Tag Archives: steel cut oats

Green, Spicy, and Flavorful

April 27, 2010

Do you ever have dreams like the movies? All I remember dreaming last night was about two other people trying to climb up a mountain (like Everest) but getting lost and going the wrong way before they even got to the base. It was really detailed, but I wasn’t in it. Good I guess since I have no desire to climb a mountain!

I looked it up on a dream dictionary website and seeing a mountain means that I have major challenges and obstacles that I have to overcome. If I were climbing the mountain, it signifies my determination and ambition. These can both apply to me since I’m currently on the path to getting my first job and I’m not sure what lies ahead.

Yesterday my day began with carrot cake oats. Not the kind you have to prepare, but literally a carrot cake muffin crumbled on top of my whipped banana oats.

I ate them with a fork for some reason. It made oat eating a whole new experience! If you look really closely, some of the carrots in my muffins turned green.

After some research I found out that it might be some chemical reaction because I used cream of tartar instead of baking powder.

For lunch I stir fried broccoli and spinach in sesame oil, added a Sunland Spicy Southwest peanut butter/rice vinegar mix as a sauce, and then mixed it with leftover brown rice. It was a bit spicy for my taste. I think I might have to give up on liking spicy peanut butter. As usual, I prefer sweet.

I had a lonely, rainy day at work (it’s an outdoor mall so rain = no customers) and saved dinner for when I got home at 9:30pm. I had a really horrible tasting Clif bar on lunch – black cherry almond. It was so dry!

Dinner was salmon salad on rosemary bread with grapes and a peach cottage cheese double on the side. It was an interesting mix of flavors!

It’s another rainy day here. I spent an hour on the stationary bike yesterday but really wanted to go running. Hopefully it clears up!

Have a great day :)

Questions:

1) Do you ever think about the meaning of your dreams?

2) Has you ever seen your carrots turn green in baked goods?

3) What do you do with spicy peanut butter?

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Sweet vs. Savory

April 20, 2010

Happy Tuesday! I’m in a really good mood today for some reason :)

Yesterday, I finally tried savory oats! Trying them was exciting, but trying to like them was a different story. I cooked steel cut oats in water while browning some onions on the stove. I mixed peas and the onions into the oats and topped it with a fried egg and some monterrey jack cheese.

I looked good. It smelled good. But it was just okay. The oats were just tasteless! I need to use salt next time.

I was really craving a sandwich for lunch so I fell back on the ol’ PB&J, with Crazy Richards crunchy pb and Peanut Butter & Co’s apricot jelly.

On the side I tried one of Breakstone’s new 100 calorie cottage cheese & jam packs. I used to eat the old ones they had with about 130 calories. This was a smaller portion but it wasn’t too noticeable and tasted just as yummy.

I got to work with Cassandra for most of my evening. We had some good conversations and a mid work snack. I needed to get my sweet fix after those savory oats.

Homemade peanut butter cups! I’ve had Kris’s recipe for these bookmarked for months and they took me literally 5 minutes to make. Why didn’t I try them sooner?! I used Sunland Molasses peanut butter rather than the vanilla almond butter because I really wanted the Reeses taste.

Dinner at work was my leftover lemon garlic spaghetti squash over leftover brown rice.

I have a long day today – the agenda:

  • Walk 1 mile, Run 3 miles, Walk 1 mile
  • Breakfast/ Blog Reading Sesh
  • Work til 7pm
  • Shopping in NJ
  • Prepare for tomorrow’s interview

It doesn’t seem like much but work takes up 8 hours! Have a great day :)

Questions:

  1. What’s on your agenda for today?
  2. Oats: Sweet or Savory?
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Real Leeks

April 6, 2010

Happy Tuesday!

After falling asleep with the worst headache Sunday night (too much Easter cake?), I woke up yesterday really wanting some oats. I went with plain steel cut oats, boiled in almond milk, and topped them with some sort of apple crisp my Pop had made for me. It was amazing! Probably the best bowl of oats I’ve had since pumpkin was in season :) Of course I added some peanut butter & flax to the mix too.

I went to work and found this in my locker when I went on break.

Homemade pumpkin cookies/bars from Cassandra!

We both agreed that the bar version was the best.

I had an egg salad sandwich for lunch, made by Mom, but no photo because I was rushing to get back to work. Luckily I only was working til 3pm and was able to enjoy some time in the sun. I kicked around a soccer ball for a while with Mark and his 3 year old cousin before heading back to my house for dinner.

You might remember me having problems with buying leeks a while back. I didn’t really know what they looked like and ended up buying the wrong thing.. twice! First it was bok choy, second it was anise. Well, I finally got it right. It might have been because they were on sale and I made sure to check that they actually said leeks on their little twisty ties but still.. I bought leeks :)

I looked up the highest rated leeks recipe on Recipezaar and made Creamy Parmesan Leeks for dinner. I changed a few things from the original recipe after reading the comments. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from making a countless about of Internet recipes, it’s to read the comments! You can see if substitutions will work for ingredients, and learn of better ways of doing things.

For instance, this recipe called for cream. I read the comments and found that a lot of people used sour cream and thought it went really well with the tastes. I just happened to have some Smart Balance sour cream on hand so that’s actually the whole reason I made this recipe. I love Smart Balance stuff!

While the leeks were cooking I stir fried up some mushrooms, toaster oven-baked a small piece of wild caught cod I had leftover from Saturday night’s dinner, and reheated some couscous, also from Saturday night. I served the leek mixture over the couscous and topped it with mushrooms and the cod.

It was good! And rich. Kept me full for the entire night.

This morning I continued my training with the longest workout yet (mileage wise). I left at 7am for a 2 mile walk, followed by a 3 mile run, and then 2 miles of speed walking. I left with the thought that I definitely wasn’t going to do the whole workout and ended up doing 7.3 miles rather than an even 7 :)

Somehow I ended up finishing in 1 hour and 35 minutes, 5 minutes less than it took me to only run 2 miles in between. Either way, you can bet I had to write this post last night to do all that and then make it to work on time!

Hope you’re having as nice of weather as we are in NY. Tomorrow, on my day off, it’s supposed to be 85!

Questions:

  1. Do you read the comments when you make online recipes?
  2. Have you ever bought leeks? How did you prepare them?
  3. What’s the weather like where you are?
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