two feet of white

It just stopped snowing a few hours ago, but went on for a good 40+hrs straight.  I am behind a day with my posts, so this might get a little long.  Lots of photos though!!

The snowfall as of Wednesday morning…

Wednesday’s breakfast was one of my favorite bowls of oats ever!  It was so good that I made it today as well, except I subbed out the almond butter for pnut butter and enjoyed it even more =)

• 1/3c. oats
• 1/3c. water + 1/3c. vanilla rice milk
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2T honey
• 1/4tsp cinnamon
• 1T Artisana Almond Butter [sample jar]
• 1tsp Artisana Cacao Bliss [sample jar]
• handful of Barbara’s vanilla almond shredded oats [super crunchy!! SO SO good]

Wed. I had it with a side of some impressively smooth instant coffee, that Natalie bought.  It even had a little froth action.  Today, I had it with some ginger peach tea.  I am more a coffee lover for sure!

[wednesday]

LOVE that clear mug!

[Thursday bowl of oats with pnut butter]

We were out of spoons, so I used a Light My Fire Spoon/Fork.  It’s not a spork, but it has a spoon on 1 end and fork/knife combo at the other end.  They are EXtremely lightweight and perfect for camping.  They are really cheap and make perfect stocking stuffers for your outdoorsy friends/family ;) They come in ALL different colors.

The corn chowder I ate at Laura’s the other day was SO good, I just had to make it.  You can find the recipe here!  I also boiled 2 organic, bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts in a pot of water.  The chicken thickened it up quite a bit, so in addition to the milk that the recipe called for, I ended up adding a good 1c. vegetable stock to the soup as well.  It was super tasty and quite filling!  Topped with a sprinkle of some charred [oops!] applewood smoked bacon, and a piece of toast with my favorite salt/garlic/parsley seasoning mix.

Thuuuursday:

Well, here was the change in snowfall in 24hrs [compare w/the 1st photo!!]

Oats in the snow filled window..

I was itching for some exercise, since we stayed in yesterday…There was SO much snow, I couldn’t go running.  Time to lace up the snowboard boots and go for a hike!  The 4 of us went out with our gear on and boards on our backs, to see if we could build a little jump to play on.     

We hiked for a good mile+, mostly through knee deep snow [except for a little street walking].  It was exhausting!! Especially when we hiked up 3 tiered hills to get to where we were going to build the jump.  It was literally THIS white outside…the sky + ground were totally white.

Natalie + Westminster in the background…

Me hiking up…and up!  We did build the jump, but this hill was much steeper than it looks..and there were rocks around..so I may have chickened out a bit on my way down, hehe. Oh well, still burnt lots of cals with the hike and shoveling snow into a big heap!

My car!

Chris requested something with potatoes for dinner.  I searched and thought a bit and settled on making Irish Boxty’s.  I never had or made one before.  It is traditionally a very thin potato pancake, filled with different things…meat/veggies/stew/etc.

I got the recipe for the Boxty’s and followed it almost exactly.  I doubled it and it made about 16, 3” cakes.  It calls for 1/4c. olive oil in the pan, but you just need a little for each batch you put in the pan.  Also, it says medium-high heat, but I kept mine between 4-5 [out of 10] the whole time.  They were perfect.  I made the tater pancakes about 1/4” thick.  The rest I made up…it was almost like an upside down shepherd's pie.  

Ashley’s Irish Boxty topping:

1. 1 bunch kale, washed and chopped
2. 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
3. 1/2 bag thawed corn
4. extra virgin olive oil
5. 3 garlic cloves, chopped
6. 1/2 onion, chopped
7. 1/2lb. ground pork sausage
8. 1/2lb. ground buffalo [can sub in whatever]
9. 3-4T flour
10. appx. 1c. veggie stock

How to:

1. Set oven to 375* and spread carrots/onion/garlic on a pan with appx. 2T olive oil and a little salt + pepper.
2. Roast for about 25min, tossing every 10min or so.
3. While roasting, cook meat in a skillet and drain the grease when completely cooked.  Set meat aside, in a bowl.  It will need to go back in the pan later.
4. Add chopped kale + thawed corn to the pan and continue to roast for another 10-15min.  You will probably need to add another 1T olive oil and a little garlic powder/salt/pepper.
5. When done, turn oven off but leave the pan in the oven to keep veggies warm.
6. If you’re making the potato pancakes, you would start to plop them in your pan now. 
7. At the same time put the meat back in the pan on med-low heat.  To make the gravy add in 3T-4T flour.  Add 1/2c. veggie stock [low sodium] stir, and let simmer.  If it’s too thick, add more stock.  If too thin add a little more flour.  It should thicken up pretty nicely and create the perfect gravy to top the pancakes.
8. Assemble –> tater pancakes –> meat –> veggies –> splash of cheese

This was SO so so good.  I loaded up on the veggies, ate 2 of the tater cakes, and ate about 1/2c. of the cooked meat + gravy.  As I was cooking everything I was thinking it might be a little dry…but didn’t know what type of sauce to make.  I quickly just thought to add the veggie stock + flour and it worked perfectly.

It was definitely not a low cal meal…but you didn’t need to eat a ton to fill up, so I don’t think it was too bad ;)  The dogs played outside today for awhile.  They were SO hilarious.  Kenna kept plowing through and burying herself. 

Chris with the dogs =)

Night all!

Look for another post tomorrow mid-day with some food samples I received recently!

~Ashley