed some sort of disclaimer about the organic quality of my apples,so I consulted with my legal team to manufacture this highly sophisticated document: I love babies! And you know who else I love?? Janetha B!!!! My faveee local blogger stopped by like a little sweetie to say hello. She is so damn cute and nice. I am really lucky to have had the chance to meet her through our blogs. Holla! It was an awesome day, and I feel truly blessed to have so many people come support us and chill at our casa. Y'all are welcome any time!

You know, not only do I have the best of friends, but I've also been having the best of breakfasts lately. They are not anything too original, but definitely so good that I had to stop and document.

Waffle Sammie: I always forget Waffle Wednesday and get all pissed at myself for missing a fab breakfast op, so Saturday my little rebel streak came out and I decided to have Sammie Saturday instead. Nature's Path Organic Fig and Flax waffles with almoooooond butter and blueberry preserves....oh, so good.

In case you thought I was slacking in the cottage cheese department, don't worry because today I mixed up another concoction. PB &J oats--I adore you!

• 1/3 c. oats, prepared with SunCrystals and cinnamon
• 1/2 c. whipped cottage cheese
• 1 tbs. strawberry preserves
  
• 1 HUGE sliced strawberry (it was like a mutant!)
  
• banana slices
• 1 tbs PEANUT BUTTER

This looked so pretty and tasted even better! Highly recommended! What else? Great friends, super-duper breakfasts, and AWESOME blog readers!! You guys are too cool and nice to me! Thank you so much for all the compliments on my hair! I'm really nervous about it being so dark. But thankfully everyone recognized me yesterday and I didn't make any babies scream when they saw me ( as witnessed above), so yes, it's really nice to get back to my "roots" in a way. :)

Hope you guys all had a wonderful weekend, too. Any best breakfasts lately? Love you! xoxo

Buttery Breakfast

Fall means lots of things: changing leaves, cooler temps, cinnamon spice candles and warm woolly sweaters. But for a lot of us, fall also means the arrival of our most favorite produce.
I have seen a lot of pumpkin oats, and also some pleasantly festive sweet potato oats around the foodie blogs recently, and a while ago, I real Miss KERF concocting a very experimentarian-esque bowl of veggie oats herself. How autumnal.

Well, due to a rather unfortunate experimentation of my own during my first attempt at butternut squash fries, I was left with some slightly mushy, somehow steamed, but very thoroughly cooked butternut bits the other evening. I'd been brainstorming ideas to use them up since they didn't really taste bad, just not crispy and meaty like a good oven-baked fry should be.

After seeing Kailey's Christmas in a bowl version of sweet potato oats, I knew what I had to do!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cupp-ish butternut squash cube-lets
• 1/3 c. oats
• 1/2 c whipped cottage cheese
• Cinnamon
• banana slices
• PEANUT BUTTER
  

Extremely complicated directions....Must not be deviated from in ANY way.

Prepare oats as usual. For me, this means add much less boiling water than called for ( I like them kind of chewy--but this is changing for better mixability) and let them sit while I make tea and stumble around the kitchen trying to wake the hell up.

While bobbing around trying not to injure oneself or break anything at such an ungodly hour, pop leftover squash in the micro for about 30 seconds. Be alarmed when it beeps (WHAT?? Is that my alarm clock??? @#$%! I thought I was already awake!!!)

Mash squash cubies with the back of your oatmeal stirring spoon and mix into cooked oats. I added my whipped cottage cheese dream here, but if you're not obsessed, you could probably leave it out.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and top with banana and peanut butter (which is the only reason you got up in the first place).

I didn't really know what to expect, but honestly, this was the BEST bowl of oats I've had in a while! It was very smooth and creamy, and I didn't think it was vegetable-y tasting at all. Just sweet and gooey and comforting. I was almost like the squash absorbed all the peanut butter taste, so the bowl just tasted very buttery indeed. Yum. I bet this would be great with a drizzle of maple syryp, too! Plus I always get a kick out of starting the day with a serving of veggies.


Hope your day got kicked off on the right foot, too. Hopefully with an extra yummy and warm breakfast. Tell me--what did YOU eat this morning? Have a great Wednesday! xoxo

2nd Grade

I don't ever post a series of eats, but today I just had to share my meals. Evidently, I'm still in the 2nd grade.

Here's what I had for lunch:

Peanut butter and banana sammie

Carrots and celery sticks

Fruit and yogurt

And for snackies...
crackers and string cheese for pete's sake

Dang I pack a lot of food!

For dinner, we had a classic! Now, understand, that growing up in my house, we DID NOT eat casseroles. Neither of my parents like them and they both like to blame it on the other one. Actually, I think my mom just doesn't like to make them, it's my dad who actually doesn't like to eat them. We never ate a lot of packaged foods, so I'd never eaten mac n cheese out of a box until I went to college. I'd also never eaten ramen noodles, pop tarts, lunchables or Taco Bell, either, and I probably haven't eaten those items since :) So, needless to say, stuff like this wasn't really on the menu.

Presenting ghetto tuna casserole. Made with

superstar!

I added some peeeeas, and a can of tuna,too. I had to laugh when I dumped out the powdered cheese packet.

Can you guys see how BRIGHT orange this is? Ha Ha! Definitely not a natural color. Oh well. Obviously, I did not make this according to the package directions (what? directions?). I just added a little bit of skim milk and a spinkl-y of Parmesan cheese before mixing it all together.

Topped off with some diced tomato and red pepper flakes. You can see the broccoli poking through--I ate this on top of my leftover roasted broccoli from the other night. Yum.

And to finish off my decidedly elementary evening, I made a delicious artificial and chemically laden bowl of rockstar pudding. Yes rockstar. That's what it's called when you add the world's best toppings: sliced banana and sprinkles. You can never have too many sprinkles. :)

For all my childish eating, I don't feel too bad about today. I managed to make everything pretty healthy, even if it was a little more processed than usual. How about you guys? Any grade-school favorites that you still like to indulge in, or any you make healthier now? I talked about my fluffernutters a while ago, and now this. I think I have childhood on the brain! Excuse me, I need to go find some more sprinkles....

More Baking (with Bananas, Baby!)

Jeez louise, I have been doing a lot of baking lately! Just call me Martha, but in addition to making a sweet little treat for my realtor, I wanted to make something for my new neighbors as well. I figured it's my own little preemptive ice breaker, like, "Don't hate me and steal my garbage cans, I brought baked goods!" type of thing. :) So...I concocted another lovely little recipe with some unfortunately/fortunately gone-by bananas.
Brown Sugar Banana Mini Muffins with Dark Chocolate Chips

• 1 c. flour


• 3/4 tsp. baking powder


• 1/4 tsp. baking soda


• 2 generous dashes cinnamon


• 1 tsp. vanilla
  


• 1 egg


• 1 large over ripe banana


• 1/3 c. brown sugar


• 1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce


• 1/4 c. dark chocolate chips

Mash banana with a fork. Add egg, vanilla, sugar and applesauce. Mix in dry ingredients until just moistened and then stir in chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-minutes. Makes about 24 mini muffins.

Check out this little bit of banana caramel goodness... Mmm...chocolaty.
You'll notice that I've been posting a lot of my baking recipes on Foodista as well. This is a great site dedicated to recipe sharing. It has some cool resources and awesome blogging tools like these recipe widgets. I definitely recommend you check them out!