A busy day of recipes -- Buffalo Wing-style Hummus

Today was very busy, but part of that (ahem! all of it) was my fault.  I had plenty on the to-do list, but I also got sucked into Pinterest during my meal planning and ended up finding multiple recipes that I wanted to try today.  (Did I mention that I'm still working on learning the virtue of patience?)  Thankfully, all my hard work was rewarded when all four new recipes that I tried today actually turned out...even when I modified them a bit.  (Honey is always telling me I should think about trying recipes the way they are written first, but that just seems a tad boring.)  Even more impressive, two were vegan recipes and they actually weren't horrible.  (Side note: I have learned to make many special diet dishes for extended family and friends, but that doesn't mean that I always like it.  And I still have no idea how someone could be a vegan, but that's my own issue...and you'll probably see, eventually, that I have plenty of food issues.)  So, what were these recipes?

1. Green Monster Spinach Smoothie -- my new favorite way to eat spinach, courtesy of Iowa Girl Eats
2. Coconut vegan cookies -- a bit cakey (because they're vegan), but full of flavor and low in fat from FatFree Vegan Kitchen.
3. Skinny figgy bars -- I thought they tasted like fig newtons, Honey thought they tasted like a fig crisp, but we both liked the results, so it's another winner from FatFree Vegan Kitchen.

I also made a hummus dip, a modification of Badger Girl Learns to Cook's Buffalo Wing Hummus.  The picture I took of the results will also serve as my photo challenge picture for the day, because while it is not a picture of "someone I love," it is a picture of what I do to make my Honey happy, which is almost the same thing. (Right?)

You can find the original recipe at the link (above), but I'll post what I did here.  It was a big hit in this house and I'm sure I'll be making a lot of this to go with our afternoon celery stick snack.

Buffalo Wing-Style Hummus

• 1 can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas) -- do not drain!
• 2 Tbsp crunchy peanut butter
• 1/2 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1/4 c. lemon juice (I used Real Lemon)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 Tbsp BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's original because it's the best -- trust me)
• 2 Tbsp buffalo wing sauce (with a vinegar base)
• 2 Tbsp Sirracha
• 1/2 tsp. celery seed powder 
• Salt, to taste (you could also just use celery salt instead of two separate ingredients)

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.

It is so good!  A bit tangy and spicy with a good texture and a perfect compliment to celery or carrot sticks.

This recipe made about a pint.

Menu Monday #2

I must admit that last week I was skeptical when I posted a dinner menu for the week.  Plan all the dinners for a whole week?  Who does that?!  ("Plenty of people. They're a more organized than you." Thanks, Guilt Monster. You may leave now. I'm perfectly capable of guilting myself.)  The idea was challenging, at least for me.  I love to cook and feed my family and those around me -- good food shows love, right? -- but the thought of planning more than 24 hours in advance was not something I wanted to contemplate.  It brought to mind the women from my youth and the times we spent doing the once-a-month cooking for families of 10 or 11.  Let me tell you, when you're trying to cook and freeze enough food for a family that size and do it all at once, it takes at least two full days and a million little helper hands.  Not my fondest childhood memories.  I did not want to turn into that.  Moreover, Honey doesn't really like talking about food that far in advance, so it means if I want to plan meals I am on my own.  Could I be trusted to plan a week-long menu of food that was yummy, simple, and pleasing to all members of the family?  Last week was the first test and I believe it was successful!  The menu changed just slightly from what I posted last week, but that's to be expected.  Here's what we ate:

Sunday (1/01) -- Crock pot French onion soup + salad
Monday -- squash gratin + salad
Tuesday -- Baked potato soup (using previously cooked red potatoes & the leftover French onion soup) + salad
Wednesday -- Chicken burgers
Thursday -- Curried squash soup + salad
Friday -- curried squash soup, spinach sabzi, crock pot butter chicken, dahl, cilantro-lime rice, naan, and Nutella cheesecake (My brother, Thin Man, came over for dinner and brought a friend who is visiting from out of state, hence the elaborate meal.)
Saturday -- Crock pot chicken and dumplings

There are at least two things you might notice: we only eat meat (or poultry) a few times a week and I love my crock pot.  (If you love yours, you might want to check out the blog 365 Days of Slow Cooking, something I found this weekend and am anxious to try.)

Menu, January 8-14
Sunday -- crock pot chipotle black bean soup + salad
Monday -- black beans and rice + salad
Tuesday -- Taco salad
Wednesday -- Tortilla soup + salad
Thursday -- Jambalaya + salad
Friday -- Fresh pasta with chicken jalepeno cheddar "casserole" (we just bought a pasta machine -- finally!) + salad
Saturday -- Curried chickpea and quinoa tacos

As you can probably tell from both menus, we eat a lot of salad.  Our salads are mainly spinach with bell peppers and mushrooms -- easy to throw together to compliment whatever the main meal is supposed to be.  We buy large bags of spinach at Costco because that seems to be the best deal -- under $5 for 2.5 pounds of spinach (which is a LOT), and we eat about that much every week.

So that's the main menu.  But what are we going to try for snacks?  Honey eats a lot of celery, so I recently bought some jalepeno Greek yogurt dip from Costco to go with the celery (delicious, low in fat and calories, high in protein), but then I saw this recipe for Buffalo Wing Hummus.  Yep. Definitely trying that this week! And for me I want to try the Green Monster Spinach Smoothie.  (As if we didn't already eat enough spinach! Just call me Popeye.)

Anyone have good suggestions for next week's menu?

Photo Challenge Day 6-7-8: A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I think that I have a love-hate relationship with this photo challenge.  I want to learn how to really use this fancy camera, but trying to prioritize the lessons and tasks is a bit difficult.  My problem is that I always bite off more than I can chew.  Always. I've been trying to work on this recently (as in, since the beginning of last year, when Honey pointed out I was in a vicious circle -- I planned to-do lists that were way too long and then would get upset with myself for not being able to finish everything on the list).  I've also been trying to add more tasks and scheduling to my day.  Don't ask me how these things are all supposed to work together because I don't know yet -- it's just been one week.  What I do know is that I haven't always made it to the day's photo lesson and challenge, which is why I am merging three days into one.

The photo lessons were about aperture (again), depth of field (i.e., what's in focus) and "the exposure triangle" (a bit too much math is involved in this for my little non-math-y brain), and the photo challenge for the three days was a picture of fruit, something from a low angle, and a bad habit.  So, how can I merge these concepts?

A bad habit...from a low angle

My top shelf of the food "pantry" (also known as the place in the laundry room where we store food above the wine) always contains these wonderful crackers.  Oh fishy crackers, how I love you!  Of course they are not really a good habit, especially when one is trying to lose a bit of weight.  Thankfully, Costco now carries fishy crackers with individual serving packets, so Honey and I can split one, I get my salty, cheesy goodness fix, and I don't feel too guilty.

A low angle, f/20 (high f-stop)

 All the leaves are visible and there is great detail -- so I've figured out that "more 'f' means more focus." Good to know.

A low angle, f/4

 Soon it will be spring and I will probably spend many evenings outside taking pictures of flowers, blurring the background so that no one can see the rest of the messy yard.

Fruit...from a low angle

Fruit...higher f-stop (more in focus)

Fruit, lower f-stop

This month I learned a new word, bokeh, which basically means that one thing is in focus and the rest of the picture is a bit blurry.  I like the results.  I have no idea how to pronounce the word.


I am not the only one having fun with the camera.  Honey recently discovered that he can take the tripod from his cheap telescope and use it with the camera, which allows him to take pictures at night.  This was a bit of last night's sunset.

An unofficial photography lesson

Today was a good day, a busy day, and a day in which I did not get to the next photography lesson.  In the grand scheme of things I suppose that doesn't matter. Perhaps.

Normally the first Friday of the month would be First Friday Family Dinner.  It's a tradition that I've held at my house for a while.  All the family and very close friends -- adopted family -- are invited over and I make enough food to feed an army.  It's a tradition that I enjoyed, since feeding people is a way that I demonstrate love, but something that's become more of a chore the more I realize how many @$$----s are in my family.  Around the holidays I decided I didn't want to support bringing so much needless crazy into my life (especially because, truth be told, I really resent it when people start to expect me to do certain things for them and then try to take advantage of that).  I canceled Family Dinner this month...and perhaps for the rest of the year.  My own mental health may need it.

My brother, Thin Man, has a friend visiting this week.  It's an old Marine Corps buddy.  Now that they are out of the Corps, they are both in college, moving toward whatever their next steps may be.  This buddy is actually a very distant relative (surprise!), and so, in a way, we are having First Friday Family Dinner, just with family I enjoy more than some of the crazies.  After having a really nice dinner, I am seriously considering revamping Family Dinner to just be people I enjoy.  (For example, we have some dear friends who have four children -- their family is lovely and we thoroughly enjoy having them over more than once a month. We can still have Family Dinner with them.)

Since Thin Man's friend (and relation) is here visiting for the weekend, I thought I would take a picture of the boys and their after dinner cigars & whiskey (or bourbon or scotch, depending on preference).  That is when I learned something new with the camera.

The guys were all outside, of course.  Not wanting to use my brain to think of the best camera setting, I put it on fully automatic, night portrait.  This is what I got.

Not good!

So I put the camera into TV mode (shutter priority) and set the shutter to 1/40, with flash.  Here's the result:

Still far from the greatest night portrait in the world (you don't have to tell me -- I know), but so much better!  So that confirms that manual modes are better and allow for more flexibility and creativity.  Now I just need to figure out how to use it properly.

Photo Challenge Day 5 -- Something green, from a high angle

Having missed the photo challenge yesterday, I decided to combine the two days.  It was such lovely weather for photos, too -- the air felt more like early spring than January.  Did we skip winter again?  (I hope not!) The clouds today were much better than on day three of the photo challenge ("Take a picture of clouds").  In fact, as I was driving out to the country and back I wished I brought my camera ("Lesson one: always take the photo" -- remembering to bring the camera helps here).  The day was stormy and sunny and a bit rainbow-y.

The photo lesson for yesterday was about ISO, something on a camera that has to do with light and speed, and today's lesson was on aperture.  I am still learning but at least things are starting to make sense.  I always wanted to be able to focus on something like a flower and have the background blur -- now I can do that!

Lesson 4, Picture 1 -- ISO 800, shutter speed 1/60 (I think).

Lesson 4, Picture 2 -- ISO 400, shutter speed 1/10 (I think)

I am going to have to learn a bit more about ISO to see the point and understand how to use it.  The lesson on aperture was much easier -- the higher the number (also called f-stop, which can be written as f/5 or f/20 or whatever number you're using), the smaller the aperture and the larger the depth of field (i.e., more things are in focus).

Picture 1 -- f/5 -- see how only the flower is really in focus?  I always wanted to know how to do that!

Picture 2 -- f/10, more of the leaves are in focus, or at least heading in that direction.

Picture 3 -- f/20, still more is in focus and you can see that this is still winter and there are dead leaves everywhere.

Picture 4 -- f/29, aka "Ack, my yard's a mess!"

I think I will like using this feature!  Perhaps it's good that the weather is already getting better. Come on, spring!