i fail.

holler! i am in california enjoying some time with my MOM, my sister and her husband and my three cute nieces.

so guess what? HUGE fail on my part. i forgot my camera. umm.. ok, janetha, you are going to a FOOD BLOGGER FESTIVAL and you forget your camera? you are crazy!  granted, it was 5 in the morning when i left and i was working off less than four hours of sleep.. but COME ON.

lucky for me.. my mom brought along a point & shoot camera AND an SLR camera!! yeeeeeah. so she is a big lifesaver and is letting me borrow her point & shoot :) thanks mom!

so i hope you all enjoyed miss averie’s guest post! she is the bomb dot com and you should all check out her blog. now.

i don’t have a lot of time for posting but i wanted to give you a briefing of my first day here in cali because there were some yumtastic meals.. and not a lot of moves.. ha. vacation mode ;)

i had some starbucks oatmeal on the airplane.. eh, oats are no bueno without protein powder i decided. but i did stir in some justin’s maple almond butter.

i also had an americano on the shuttle to the BART..good thing i had it in an approved beverage container!!

oh, funny story. our flight came in early so we decided to save my sister a trip to the airport and ride the BART (bay area rapid transit) to her house. welllll you see, we ended up getting on the wrong line, since we weren’t paying attention, missed our transfer stop.. long story short we ended up in dublin TWO HOURS after our flight landed. umm.. that is longer than the flight from SLC to oakland! ha. glad we made it finally.

before we did anything.. we went straight to trader joe’s.. did not pass go, did not collect $200, but we did collect a lot of good groceries!

daaaang girl look at all that hummus! heaven in the refrigerated section.

i loved the fact that i got to stock up on perishables which i usually never get to do since i can’t take all that on the plane home.

here is the haul!!

wheat & flax crackers, honey crunch cereal, gorgonzola crackers (my new addiction!), UVAB, beefless strips (thanks to anne), greek yogurt (plain & pom), raw almond butter, sprouts, 3 layer hummus

baby spinach, mushrooms, chicken, broccoli & cauliflower, hummus quartet, cinnamon swirl bread, coffee, whole wheat pitas, avocado, turkey bacon, chicken sausage, some gnar peppers my sister picked up

and my mom got advent calendars for the grandkids, dark chocolate sea salt & turbanido sugar almonds, abc crackers, dried blueberries & lunas

yes!

got right to work and made everyone lunch with the whole wheat pitas, two types of hummus, spinach, sprouts, mushrooms, avocado and chicken. glorious! susan, you would be proud. although my pita wrapping skills are sub par and they were a bit crumbly!

we shopped the day away and had some fun hang time and eventually i started making dinner.  well, i had 3 little helpers!

 

 

i made rachael ray’s sloppy buffalo joes which had copious amounts of frank’s red hot and served as a vehicle for mounds of blue cheese. divine recipe! you can check it out here. 

added some spinach and sprouts to the sloppiness of it all and served it up with some green beans.  dinner was incredible!

after dinner my mom and sister whipped up some of my mom’s granola.  she claims she used to make it all the time when we were kids but i don’t recall ever eating it.. hmm.. although it DOES have raisins.. so maybe i just never tried it. or i just have a horrible memory!

i read them the recipe and they threw it all together. aside from the raisins, this granola was dank. and i know a lot of you adore those wrinkly old things so you would probably enjoy this.

the recipe:

• 7 c old fashioned oats
• 2.5 c whole wheat flour
• 1 c sunflower seeds
• 1/2 c sesame seeds
• 1 c raisins
• 1 c coconut
• 1 c chopped nuts (we used almonds)
• 1 c nonfat dry milk

mix above ingredients. then blend these ones in a blender:

• 1 c oil
• 1 TB salt
• 1 c brown sugar
• 1/2 c honey
• 1/2 c water
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 tsp maple flavoring

pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix real well. pour granola into two 13×9 baking pans. bake at 250 degrees [f] for 45 minutes, stirring every 15.

voila! makes 5 quarts. and home made is always better than store bought, no?

so as you can see i had a lot to talk about so i thought i better throw a little something together and say hello to you all :)

on the agenda for thursday? well i made breakfast this morning (french toast!), H&M (looove and we don’t have them in SLC), pedicures with the la la ladies, greek restaurant for dinner! yes. and lots of family fun. love.

foodbuzz fest tomorrow!

stay tuned for more guest post love later tonight :)

happy doughnut appreciation day!

Qs~

1. favorite kind of doughnut? i don’t really even like donuts that much. but if i had to pick.. plain glazed twists.

2. in honor of thirsty thursday.. what is your favorite beverage ever?? it is a tie between water and coffee!!

xo. janetha b.