074. Chocolatey Peanut Butter Banana Oats

First of all, I apologize for the lameness of my blog recently. My sick day on Monday turned into a wicked head cold mid-morning Tuesday, and I've been fighting that off. I've pretty much been in work, dinner, sleep, repeat mods since Tuesday. I'm finally feeling better (thank you Advil Cold & Sinus and 8+ hours of sleep per night!).

I've got lots to update about (especially the meals from my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge which was this week despite my being sick.), but I'm getting ready for work right now so I need to make this a quickie. When I got up to get a glass of water around 3:00 this morning, I had a brilliant idea! Why not use chocolate soymilk to make myself chocolatey oats in the morning? I decided to change up my usual oats this morning in exactly this way.

So...I present to you, Chocolatey Peanut Butter Banana Oats

In my oats...

1/2 c. oats

3/4 c. Silk Light Chocolate Soymilk

1 medium banana mashed

1 T. peanut butter

Overall the oats were delicious. Not super chocolatey, but a nice subtle chocolate flavor. It's a great Friday morning treat.

Well, I'm back to updating regularly now, and I promise there will be plenty more posts in the next 24 hours! Until then, I hope you all have a fantastic Friday!

069. Better than Kraft Mac N Cheese

Partially inspired by the grilled cheese with apple Caitlin made for her husband, and partially inspired by the fact I really wanted some mac n cheese (but not some lame out of the box mac n cheese), tonight I decided to make Better than Kraft Mac n Cheese. I made this one all on my own (no recipe) and it was AWESOME!

It's rotelle pasta, Dubliner cheese, reduced fat cheddar cheese, and some chopped up apples. It was so delicious and savory.


The cheesy deliciousness of dinner brings my to The Great Cheese Debate which will be coming tomorrow.

054. Adventures in Baking

I decided I should bring something with me to Kristin's house. I've been wanting to make this Cranberry Apple Bread for a few days now so I went ahead and whipped it up to take with me.

While making this, I ran into a slight issue that required me to employ some of my newly found kitchen experimentation skills. Here's the ingredient list.

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. flour (I substituted whole wheat flour)

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. basking soda

1 t. ground cinnamon

2 c. chopped, peeled apples (I used pink lady apples that I had in my fridge)

3/4 c. sugar

2 T. melted butter

1 large egg

1 c. fresh cranberries

Does anyone else see the problem here? This recipe calls for virtually no liquids! I mixed all of the ingredient together per the instructions (below) and wound up with just slightly moistened flour. There was no way it was going to bake into bread though! I started by adding about 1/4 c. of water and then it was Musselman's to the rescue! I poured in some applesauce and stirred until the batter reach the consistency I was looking for. I think it probably amounted to about 1/2 c. of applesauce that I ended up adding.

Directions

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon; set aside. Mix apples, sugar and butter. Add egg; mix well. Add flour mixture; stir just until moistened. (Batter will be thick.) gently stir in the cranberries

Spread the batter into greased loaf pan

Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let stand in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

The bread turned out really great. It was very moist and had an awesome flavor. I really liked the tart cranberry flavor against the sweetness of the apples. I didn't snap a picture because I was running late so I wrapped it up and headed out the door; however, I plan on making another loaf tomorrow or Sunday (I still have half a bag of cranberries left) so I'll be sure to get a picture then.

050. Flexing the Kitchen Creativity Muscle (& my 50th post milestone!)

This morning I faithfully got up to Whittle My Middle.

I also discovered I forgot to put my soy milk back in the fridge after making my oatmeal yesterday. :( It was almost a full carton too - what a bummer.

Since I usually use soy milk to make my oatmeal, I decided to flex my kitchen creativity muscles. As you probably remember, I currently have an abundance of applesauce after winning Shannon's Musselman's Gift Basket Give-Away. I decided to put some of that applesauce to work this morning, and so I present to you...

Apple-Pomegranate Oats

• 1/2c. oats
• 1/2c. Musselman's natural, unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 c. pomegranate juice.

Cooked on the stove-top for about 5 minutes, stirring occassionally.

I topped the oats off with a pinch of shredded coconut and some goji berries.

So what's the verdict on my Apple-Pomegranate Oats?

Well, the smell was a little funky (not sure if it was the cooking applesauce or pomegranate juice) and the texture left something to be desired (It was again sticky, but that could be the oats I bought as I discussed in my post yesterday). The flavor, however, was to die for! It was the balance of apple and pomegranate. There was a bit of tartness that was offset really well by the sweetened coconut.

Overall, this was an awesome breakfast. I'll definitely be making these oats again sometime soon!