Carrot Cake Oatmeal

Today I woke up c-razy late, 11:23 a.m. But I didn't fall asleep until after 3 last night so I guess it's really not that bad :) When I woke up I had a big hunk of pumpkin bread. I've just been slowly working through it all weekend. I have about a half of a loaf left. I haven't even been using any of the spreads I planned, the bread has just been so delicious on it's own.

Then my friends invited me over for pancakes and eggs, but I had my heart set on some oatmeal this morning so I decided to wait it out. Unfortunately though I kept drinking coffee the whole time I was there and now I am on complete fried out overload. I hate it when this happens but I know it won't last long.


My oatmeal was well worth the wait! I made Kath's Carrot Cake Oatmeal today. It was sooo good! I toyed around with the recipe a little, adding some traditional carrot cake spices, mashed banana instead of the mango, and no nuts or coconut as I am out of them.

This is my roommate Anna's cute mug that I sometimes drink too much coffee out of!


This afternoon I have work, I am a muffin baker/cake writer-on-er at a grocery store bakery. It's not my ideal job, and I hate that I sell such processed foods, but the hours are great and baked goods do make people happy. Yesterday I informed my boss that I would need to cut down on my availability (ie. move towards quitting) as I just got a new job babysitting! I'm excited and eager to be moving away from the bakery, though I will definitely miss my co-workers. Work always seems to take a lot out of me so my roommate Anna offered to cook me a delicious dinner tonight. I'll be home too late for us to eat together but she'll be saving me some of her Moroccan Chicken Stew. I'm going to ask for/post the recipe tonight. It's delicious and I'm sure you might be able to try substituting: chik'n strips, seitan, tempeh, or tofu. I hope someone will get adventurous and try it! and for all you omnis there is just no excuse, it is that good!

Pumpkinny Oats

This morning I was inspired by Kath to make a delicious riff on my usual oatmeal. I had leftover pumpkin so I started out knowing I wanted some pumpkin oats. I cooked my oats with 1/4 c. of hempmilk and 3/4 c. of water. While they were boiling I added 1/2 of a mashed banana and a 1/4 c. of canned pumpkin. I also added a splash of vanilla, a pinch salt, and a few shakes of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. With Kath as my inspiration I made a maple cream "icing" by mixing yogurt and maple syrup, which I drizzled on top. I also added a few spoonfuls of granola.


I was at work for lunch today so no good pictures. After work I went to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things. I got more trail mix for my oatmeal. I bought some of the first strawberries and tomatoes of the season! My most fun purchase was a bag of ciabatta (sp?) rolls which I plan to eat with soup and sandwiches. I ate a sneaky little bite off the corner of one when I got home and it was delish! Dinner was just a big salad and another glass of wine. Dessert was ice cream, in a cone for a change. The perfect treat!

Of Cabbages and Kings

I woke up early today in order to prepare a new twist on my oatmeal: Steel Cut Oats! I checked out a couple of recipes and ended up using this method:
-I toasted a 1/4 of oats in a pan with a 1/4 T. of melted butter
-Then I added 3/4 C. of boiling water
-I put a lid on the pot and then turned the heat down to a
simmer
-Then I let the oats cook for about 15 min.
-Then I added a 1/4 c. of vanilla hempmilk and a mashed banana
and let them cook for ten more minutes on a simmer.
- I topped my oats with 2 T. of peanut butter granola and ate
them with a spoonful of chunky peanut butter.

They were delicious but I don't love the chewy texture. If I made them again I would leave out the step of toasting them I'm not sure it did much for the flavor. I'll be back around lunchtime!


For lunch I actually did some cooking. I made Jenna's Sweet and Sour Cabbage it was soo good! I had it for lunch with some more pea soup.


Dinner was more cabbage, steamed broccoli with a drizzle of garlic expressions, and half of a pita with half of a Veganomicon Chickpea cutlet from the freezer dressed with mustard and barbecue sauce. Dessert, though not pictured was a cup of yogurt with added vanilla and mashed banana, topped with peanut butter granola. I also had another delicious pink lady.


Tomorrow is my day off from both work and classes and I have a TON of cooking planned! It should be exciting!

Someday I'll catch up

One of these days I am going to be one of those bloggers who posts every day on time but I haven't quite gotten there yet. Yesterday I drove my sister to the bus station to go home and returned to my non-vacation eating style. I had banana oatmeal for breakfast. I figured that all the posts of the same oatmeal may be getting a little old so today I am including a picture of some of the products that make my oatmeal great! Vanilla Hempmilk, Irish Oatmeal and Honey Roasted Peanut butter!


For lunch I wanted something light so I went with a bowl full of Trader Joe's European Style yogurt with grapes, banana, Honey Bunches of Oats and puffins! It really hit the spot. I also had a big pink lady apple along with it!


Dinner was Whole Foods Vegetarian Split Pea Soup with a slice of my favorite sandwich bread, Wegman's Honey Apple Oat, that I brought up from home. To jazz up the split pea soup I added a tiny spoonful of cottage cheese, some dijon mustard, a splash of hot sauce and some dried dill. On the side I had cut up radishes that I am trying to finish with Whole Foods hummus and some Trader Joe's pineapple salsa.


I totally forgot to take a picture but for dessert I had Stonyfield Farm Vanilla frozen yogurt with peanut butter granola on top. SO GOOD!

A Two for One kind of post!

I'm going to post both Tuesday and Wednesday meals because I have been so busy with work lately and I need to catch up.

Tuesday morning I had toast with honey roasted peanut butter and bananas! It was so filling and good, I could not resist taking a bite before I photographed it.



Lunch I had on the run because I had to get my haircut and then go to class. Dinner was cut up fruit: grapes, bananas, kiwi and a huge salad with a big scoop of cottage cheese in the middle and tons of other delicious veggies. I apologize for the blurr, photo, I must not have been paying attention.



Today's breakfast was Banana Oatmeal with trail mix and p.b.!

This photo came out much better!

Lunch today was cut up apples with goat gouda, salad of greens with balsamic dressing, blackberries and grapes, AND a piece of toasted pita bread with pb and j!




Dinner tonight was boring abig bowl of cut up fruit with cottage cheese on top and a big bowl of puffins with almond breeze. I am going home tomorrow so I may not be posting for a little while but I promise to take pictures of all the delicious food I eat and prepare

Easter! (Pictures Pending)

I woke up Easter morning in the mood to get things done and excited for the Easter dinner we had planned. I started the morning off right with a bowl of banana oatmeal made even more delicious by the addition of some Trader Joe's Nuts about Raspberries and Chocolate Trek Mix and little spoonful of the honey roasted peanut butter!

Next we went grocery shopping for all of our dinner ingredients. I was surprised by how little we needed to buy to make our fresh and fabulous dishes!

Then we set to cleaning the whole house from top to bottom. As college students this often goes neglected and the feng shui of the house just went through the roof once we were done.

In the afternoon Joel came over to help us start preparing the meal. I suppose I should reveal the menu now :) :

-The Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Roast Chicken
-Cooking Light's Marsala Mashed Sweet Potatoes
-Garlicky String Beans
-Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I am still in awe of how well the meal turned out. When you're new to cooking like we are its to be expected that one the dishes won't quite meet expectations but this honestly was one of the best meals I ever cooked. The chicken was stuffed with lemon garlic and thyme and came out of the oven perfectly browned. It was wonderfully moist and flavorful. The string beans were fresh and garlicky. The sweet potatoes were the perfect blend of sweet and savory. I would have never thought to use marsala with potatoes. We enjoyed a glass of prosecco before dinner and had a bottle of cheap red wine during dinner, definitely not a master pairing but festive none the less. Our friend Abby joined us for dinner and brought an excellent Israeli salad which reminded me so much of Spring!

We all decided it would be cute to wear our Easter best and my roommate took lots of photos which I'll be posting as soon as I can steal them from her.

For dessert we had our much sought after pie and several of our other friends joined us who couldn't make it to the dinner. Everyone agreed the pie was delicious, though not quite as good as homemade :) all in all an awesome way to spend Easter!

Thursday's Post

This blogging thing is hard to keep up with, I've been soooo busy lately. So this is Thursday's post....I decided today would definitely have to be a cooking day! I woke up this morning and made myself a half recipe of Kath's Baked Oatmeal. IT WAS SOOO GOOD! Not too sweet and I actually felt that I could be satisfied with less of it than my normal serving. I like to try messing with the recipe a little to see if I could make it creamier, my came out more bread like, but this is definitely going on my breakfast rotation.

Then after class and before work I made Sweet Potato Lentil Chili from Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink and Be Vegan and Maple Cornbread. I was inspired to make Maple Corn Bread by Jenna at Eat, Live, Run. I looked at a lot of recipes for them but ultimately I made up own.
Maple Cornbread
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 c. cornmeal
1 dash of cinnamon (optional)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 t. salt
1 egg (I'm sure egg replacer could be sued as well I just fdon't ave so much experience with it)
3/4 c. non fat milk or soy milk
1/4 c. low fat vanilla yogurt or plain yogurt
1/3 c. maple syrup
2 T. melted butter


Pre heat your oven to 425. When heated place an 8 in cast iron skillet in the oven for 10 minutes. In a large bowl mix all of the dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl mis all of the wet ingredients. Slowly add wet ingredients to dry. Stir to incorporate but do not over mix. Batter should be thick. Remove pan from oven and spray with cooking spray. Add batter to pan and smooth over the top with the back of a spoon or spatula. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

The corn bread came out great and was a HUGE hit with my roomates who upon my invitation gobbled it all up. I barely had time to snap a photo before it was all gone. I meant to take a picture of my Sweet Potato lentil chili when I had it again at dinner but I completely forgot. I recommend that everyone vegan or otherwise buy Eat Drink and Be Vegan and try this recipe! It is really THAT good!

Wednesday's Post

I didn't get the chance to blog yesterday because I wasn't really feeling well so I'm going to be doing several posts today!

This morning I woke up super early and it was back to my old Banana Oatmeal. I went to the store last night but unfortunately almost all the bananas were green :( I picked the ripest looking one and used about half of it in my oats this morning. I topped it all off with a sprinkling of granola and some brown sugar, with my usual p.b. on the side.

Lunch today was what I like to a call my Crazy Salad! Which is pretty much whatever I have on hand just thrown together. Today my salad included:

-radishes
-baby corn
-honey roast turkey
-avocado
-sweet pickles
-a little bit of cranberry cinnamon goat cheese
- herb salad blend

Later I got home from work and I had been planning on making Heidi Swanson's Carmelized Tofu but I felt really sick and also really tired. So I just had Stonyfield Farms Strawberry Yogurt, some Puffins cereal, grapes and cut up kiwis.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My first post with actual food woo hoo!

I could not get out of bed this morning. I spent some quality time hitting snooze and thinking about what I could make for breakfast as an incentive to get up.

Usually I like to have banana oatmeal for breakfast, I use McCann's Quick Cooking Irish Oatmeal cooked with 1/2 c. of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 c. of water and a pinch of salt. THen when my oats are almost done I add half of a mashed banana. I eat my oatmeal with a 1/2 T. of natural peanut butter, a la Kath of KathEats, that I leave on the spoon so I get a little peanut butter with each bite. Sometimes I add a teaspoon of raw sugar on top for crunch and sweetness.

But today I was out of bananas so I decided to try something new. To my usual oatmeal I added:

-1/2 T. of cocoa powder
- a good dash of cinnamon
-a pinch of nutmeg
- a tiny pinch of chili powder

Voila, Spicy Mole Cocoatmeal!

The cocoa powder changed the mouth feel of the oats somewhat and they needed a splash more of milk, which you see in the picture. This recipe also needs to be sweetened. I used 1 1/2 t. of raw sugar but I think that this would be great made with my usual mashed banana! I still kept my usual spoonful of peanut butter because I need it to fuel my mornings but I'm sure you could enjoy these oats without it.




With Breakfast I also had my favorite coffee, Trader Joe's Peaberry. The peaberry is supposedly a very rare, prized bean and this coffee is amazing! The canister says Limited Edition and they don't always carry it so go buy some now! I take my coffee with 1 T. of half and half and no sugar. I used to take it with Fat Free half and half and Splenda but I stopped in an effort to cut down on chemicals in my diet.

For lunch today I decide to have a baked sweet potato in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I used one of those plastic wrapped potatoes made especially for the microwave. Not as good as oven baked but an awesome time saver! Using this recipe as inspiration I scooped out the inside of my potato and mashed them with a little lowfat plain yogurt, cinnamon, chili powder and cayenne. Then I drizzled a tiny bit of maple syrup on top. On the side I had a half a broiled grapefruit and some sliced kiwi with a delicious mug of chamomile tea! Right before work I snacked on a few Honey Sesame TLC Crackers.

Dinner tonight was avocado quesadillas made with mashed avocado seasoned with lemon juice, cumin, and garlic powder and reduced fat four cheese blend and splashed with hot sauce. On the side I had Trader Joe's Spicy Peach Salsa and some spiced yogurt. I also had a side salad made with field greens, tomatoes, scallions and the other half of my grapefruit dressed with honey mustard and vinegar.

Tonight I'll probably have a snack while studying and preparing a paper due Wednesday!