Overnight Refrigerator Oatmeal

Hello....Hello...Anybody out there? Does anyone read this blog anymore? No? That's okay because I have neglected it something awful! I have been so busy with my children and their sports/end of the school year activities that this blog has become the last thing I think about.

So an update, yes I am staying true to PINK...I have messed up/cheated a few time but that is okay everyone does once in a while. The important thing is to get back on track and not let the cheating/messing up spiral out of control. To date I am down 45 pounds. I will post updated pictures in the near future though there isn't much change in my body, I don't think. I signed up for the Spartan race yesterday which will be on June 16th, the day after my birthday. That should be a fun challenge for myself. If you don't know what that is, it is similar to the Warrior Dash just a little longer and supposedly a little tougher, we will see. I am excited because it is not something I would have even thought about 6 months ago.

Hopefully when life calms a little bit I will be more inspired and come up with some more recipes but I wanted to share/pass along a link to a recipe I found on Pinterest yesterday for an overnight refrigerator oatmeal. I am not posting the recipe on this blog because I didn't create the recipe and don't have permission to post it but go to the link above and you will see 6 different flavors you can try or get the general idea and come up with your own flavor combinations. I assembled the chocolate banana versions before I went to bed last night and ate it for breakfast this morning...it was really good. I know it sounds odd especially because you don't cook the oatmeal but trust me it was really good and satisfying. It was rich and yummy and a perfect blend of protein and slow carbs for those of you who are in the primary phases of PINK and are following the blueprint for your meals. I can see this being a really good breakfast on those hot summer mornings where eating something warm just doesn't sound good. It is also a really good breakfast to take along with you when you are in a hurry in the morning. I made a raspberry version this morning for breakfast tomorrow, can't wait to try it. Give it a try and let me know if you come up with any good flavor combinations.

My go to Breakfast and sometimes Lunch

Just wanted to pop in and share what has been my go to breakfast and sometimes lunch (when I am in a hurry) lately. I know I am not reinventing the wheel and that this is something that a lot of people probably eat but one morning I found myself bored with the same old oatmeal I was eating for breakfast and began to look for something else that I could eat that would be a good balance of both protein and carbs. I decided on a yogurt parfait. I used Greek yogurt as my base which I have heard from a lot of you is not your favorite. Yes it is sour I agree with you and plain it is not something I can eat but I always sweeten mine with a little bit of stevia and some vanilla which makes it great in my opinion. Before you say yuck to Greek yogurt, have you tried to sweeten it up and add a little flavor? Try it you might like it.

Yogurt Parfait
3/4 cup non fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup high fiber cereal (I used a grape-nut type cereal)
2 strawberries
1/4 banana
stevia (to taste)
vanilla (to taste)

Method

Start by sweetening and flavoring your yogurt with vanilla and stevia. I don't put an amount because everyone likes things at a different sweetness level. If I want to change the flavor, say if I am using raspberries instead of the strawberries, I will sometimes add a little lemon juice and lemon zest instead of the vanilla to make a lemon flavored yogurt.

Cut up your berries and banana

You will then start layering your yogurt, high fiber cereal, berries and banana.

When you have used all of your ingredients, your parfait is done. Enjoy!

Note: I am aware that the blueprint for breakfast is 1 protein and 1 slow carb or slow fruit. 1 serving of a high fiber cereal is 1 cup and I only used 1/4 cup along with what ends up being about 1/2 cup of fruit which is only 1/2 of a serving. So all together I am getting about what is allowed in the blueprint but if you don't feel comfortable with that, go with one or the other. Use all fruit and leave out the cereal or use all cereal and leave out the fruit.

Pumpkin Spice Quinoa Granola

I have been on a quinoa kick lately. I have been buying quinoa in the bulk section at the grocery store lately and it is so cheap, something like $3.50 a pound. A pound of quinoa goes a long way so it is very economical which is a plus because health food can be expensive. I was researching quinoa recipes the other day and it said that a lot of people eat it at breakfast as a hot cereal, like oatmeal which has intrigued me but I have yet to try it. I also found lots of recipes for homemade granola that use quinoa but many of them have lots of sugar, syrup, dried fruit, nuts, and tons of oil. It got me thinking, I wonder if I could make it without the oil, fruit, nuts etc. which would make it more PINK friendly. I worked off a basic recipe that was close to being PINK friendly which can be found at Clean Eating Chelsey and tweaked it to make it my own and more PINK friendly.

So where does this fit into the PINK meal plan? I ate this for breakfast and counted it as my slow carb. For the protein I added in some greek yogurt. I also counted 1/3 cup as  a serving of slow carb because in the PINK method book it states that 1/2 cup cooked quinoa is a serving, When it bakes down and crunches up, it does shrink a bit so that was my best estimate as to how much a serving is. I approximate I will get 5- 1/3 cup servings from this recipe.

Pumpkin Spice Quinoa Granola
3/4 cup quinoa
1/2 cup quinoa flakes (could sub old fashion oats)
4 medjool dates chopped into a paste
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
3 tbsp chia seeds (could use flax seeds or leave them out)
1/4 almond milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 cups water

Method

Start by cooking your quinoa in the water along with the cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. It will take about 15 minutes for the quinoa to soften and the liquid to be absorbed/evaporate.

While the quinoa is cooking, pit your dates and chop them into a paste using your blender or food processor. If you don't have dates, you could use stevia, they are really only there to add sweetness.

Add your pumpkin puree to your dates, if you don't have pumpkin, I bet smashed bananas would work well also.

Add in the chia seeds and almond milk, vanilla and stir everything together, making sure the date paste is mixed in so there are no large clumps of dates

When the quinoa is done, add it to your pumpkin mixture and stir to combine

Add in your quinoa flakes or oats if you prefer and stir to combine

You should be left with a gooey sticky mess

Spread the quinoa pumpkin mixture out on a cookie sheet that is lined with a sil-pat (silicone baking sheet) or parchment paper

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes

After 15 minutes of cooking, take out of the oven and break up the mixture into clumps using a spatula

Return to the oven for 15 minutes and stir again. Continue this process until the granola has gotten crunchy, mine took about 1 hour or so. As it cooks the granola  will darken. It will also get slightly crunchier as it cools so be sure that you don't over back the granola or else it will have a burnt taste.

Eat with some Greek yogurt or some almond milk, like you would cereal, however this is not an overly sweet granola like some granola . Feel free to add in nuts and dried fruit if you like just be careful because those items up the calories of this granola quickly and dried fruit really does contain a lot of sugar, especially the kind you find in the store. I also am not a PINK expert but I am not sure how PINK friendly those items would be, that is why I left mine fairly plain.

Enjoy!

Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal

I know I have posted baked oatmeal before and I am sure most of you probably have already thought about tweaking it to make different flavors but it dawned on me the other day to try and make a carrot cake version. I finally had some time this morning to do just that and the results were good. A word of warning though, if you make this expecting carrot cake in the traditional sense you will be disappointed. While it contains the flavors of carrot cake, it is not really sweet like carrot cake is. You could add in other things to make it more carrot cake like such as raisins and walnuts if you wanted. I chose not to because I wasn't sure that raisins or walnuts are PINK approved, not to mention I am very allergic to walnuts so they wouldn't go in anyway. I also thought of using some crushed pineapple but again it is not listed on the approved list of slow fruit so I didn't use pineapple but I bet that would be good also.

Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal 
2 1/2 cups Old fashion oats
2 cups almond or coconut milk
2 eggs
2 under ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla extract
Stevia to your liking of sweetness


Optional topping
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla
stevia to sweeten


Method

Mash bananas

Add in grated carrots to banana and stir to combine

Add in eggs, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and baking powder and stevia

Whisk in milk to the egg mixture

Add in oats, stir to combine

Using a 1/2 cup measuring spoon fill your muffin pan. You should get 12 oatmeal muffins with this recipe

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until the oatmeal has set


These can be eaten hot or cold, I prefer them warm. I also topped mine with a little vanilla Greek yogurt.


I eat 2 as a serving, they freeze really well so make a bunch up when you have some free time and your breakfast during the week will be easy peesy!

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Vegi Frittata

What a trying week I have had. We all have them and I will live through it but boy oh boy. All three of my kids have had their own separate issues this week that are wearing on me. Let's just say being a parent is difficult sometimes and leave it at that. When life gets stressful it makes it difficult to stick to healthy eating. Let me tell you it took all my power not to order take out for dinner tonight, it was just one of those days where the kids got home from school and all hell broke loose and before I knew it it was 7:00 and I hadn't even thought about dinner. Instead of ordering take out, I chose to throw together a quick frittata, which is really just a crust-less quiche. This could also be made reset friendly, if you left out the sweet potato. It would be less substantial and more like an omelet but still something that could be made ahead.

Sweet Potato Vegi Frittata (serves 2)
1 medium sweet potato
2 whole eggs
2 egg whites
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp sea salt or Bragg's
1 tsp Original Mrs. Dash
2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
Assorted Chopped vegetables

Method

Slice sweet potato into thin slices.  Remember that a serving of sweet potato is 1 medium sweet potato  which should be about the size of your fist. Mine is slightly larger which is okay since this will make two servings. I just sliced mine up using my Saladacco on the thick setting. I know it looks like there is a ton of potato in the pan but the Saladacco cuts the potato into very thin curly slices that are fun but it really isn't necessary for the recipe, just slice them with a knife, a mandolin, a food processor, any of those will work.

Pile the sweet potato into the pan, I used a pie pan but and 8 x 8 would work also.

Chop your favorite vegetables and add them to the pan, I used spinach, onion, zucchini, assorted bell peppers, and mushroom, but use what you like. Don't be afraid to pile them in either, they will shrink down as they cook.

Crack your eggs, 2 whole eggs 2 eggs whites. I know this is a little more than a serving but I am okay with having a little more protein.

Add in your milk, Dijon, yeast, Mrs. Dash, salt or Braggs to the eggs and mix it up.

Pour over your sweet potato, mix to combine all the ingredients

Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until the egg has set and all the liquid has been absorbed.

Enjoy!

Baked Banana Oatmeal

This is a good one!! For all of you who work and need to get breakfast in a hurry, this is a great baked oatmeal that can be made on your day off and then eaten through out the week. If you divide it into 6 equal portions, your breakfast is covered for the week. That is unless your family likes it, in that case it won't last that long, not that I am speaking from experience of anything.

So first off let me give credit where credit is due. I found this recipe on a great blog called Budget Bytes and while the recipe looks fabulous it wasn't quite P.I.N.K approved so I set to work PINKifying it. Here is what I came up with.

Baked Banana Oatmeal


2 1/2 cups Old fashion oats
2 cups almond or coconut milk
2 eggs
2 under ripe bananas
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla extract
Stevia to your liking of sweetness

So before we get to making the oatmeal, let's talk a bit about how PINK friendly this is. So the blueprint for PINK Primary tells you, you can eat 1 serving of a low calorie protein and 1 serving of a  slow carb or a slow fruit for breakfast. Here is how I work it out in my mind. My oats are my serving of a slow carb and one serving is a half a cup to which I am putting in 5 servings of oats but getting 6 servings out of the dish so adding in the banana I feel is okay for me to get in that other serving of a slow fruit plus some. I know that I am over on the slow fruit but I hardly eat mine at lunch so I feel fine with it. The same goes with the protein, the milk counts as a protein along with the eggs but 1 cup of milk is a serving of milk and 1 egg is a serving so technically this recipe has 4 servings of protein but again will make six servings.

Argue with me if you want that I am not following the PINK eating method to a T. For me I feel it is fine, make your decision based on your needs. Also on PINK we don't count calories but I am always interested and keep a little mental running tally of what I eat through out the day, albeit imperfect I know. So here is how I figured out the calories/nutritional content. Keep in mind the recipe list the total ingredients, the tool I used takes the total calories divides it by the number of servings to come up with the calories listed. No 2 1/2 cups of oats is not 125 calories, it is more like 750 calories but divided by 6 is 125, you get how I came to the calories? If anyone is interested I use the calorie count website, under new recipes you can put your ingredients and it will analyze it for you. Pretty cool huh?

(per serving)

Cals

Gr.

2 1/2 cups old

 fashioned oats

125

A

2

cups

 unsweetened

 vanilla almond breeze

13

A

2

eggs

21

B+

2

bananas

35

A

1/2 

tsp

baking powder

0

B+

1/2 

tspbaking soda

0

1/2

tsp

cinnamon

0

A-

 

1/2

tsp pumpkin pie spice

0

B+

1

tsp

 vanilla extract

2

B

1

stevia

0

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 169 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories  198 Calories from Fat  46

% Daily Value*

Total Fat  5.1g 8%

Saturated Fat  0.9g 5%

Trans Fat  0.0g

Cholesterol  62mg 21%

Sodium  185mg 8%

Total Carbohydrates  32.8g 11%

Dietary Fiber  4.8g 19%

Sugars  5.0g

Protein  6.8g

Vitamin A 5% • Vitamin C 6% Calcium 10% • Iron 12%

Nutrition Grade B-

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

How to make baked oatmeal

Mash your bananas

Add your egg, vanilla extract, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt to the mashed banana and stir to incorporate.

Whisk in your almond or coconut milk, I used unsweetened almond milk.

Add your oats and stir to incorporate.

Pour into a glass 8 x 8 pan that has been sprayed with a little oil

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Divide your baked oatmeal up into 6 equal servings and know that you are set for the week when it comes to breakfast.