Formatting Fun

Anyone who hasn’t thrown and put away 400 bales of hay in 90 degree humidity (outside – add about 20 up in the hay loft) hasn’t lived yet.

Okay – maybe that’s a lie and you’re probably perfectly content not participating in this rather cruel and unusual punishment for loving your horse. I mean, in order to play the game right, you must:

• be clad in hot, sticky jeans, boots, and t-shirt, and possibly gloves if you don’t want to callus your dainty hands
• be willing to stack and/or throw 50 lbs one after another
• realize you’ll have sweat dripping down your face, into your eyeballs, and not be able to do anything about it because the next bale is waiting for you already
• realize there are no breaks, except for maybe five minutes in between carts
• realize you will be breathing in hay particles via your nose and mouth
• realize you may get stung by bees
• realize it’s highly likely that the hay will come in the most unpleasant of weather
• realize you’ll probably have a killer headache for the rest of the day after having so much dust and hay up your nose so that it feels like there’s hay in your brain
• feel really accomplished when you’re all done.

That said, a good breakfast was necessary.

I knew I wanted to help A with hay today, and since it was to arrive at 8:00 (hah! what a joke that was) I knew I should probably make a quicker breakfast than waffles, since I also knew I’d rather sleep in a little bit after heading to bed late. Of course, by the time I’d made banana soft serve to “top” my oats, I’d probably spent just as much time anyways. Sometimes I like to take the long way around things.

I’ve seen tons of bloggers mixing overnight oats and banana soft serve, and now I know why. The mix of textures is perfect, and banana soft serve is pretty fantastic, itself! For the overnight oats portion, I mixed:

• 1/3 c. quick oats
• 1 T. Ruth’s Chia Goodness (cranberry)
• trail power
• 1/2 c. coconut water (so good in overnighters!)

En la manana, I mixed in some more coconut water and vanilla chobani…before “topping” (err – sharing the bowl) with:

• banana soft serve (I can never get it to blend with just bananas – so I added in more vanilla chobs and some OV vanilla yogurt)
• wheat germ
• cashews
• coconut
• goji granola
• pb sauce (peanut buttah and OV yogs)

and zennn….I was off! I grabbed an Apricot Clif Bar for snackage. I’m not usually a fan of Clif bars since they are so sweet, and of course the whole soy protein thing – but knew it was a better choice for today than, say, my beloved Larabar.

This actually wasn’t super sweet, luckily – but it didn’t much taste like apricot, either. It’s my last one in my “stash,” though – and probably won’t buy any more 😛 I had most of it (A had a piece) in between hay wagons.

Of course, the hay guys didn’t even show up until 9:10 – and hour + late. While we were waiting we cleaned out some lanes that had old hay in them – and I was already hating wearing jeans.

That sounds funny. I wouldn’t have preferred to be nekkid, for those wondering what I meant – but breeches are much easier to work in! Not good for hay though. And don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining about putting hay away. I enjoy it in a weird way (it’s a great workout!) and offered my help – but it would have been much nicer if it had been delivered on time, when it was much cooler! We’ve been having insane heat and humidity lately, but luckily, it’s supposed to end tomorrow!

I was drenched with sweat afterwards, and there was no way I was up for riding Teddie, unfortunately. Oh,w ell – I’m sure he wasn’t complaining! I immediately jumped in the shower when I got home, and even though it was only 11:20, I was thinking of so many things I wanted for lunch.

Of course, I also wanted to spend next to no time making it. Waffles and eggs? too much time! Tempeh and PB. too much time to fry the tempeh. Portabella burger. too long. I can’t even remember all of the millions of things I was thinking! But one of them was broccoli-bean pie, and I was so grateful for leftovers at that moment in time! I left a little bit left for my mom for lunch tomorrow (though she might forget and it’ll be my lunch!) and homemade bread, which became this:

And half a random banana. And coconut water. And a SuperCharge Me cookie.

And just to give you an example of how gross I was, I needed more almond milk but didn’t go to the store on my way home. Usually I have no shame and go horsey all the time – but hay-y is a whole ‘nother level of gross. Anyways. I went raspberry picking, too! I just pick the best days for outdoor activities.

Note the sarcasm.

Which resulted in a bowl of vanilla chobs, rasperries (x5) and a random half-piece of bread with peach-ginger jam.

Dude, why are there so many random “halves” of food in my house?

And then I passed out. Actually, I tried to pass out, but I think I  only “slept” for ten minutes or so. I was exhausted (did I mention I went to bed late?) and had such a headache.

Unfortunately, horses don’t go on vacation, and I knew I’d have to face the heat again to clean out “the girls”. Before braving it, much of this happened:

Look at my mom’s b-Day card I got her for tomorrow, it’s super cute! I love card shopping.

Unfortunately, you won’t get the true feel for it, but when you open it, it speaks and says “ohhhh no you di-iiinnt!”

Okay, okay – so maybe not my best card selection ever, but I thought it’s cute. It’s all about the shock factor.

After melting some more, I came in to make exactly what I wanted to go raspberry picking for in the first place:

Raspberry-Fig Sauce! For these, naturally;

This time I made it alittle different by adding silken tofu. And since I can’t find my last post I made this in, here we go:

Raspberry-Fig Dressing

• 1 c. raspberries
• 1/3 c. water
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 3 T. balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 3 medium figs, chopped
• 1/2 t. basil (dried – but fresh would be better. just double the am’t)
• pinch of cinnamon
• 1/4 c. silken tofu
• 2 t. date sugar
• drizzle sesame oil dressing (opt)

Over medium-low heat in a medium sized sauce pan, simmer everything except for the tofu, oil and sugar. Mash up the raspberries a bit, but then just leave it alone until it thickens a bit. Add in the date sugar. You might need to add a splash more water if it gets too thick. Shut off heat and allow to sit and cool for a couple of minutes.

In a blender, add in the silken tofu and then the slightly cooled raspberry mixture. Blend until smooth.

Using a strainer, pour the blended mixture into a container. It will be thick so it won’t pour through on its’ own, so just stir it around with a spoon. This takes care of all of those pesky raspberry seeds! There will be lots 😉

Once strained, discard of leftover seeds, and add in a little bit of sesame oil dressing (sesame oil/olive oil/balsamic vinegar is what mine is) and then thin with water and a splash more balsamic. It’s perfectly fine to leave it thicker, of course, but for me I preferred it thinned a bit.

Initially I wanted to roast the cubed sweet potatoes in the sauce – but then went a different route and decided to just shake them with the sesame oil and then roast them, and just have the sauce as dressing.

This mixing bowl salad was so refreshing! Hidden in there:

• head of hydroponic Boston Lettuce
• sweet potato
• black beans
• roasted broc
• grilled portabella cap
• raspberry-fig sauce
• toasted bread (a little too much so!)
• sesame seeds

the only thing it was missing was some good, fresh, local goat cheese! Sad life.

_____________________________________

Don’t Forget to Format!

I’m gonna have a fun little camera blurp now!

I can’t tell you all how many times I’ve come across a blogger saying “I had a picture of it, but my camera ate it.”

Have you had that happen, yourself? More likely than not, it’s probably because you haven’t formatted your memory card lately. It’s sort of one of those minor yet oh-so-important details. Often, people simply erase them as they go along – hit delete, delete all, or even delete them through your computer.

This can get veddy, veddy bad.

If you fail to format your memory card every so often, the “language” in which the camera communicates with the card becomes a bit foggy. You may think you’re taking a picture, but it’s not writing it to the card. Sure – some people may never format their memory card in their life, and never have any problem. Good for you! I am glad. Just know that when you actually take really, really important pictures – say, a once in a lifetime trip – is when it will happen. So get in the habit now! It’s easy. For most cameras, simply:

• hit menu
• select “format memory card”
• select “yes”

on menu, it may be under the “playback menu”. Just do a little hunting, and you’ll find it – but it’s not hidden. Yes, this will erase all of the photos on your card.If you’re that person walking around with pictures from two Christmases ago still on your camera, I suggest you burn them all to a CD now and format your card. I do this after each and every time I upload. Being foodbloggers – we “dump” our camera’s cards often, and I’m probably a little too format-happy as it doesn’t need to be done every week, even. But just don’t forget to do it! Especially before big, important events and after lots of use.

What else should you be careful about? For a happy memory card:

• never “swap” cards with someone – don’t use your card in your camera, hand it to someone else to use in their camera, and then use it again in yours. You’re asking for trouble.
• Be careful of static electricity – you’re quite likely to have something erased should you, say, slide down a slide with your coat in your wool jacket’s pocket when the air is very dry/staticy.
• use multiple – mostly relevant if you’re on a long trip, not a day-to-day basis – but I much prefer shooting cards until they’re, say, half full – and then starting with another one. This way, if you run into a problem, you’ll potentially lose less data than had you shot with the card until it was full.
• format your new memory cards the second you put it into your camera – this makes sure the card and camera are communicating clearly
• switch off your camera before removing the card – this is to avoid “voltage shock”

I don’t want any of you to go running into your local camera shop frantically because you lost all of your photos of your trip to Alaska, your child graduating preschool, or a zebra running down the street with a party hat. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen before. (Not the zebra scenario – the people running in frantically to their local camera shop. Those people are hard to calm down, tell you what.)

So format your card!