Tag Archives: oatmeal

Everyday Eats

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veganmofo

Eats

A typical day of vegan food…

Remember the Pumpkin Pie Smoothie?

smoothieThat was breakfast this morning.
Mmmmmmm!! Delish.

And lunch was another oldie but goodie: Apple Cherry Oatmeal

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For dinner I tried a recipe from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan, Blackened Tofu, which would easily fit in here:

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So in a last minute play, I rebounded with this:

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which went very nicely with our brown basmati rice and steamed broccoli.  :)

Run

I hopped on the treadmill today and went for a run. I know…it was beautiful outside today. But the treadmill is SOFT and the gym has WATER and so I opted to run inside.

Distance: 6 miles
Pace: 8:40 minute mile

I found out the gym now has BodyPump classes – has anyone tried this? I think I might give it a go next week. Right now I am running 6-8 miles every other day, and on opposite days getting on the elliptical machine or going to a vinyasa yoga class. I also have gotten back to walking the dogs 2x a day – about 2 miles each time. I LOVE running, walking, and yoga but the elliptical machine is…well…dry. So I’m looking for something else to add in.

On another note…

I came across an article in the Baltimore Sun called Turn Over a New Leaf: Vegan Diets are Moving Solidly into Mainstream. How awesome is that? The article says there are about 1,000,000 vegans in the USA, and that the rise of “eating locally” has resulted in an increase in vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. It also includes a recipe for Manhattan Vegetable Chowder that looks awesome!

Have you seen an increase in people going vegan?

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Vanilla Spice Oatmeal Cookies

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veganmofoHappy Monday!

It’s been a very busy weekend for yours truly. We had our second weekend of yoga teacher training and can you believe that the teachers-in-training are already practice teaching? They are doing a fabulous job – I cannot wait for our next training weekend in November!

Because of the teacher training, this past weekend was not a typical weekend in terms of cooking and baking but I did manage to fit in a few runs :)

  • Friday: 6 miles at an 8:40 pace
  • Saturday : 3.25 miles at a 9:30 pace during my lunch hour
  • Sunday: 7.20 miles at an 8:40 pace

Today I’m going to take a yoga class with Tori at Flow Yoga – I’m really looking forward to it :)

For the last two weeks I’ve been working on a new recipe for Vanilla Spice Oatmeal Cookies. After numerous trial batches I am happy to say that I think I’ve got it down. These cookies are slightly crispy on the edges yet chewy in the center, with a hint of vanilla and sweet bursts of crystallized ginger throughout. And on the How Healthy Is Your Cookie scale, I’d say they are pretty much on the healthier side thanks to the minimal amount of oil and sugar being used – YAY!

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Makes 20-22 cookies


Ingredients

  • 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 Tablespoon flax seeds plus 3 Tablespoons water whisked together until frothy
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 T minced ginger root
  • 1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • ½ cup diced crystallized ginger

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Coat two large baking sheets with cooking spray.
  2. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt in your food processor and pulse 4-5 times. Transfer to a large bowl.
  3. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, granulated sugar, applesauce, oil, flaxseed mixture, vanilla, and ginger root and blend well with a hand mixer.
  4. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until combined.
  5. Stir in the oats and the crystallized ginger.
  6. Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons, 2” apart, onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand on the baking sheets for two minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely.

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Apple Cherry Oatmeal

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veganmofoIn case you haven’t noticed, I really love oatmeal. Here are a few fun facts about oats:

  • Oats are higher in soluble fiber (which has been proven to lower cholesterol) than any other grain
  • Oat protein in equal in quality to soy protein
  • Oats are part of a gluten-free diet when they have not been processed near gluten-containing foods
  • In Scottish English oats might be called “corn”
  • The oldest known oats were found in Egypt and dated approximately 2000BC – at that time however oats were probably just weeds

I don’t tend to eat oats for breakfast as I am a breakfast smoothie girl through and through.
I prefer to have a big steaming bowl of oats for lunch. Usually I make old fashioned rolled oats (which only take 10 minutes to cook), and if I have time I’ll make steel cut oats in my crockpot.
I tend vary the toppings for my oatmeal, sticking mostly to fruits, nuts, and sweetener. I was especially pleased with today’s creation:

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Apple Cherry Oatmeal

Serves 1

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 1/2 cup cold vanilla soymilk (or favorite non-dairy milk)
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 Honeycrisp apple, or whatever awesome apple you have, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • handful of sulfite-free dried cherries

Directions

  1. Combine the oats, water, milk, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 7 minutes.
  2. Add in the apple, brown sugar, and cinnamon and continue to cook for another 3 minutes or so. The apples should be warm and slightly soft but still firm.
  3. Pour the oats into a bowl and top with the dried cherries. Add any additional seasonings as desired.

What’s your favorite oat recipe?

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Getting That Last Blob of Peanut Butter

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Finally -I have a way to get every last blob out of my peanut butter jar!

You know what I mean.

You work your way through your peanut butter until there are just scrapings clinging to the side of the jar.
Just enough left so that you wish you had the perfect rubber spatula (and the time) for getting every last bit out of the jar.
But not enough to really justify keeping the jar.

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This situation really gets me because I’m the type of person to use EVERY LAST DROP, whether it be peanut butter, shampoo, chips, etc. In fact, D. often laughs at me because I’ll put way a bag of chips that has just crumbs remaining.

Anywho, so here’s what you do for the peanut butter situation…make oatmeal!

Pour the cooked oats into your “empty” peanut butter jar.
Add fruit, brown sugar, maple syrup, etc.
Swirl around and enjoy!

DSC_0006DSC_0008The oatmeal soaks up the remaining peanut butter.
So you end up with a “clean” jar.

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Ta da! I saw this somewhere on the internet. Someone out there is a genius.

Next just run the jar through the dishwasher and now you have a sparkly clean jar ready for re-use or the recycling bin!

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Revenge of the Bees + Why I Do Yoga

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I just got stung by a bee in my backyard! OUCH! At least I think it was a bee – I’m really not sure since it stung my BOOTIE! Wow that really hurt. It’s a good thing you weren’t near me when it happened cuz I was cussin’ like a sailor! I bought a jar of honey this morning from Bees n’ Blossoms at the Reston Farmers Market - could this be revenge? Maybe this bee misunderstood because Bees n’ Blossoms treat their bees really well, using only organic and natural methods.

Eats

Anywho, this morning I had….a SMOOTHIE! Yes, surprising I know. Here’s what I had:

  • vanilla rice milk
  • banana
  • baby spinach
  • Spirutein vanilla protein powder
  • 2 tablespoons of Better n Peanut Butter

And just now I enjoyed my current rave for lunch:

DSC_0004DSC_0003That would be:

  • 1 cup cooked oatmeal
  • 3/4 cup fresh blueberries from the Farmers Market
  • 2 tablespoons Chocolate pb2 (you can see it peeking out of the top left side in the second picture)
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • pinch of cinnamon

SO YUMMY! For those of you who count, it’s 6 WW.

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Yesterday I spent some time with a yoga teacher friend and she asked me “What do you want from your yoga practice?” I didn’t’ have an answer right away but I’ve been thinking about the question. During my practice this morning it came to me. I want to feel connection.

Connection with my mind.
Connection with my body.
Connection with my breath.
Connection with my True Self.

This is why I practice yoga.
During my regular non-yoga practicing hours, I move through my day running errands, talking on the phone, surfing the internet, teaching, cooking, exercising, eating, etc. My mind jumps from one thing to the next. I am not thinking about my body or my breath. I associate with whatever it is I’m doing in the moment – I’m a wife, I’m a daughter, I’m a yoga teacher, I’m a customer.

But during my practice this changes.
I quiet my mind and bring my attention to my breath, and I feel…whole and…happy.

Why do you practice yoga? Or…why don’t you practice yoga?

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Mmmmm…Oatmeal!

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I just had the best lunch and the greatest part is that it was super simple. oatmeal

I had…(drumroll please)…OATMEAL!

Yes, OATMEAL!

I know, not exactly what you’d think of having on a hot and muggy Virginia day.

Here’s what I did:

  1. Got the oatmeal started while I was finishing up on the elliptical machine.
  2. When the oatmeal was ready (15 minutes) I scooped it into a bowl and topped it with:
  • A teeny amount of brown sugar
  • Honey
  • Sunflower seeds
  • Peanut butter
  • Dried cherries

That’s it! You could throw in whatever you like, really.

It was really satisfying, quick to prepare, and yummy. Just one of those things I normally wouldn’t have thought to have for lunch :)