Slow Cooked Steel-Cut Oats
Happy Wednesday!!! If the past is any indicator of the future, it is time for another WIAW (What I Ate Wednesday). Woot! If you want to learn more about this craze hop on over to Peas and Crayons to see what other food obsessed foodies are munching on.
I am breaking tradition a little and just displaying what I ate Wednesday for breakfast on this fine Wednesday because I can and it is a good one.
For the past couple of mornings I have been craving steel cut oats. However, I wake up ravenous, so waiting 30 minutes for these gems to cook is not an option. Last night, I put a stop to this madness. I went over to Abby’s blog and looked up her recipe for Over Night Steel-Cut Apple Pie Oats, which involves prepping the night before, so I can wake up to ready-to-eat-steel-cut goodness. Why did I wait so long to do this? This is so easy and so yummsicles. Per usual, I switched up the recipe a wee bit, here is what my version looked like.
The Goods:
- 1c steel cut oats
- 1.5c apple cider
- 1.5c unsweetened almond milk
- 2T ground flaxseeds
- 1/2t pumpkin pie seasoning
- 1/4t sea salt
- coconut oil for greasing
- Get out your slow cooker and coat the sides with coconut oil
- Put all of the above ingredients in Sir Slow Cooker
- Turn Sir Slow on low and leave go to bed
- Wake up and top with your favorite toppings- I opted for a wee bit of raisins, apple, and raw almond butter, but your options are endless. The world is your oyster.
cleaning up
Yesterday after eating nearly a bag of pretzels, 4 Oreos (they were organic?!) and way too many Jordan almonds, I have officially decided to clean up my diet.
Fun fact: these bags had to be dug out of the trash because they were EMPTY!
Lately I have been letting the cookies, chips, candy, cake and ice cream in on way too may occasions. They are no longer “treats.” All of these not-so-clean eats are making me tired, foggy and crabby. I know better than to eat so much sugar, but these foods are addictive and they have been sinking their vicious little fangs into me. Although, yesterday was extreme and I am not a big fan of banishing foods to the naughty list; however, it must be done.
Goals for the next 30 days:
- focus primarily on veggies, protein and (good) fat
- keep whole grains & fruit to a minimum
- maximum one cup of coffee per day ( have been drinking 2-3 as of late)
- maximum 3 glasses of alcohol per week (lately this has been exceeded too)
- no more chips, pretzels, cookies, cake, candy, or ice cream
- to appease my sweet tooth, dark chocolate, a few chocolate covered almonds, and a fig bar are legal
- try new exercises
- record my eats
Today being the first day of my cleaner eats journey, for breakfast I had my beloved Perfect Foods Bar and 8oz of organic coffee mixed with 1/2c unsweetened soy milk. Side note: I have mixed feelings on soy milk. I still think soy is over consumed, but the ingredients in the West Soy Soy Milk are minimal, the soy is not genetically modified and it is organic. A lot of the non dairy milk alternatives have so many ingredients (including carcinogens), so I caved and bought the soy milk. I am thinking that I will rotate my nut milks to ensure that I am not consuming too much of one variety. Good talk.
I present you with breakfast:
My workout today was modeled off of The Bizzy Diet off of Bodybuilding.com
I ended up doing about 45 minutes of Cardio at different intervals than he suggests, and I did 3 sets of 12 in a row rather than the 2 sets of 20. I also omitted a few of his exercises , so basically I didn’t follow this plan at all, but I like the idea of it. My gym is getting new Les Mills (The Body Pump people) classes on August 20th, so I am going to start incorporating those classes into my routine in addition to these modified workouts that I make-up.
Post workout eats and lunch:
1 egg + 1 egg white mixed with a little hummus, curry powder & sea salt with a few pickled beans on the side
Followed by a spinach, goat milk kefir, limeade & rhubarb smoothie. Sound gross? I assure it is no such thing.
The goods:
How To:
Put 1c limeade + 1/2c Kefir+ 2C spinach+2t Ultra Tox (optional)+ 5-7 pieces frozen rhubarb in blender and blend your lil heart out.
And with that, I am off.
I will leave you with this peanut butter lovin’ pug.
Happy Thursday!
pics from the weekend
this past weekend was a lovely, lazy weekend and it looks like summer is finally here in Portland, so we got to soak up some much needed vitamin D. Here are a few pics from the superb, sun filled weekend:
Saturday brunch at Broder with the man piece. I so love brunch with him and I was pleasantly surprised how great Broder was.
I opted for the salmon & egg skillet with a side of sauteed greens. The egg skillet was amaze, but those greens! I am obsessed with them!
After our brunch we decided to head out to the wineries. Honestly, I don’t think either of us really wanted to drink wine, but we both wanted to get out of town and for a wee bit to take full advantage of sir sun. We went to Vidon Vineyards. This was my first time at this winery and I loved it!
Before we left, we scooped up sir pug:
Sunday Keith went rock climbing, and I opted to have a laaaazy Sunday morning. First things first, I whipped up a batch of no oat “oatmeal”
internet grazing while sipping on a cup of joe in the sun followed soon after
A sweaty interval training and mini lift session was up next. I am sparing you a picture of such things. You’re welcome.
and upon my return I sipped on my favorite green smoothie.
Best Green smoothie ever
- 1/2c 2% Greek Yogurt
- 1c limeade or lemonade
- 2-3c spinach
- 2t detox powder (completely optional)
- 5-7 frozen strawberries
Keith was home when I returned home from the gym, so we soaked up some sun in our backyard then rode our bikes to get some gelato. Sorry no pic.:( We then hit up the grocery store to get food for some grillin’
On the menu: buffalo burger, homemade cabbage slaw, broccolini, and 1/2 of a sweet tater.
I love lazy weekends.
And with that, I am off to put together my new toy. Stay tuned for details….
Happy Tuesday!
sittin’ with it
I might have spent the weekend stewing over my no fruit diagnosis. I know this is severely ridiculous. There are real problems out there. After hours of stewing, I pretty much decided to do nothing. I am going to keep eating the way I eat and take notice on how I feel after I eat fruit and certain food combinations. In the past I would’ve have never thought to look at my reaction to fruit and the combination of potato and grain, but now I have a new investigating tool in my toolbox. If I notice that I do, indeed, have adverse reactions fruit and certain food combinations, I will do my best to avoid them. I basically decided on this route because I did not have any symptoms prior to getting the test. I got the test for giggles. If there was an ailment that I was trying to get to the bottom of, then I would definitely experiment more deligently with the world of no fruit. I am not saying that this test doesn’t have any real validity or that I wouldn’t benefit immensely from going this route. I am just honestly not sure the stress is worth the reward. I might change my mind in the future, but right now I feel healthy, I am at healthy weight and I have a very balanced relationship with food, so I am not terribly eager to rock that boat.
I will say the no fruit fate got me to purchase a few new things at the grocery store:
1. Rhubarb – rhubarb is on the a-ok list because it isn’t actually a fruit. I am not sure what I am going to do with these pink sticks of goodness, but I will find something. Maybe a compote.
2. I also bought watermelon, which all melons are on the a-ok list too. Why have I never bought watermelon before? I love it.
3. Heavy Whipping Cream.
Because I am not supposed to have a grain and a potato within 8 hours of one another and retinyl palmitate is a preservative in most milks and milk alternatives I am not supposed to have a grain at breakfast and a nut milk. However, there are no preservatives in heavy whipping cream and it is so darn good in coffee.
tiny ingredient declaration.
I will say with this whole food intolerance thing, I have started to put even more thought into eating real, whole food. I am really going to make a conscious effort to eat more fare with fewer ingredients.
On another note, I discovered the perfect yogurt:
Nancy’s Organic Whole Milk Greek Yogurt! Finally- it has arrived!
Here is why this perfection:
- It is Organic
- It is Greek
- It is whole milk
This is a combo that I had yet to stumble upon, until Sunday. Sunday I found it.
This morning’s breakfast of overnight oats involved the above perfection:
I will leave you with this:
Happy Tuesday!
holiday weekend = detox
I am not a big fan of of over indulging then feeling the need to detox, but I have over, over indulged this weekend, so I am looking forward to healthier fare. My brother-in-law and his lovely fiance were in town this weekend. We did a day trip to Seattle and I tried a famous crab roll and chowder while there. They were pretty dang awesome. Side note: these are not both mine- I shared.
Group Shot:
Somehow those were the only eats I managed to photograph until Monday later in the day. Something tells me I was too caught up in the actual consuming of said eats to stop and capture the moment.
On Monday, after family left, the husband, pug and I took a drive out to Hagg lake.
This picture cracks me up. Burt the co-pilot.
Upon our return, we decided that we were not ready to be healthy, so pizza was ordered:
a tiny amount of veggies were also consumed
and several bites of hemp milk ice cream were devoured (no photo).
I usually have Greek yogurt in some form everyday. However, he did not make an appearance in my eats for three whole days! The horror! I was craving the Greek this AM.
Fage 2% Greek yogurt + canned pumpkin+ground flax seed+ stevia+ homemade granola = one helluva breakfast
And with that, I am off.
Happy Tuesday!
kitchen domination
I had my first kitchen domination in our new abode. This was the first time I have put this oven to use and I almost burned the house down in doing so. Apparently, the drawer below the oven heats up at the same rate as the oven (I have never had an oven do this before) and a paper instruction manual resided in this very drawer. We are down an instruction manual and the house smelled lovely for a good 2-3 hours, but other than that all went swimmingly.
After bathing the fruits and veggies, I began the domination:
I have been craving granola lately, but I did not want to pay $8 for a bag of it and the gluten-free oats were on sale for $4.50, so homemade granola became my first domination task.
Easy, peasy gluten-free granola:
The Goods:
- 3c gluten-free granola
- 1/3c raw honey (melted)
- 1/3c coconut oil (melted)
- 3/4c raw walnuts
- 3/4c raw cashews
- 1/2c raw pecans
- 2T ground flaxseeds
- 20-25 liquid stevia
- 1/4t sea salt
- 1t cinnamon
- 1/2t nutmeg
- dash of ground cloves
- 2T pumpkin puree (you can leave this out)
How to:
- pre-heat oven to 300 (don’t burn your house down)
- combine all ingredients in medium size bowl
- put mixed medley on a parchment lined baking sheet
- bake for 15-20 min stirring every 5 min
After the granola was completed I moved on to baking some brown bread
I have made a version of this bread before and posted it in skinspot’s newsletter and I also made it in muffin form. However, this fella was a little different than both of those.
I bring you grain-free, spice bread. This bread does not look the prettiest, but I assure you he is delish. I adapted the recipe from this recipe at Eat the Cookie.
The Goods:
- 2c (packed) almond flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 spiced hemp protein powder (you could also use any vanilla or regular flavored protein powder)
- 1c pumpkin puree
- 1/4c molasses
- 1/4 c maple syrup
- approx 20 drops of liquid stevia
- 1/2t baking soda
- 1t cinnamon
- 1/2t nutmeg
- 1/4t ground cloves
- 1/2t sea salt
How To:
- pre-heat oven to 350
- line 9×5 loaf pan w/ parchment paper or grease w/ coco oil
- combine all ingredients in medium size bowl
- pour medley into loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes
I enjoyed a slice of this delight this morning for breakfast alongside a little coconut yogurt and berries.
This bread is awesome. It is like good-for-you cake.
After the bread was done, I tried my hand at making raw date balls.
Sadly, these were a fail. They taste pretty good, but they are hideous and really sticky. I will modify and post a recipe for them someday.
I decided that I was donezo with the sweets and moved on to steaming all of the veggies, so we could have veggies on hand for a few days;
And that concludes this week’s kitchen domination.
On a different note, every Tuesday for the past three Tuesdays, I have had the pleasure of having Abby White kick my fanny. Abby is the personal trainer, yoga instructor and holistic health coach over at Bliss Holistic Health. I cannot express what a great inspiration Abby is. First of all, she looks amazing, so she definitely walks her talk, but more importantly her breadth of knowledge on fitness and nutrition is unreal. If you live in Portland, I highly recommend working with Abby. She is shaking up my fitness routine and I couldn’t be more tickled about it.
In other thrilling news, we got a patio set. Woot! However, we are back to traditional Portland weather, so it may be a few days before we get to enjoy ‘er.
I am off to walk the pug.
Happy Monday!
summer lovin’
technically it is not summer yet, but it feels like it. We had blue skies and 80 degree temps this past weekend and we are set to enjoy several more days of this bliss. Given the rain that we usually experience this time of year, I am beside myself with glee.
Saturday started out with left over sprouted quinoa, berries, peanut butter and raw protein powder.
I am not sure how I feel about this protein powder. So far, I don’t love it in smoothies or oatmeal/ quinoa. Perhaps it will be a good protein powder to bake with?
After a quick gym sesh, I came home to do computer work in the sun.
Please ignore my pasty limbs
Burt also got his sun on:
On Sunday we had breakfast at a new coffee shop (however, I forgot my camera, so no photos), I got back on my bike for the first time in a looooong time and I discovered that I actually really like riding outside. I would imagine part of this love affair had to with the weather. After our mini bike ride we got to tackling our house, we cleaned, hung a few pictures, worked on the yard (well, Keith worked on the yard), hit up the grocery store, then made our first grill out feast in our new back yard. Woot!
We are still sans patio furniture, so camping chairs and a side table became our dining material
I dined on this medley of homemade cole slaw, kale, grilled veggies and there is a buffalo burger patty underneath there some where. I made this miso tahini dressing for the kale portion and it was amaze.
I also enjoyed half of sir sweet potato
My dining partner:
My other dining partner
I went inside to grab my dessert and this is what I came out to
I need to take a moment to touch on dessert.
I finally purchased Jordan almonds and cinnamon bears. There is a little bulk candy section at the Grocery store we frequent and every time I pass it, I dream of indulging. I am so glad I did. These nuggets of naughty really hit the spot. This may not be the healthiest of choices, but it was exactly what I was craving, so I only needed a few to satisfy me.
And with that, I am off to walk the pug.
Happy Monday!
what a difference a week makes
Praise be to Pete the move is over and Burt is healthy as a horse
The first area I tackled was the kitchen.
Day 1:
My obsession with bowls is a little out of hand
Day 2: I finally transferred all of the legumes, grains, flours, and sugars into Mason Jars. My clothes and toiletries had yet to be unpacked, but my grains were organized. This is seriously my favorite part of the whole house. I am a weird duck.
Big fan of our bath tub size sink too:
My fixation has also become the oodles of cords we have collected. I want to get rid of them, but what if they go to something important. How the heck do we have so many damn cords!
After stewing over the plethora of cords, I moved on to unpacking the office:
The living room and bathroom also got some love:
We still have pictures to hang and one room to unpack, but the annoying stuff is behind us. I cannot believe how much I hate moving. Good thing we won’t be doing it for a loooong time.
On a different note: I made the most amazing breakfast this AM. “Oatmeal” minus the oats.
I have seen this recipe on the blog Carrots-N-Cake a lot and I have always wanted to try it, but it always seemed too labor intensive for breakfast. I got a wild hair up my fanny today and decided to give it a whirl. I am thrilled that I did so. This delight was worth all of the blood, sweat and tears and I am going to be full for days. I pretty much followed Tina’s recipe except I used pecans instead of walnuts, unsweetened hemp milk instead of almond milk, and I only used 1T of ground flax. I topped w/ 1.5T of peanut butter. I am obsessed. Turns out I do love eggs for breakfast. Woot!
I am off to walk the pug because he still refuses to go to bathroom in his new backyard
one lonely yard
Happy Saturday!
oh the joys of moving
We are moving in to our new abode on Saturday (aka tomorrow).
While I am so excited to move in, I have turned into a terrible packer. I am 31 years of age and I have been moving almost every year since I was 18, so I should be a pro; however, we have been in this apartment for two years and it would appear my skills are rusty. I hate packing and I feel overwhelmed by it, so instead of packing I am blogging about packing.
In the midst of the packing madness, I left a bag of trash out last might when we went to grab some dinner from Whole Foods. Our trash is usually under lock and key in our trash compactor. This does not seem like a big deal. However, we have a pug that will eat until he explodes and has no discretion about what he is eating. Needless, to say we came home to trash all over the kitchen floor. Again, not a big deal. However, there were oodles of coffee grounds in there and Burt weighs 17 lbs. I knew this was not a an amazing combo. I immediately jumped on the internet to figure out what to do. Several of the posts stated “get off the internet and call your vet!” Fair enough. We currently live across the street from an animal ER. I always thought how convenient it would be if we ever needed to take Burt in. With 48 hours to go, I found out just how convenient it is. Thanks for that, Burt.
Side note: 2 weeks ago Burt turned into a ninja and got on our kitchen counter. This move yielded him a large, raw clove of garlic and 3/4ths of a banana and its peel. We have had Burt for nearly two years and he has never attempted such moves. No idea what crawled up his knickers that day. The next day Burt yakked on the rug twice and denied his breakfast. Burt never turns down a meal. I knew pug pants was not in a good place, so we took a trip to the vet. Turns out garlic is toxic to dogs. After monitoring him for a week, I got a call from the vet on Tuesday (of this week) telling me all his blood work came back perfectly healthy, so we were all good, until I turned into a ding dong and left the trash out. As it stands right now, the vet discovered that he did not eat any coffee grounds, but he did consume a good amount of currants. In America, currants are dried grapes. Grapes can be toxic to dogs, so sir Burt is resting comfortably in the ER for the next 48 hours, so they can flush his kidneys to ensure he does not reap the benefits of toxicity. Somebody’s bed is noticeably vacant today. 
Moving is fun.
blog, i miss you
lately my days have been cray-cray, so sir blog gets ignored. sorry, blog.
Here are a few things I am loving:
steel cut oats with sun butter & jelly
steel cut oats with p butter & apple
I haven’t done steel cut oats in quite some time because they take forever, but I read somewhere (I can’t remember where) to try doing them in a slow cooker the night before. I tried it last week and it works marvelously and it couldn’t be easier.
How to:
makes 4 hearty servings
- put 1C steel cut oats into slow cooker
- add 3 cups water (you could also do milk for a creamier version)
- add 1T ghee (optional- could also use butter)
- add 1T maple syrup (optional)
- add 1t vanilla (optional)
- add 1t cinnamon (optional)
- set slow cooker on low right before turning in
- upon waking- enjoy with toppings of desire
My only complaint with doing it this way, is it makes a lot. My hus does not enjoy oats, so this amount of oats requires reheating on everyday, but the first day. The re-heating just grossed me out because the oats get all clumpy. So when I do this I would do 1/4c oats to 1C water and just make one serving. This seems like a lot of equipment for such a small amount of oats. However, if you are feeding a family, this is a great method.
Moving on…
I discovered these gems:
These are sweet potato, kettled cooked chips. I have seen sweet potato flavored corn chips, but never sweet potato, potato chips. These are so darn good and they have such a teeny, tiny ingredient declaration. I am reading the book the Slow Down Diet, by Marc David and in it he mentions that if you are going to eat “junk” food, eat the best version of it. I do believe these count!
Up next….
I am back on the coconut water train. Lately, I have been spending a good amount of time in the sauna after a workout, so when I get home I have a thirst that water just can’t quite quench. I found Taste Nirvana’s coconut water that far exceeds the taste and quality of other coconut waters. I also love that they come in glass bottles. I feel superb after drinking this goodness. Side note: if you ever find yourself hung over, this stuff will blow Gatorade out of the water.
We close on our house in a few weeks and I am already starting to sleuth for decorating ideas. The bathroom on the first floor has a pedestal sink and I am just not a huge fan of those guys, so this is my dream sink of the moment (except a single version of it with different hardware). I love the idea of doing the outside fisherman’s light above the sink. J’adore!
I am also loving on the Burt da pug
he is giving me the stink eye because he is about to moved into his own bed
noshing on some kale. He eventually spit it back out. Not a fan.
And with that I am off to study and vacuum.
Happy Tuesday!
