Help with this opening

Wondering if anyone out there would mind sharing why taking the pawn with the knight as shown is a stronger position than what I played.  It seems I would simply lose a knight to gain a pawn and be down by 2.  (Maybe moving the pawn to D3 would be best, but how is knight to E5 better?)

I have scoured this for a while and can't see.  Thank you in advance for any help.  Apologies if this is a basic question, too.  Hopefully this is the right spot to ask.

Thank you, @blueemu for the helpful board. (I don't know how you did that but it's very helpful!). I can see that moving the pawn (at white being -2) now lets the pawn attack e5 and c5 at once. But if the bishop takes the pawn, white is then at -3, and if the queen takes the bishop it's back only to 0. (Though at this point, white would be in a better position with more development, which perhaps is why this is a better move?)
Thank you again.

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