Peanut Butter Apple Oatmeal

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You look hungry.  Come on in and have some breakfast.

Apples and Peanut Butter Oatmeal

This is one meal that will stick to your ribs :).

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It’s sugar free and high in protein.  But we don’t have to tell the kids.March Blog photos 026

The apples are cold, sweet and crunchy.March Blog photos 027

The peanut butter oatmeal is warm and creamy.March Blog photos 028

Dairy free?  Perfect.  Gluten Free?  Take a huge bowl.March Blog photos 029

Yes, it’s Fit Mama approved.  No guilt here.

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Apples and Peanut Butter Oatmeal

Prep Time: 1 minute

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 6 minutes

Yield: 1

Serving Size: 1 1/2 cups (all of it)

Calories per serving: 341

Fat per serving: 13g

Apples and Peanut Butter Oatmeal

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup rolled oats (I use quick oats, but you can use any kind. If you are gluten free, be sure to get specially marked gluten free oats.)
  • 1 cup milk (I use almond milk since this is a cooked recipe and can only drink cow's milk when it's raw.)
  • 1 Tbs stevia (I use Aldi's brand of stevia in the raw)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbs peanut flour (Peanut butter will also work. I use peanut flour because it is higher in protein and lower in fat and calories without sacrificing peanut flavor. It is all natural and can be purchased online from Southern Grace Farms.)
  • 1/2 chopped tart apple (I like Fuji, Jonagold, or Braeburn)

Instructions

  1. In a small saucepan whisk together egg, milk and stevia. Stir in rolled oats. Cook and stir over medium high heat until thickened and creamy. Stir a lot so it doesn't burn on the bottom.
  2. Remove from heat and take a few tablespoons of oatmeal and stir the peanut flour in until it is smooth. Then return to the entire batch and stir in. (If you try to stir the peanut flour into the whole batch, you will get powdery clumps that never seem to stir in.)
  3. Roughly chop the apple and sprinkle over the top.

Notes

41g carbs including 9g fiber; 20g protein!; and 48g of calcium 🙂

http://www.groceryshrink.com/peanut-butter-apple-oatmeal/

What’s your favorite breakfast?

The Evil Twin’s Recipe for Orange Cranberry Granola

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You already know I have another blog.  A fitness blog.  Sometimes I feel like a fraud having a fitness blog.  I’m not holding myself up as an example of an amazing fit person.  Just a regular person with a life long weight issue and my journey to beat it.  But sometimes I think people might get the wrong idea if they read it–like I never mess up or eat a muffin at school on Mom’s and Muffins day and then find out that the 3/4 serving was 690 calories!  (Costco and I aren’t friends right now.)

orange Cranberry Granola

I feel like my two blogs are like the pins I see on pinterest or even the articles in a woman’s magazine.  The front cover will read the best headlines:  “How to drop 20 lbs in one week!” and “The best triple chocolate molten lava cake on the planet” right next to it.  On my other blog, you might read about pomegranate salad and over here—ooey gooey cinnamon rolls.  Or Orange Cranberry Granola.

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Challenge #1: I have a freezer full of fresh cranberries that were given to me a year ago after Christmas.  The stores donated them to Harvesters to pass out to the underprivileged.  The underprivileged wouldn’t take them so it was into my freezer or the trash.   I LOVE cranberries, if the recipe has plenty of sugar.  Cranberry muffins, breads, cakes, salads…they are all delicious.  Unfortunately, the sugar part of it doesn’t mesh with my fitness plan so well and the rest of the family won’t eat cranberries.

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Challenge #2:  I feel guilty buying sugary cereal.  It’s so bad for our health and to serve it as the first meal of the day almost seems criminal.  But the kiddoes got used to sprinkling a bit of sweet crunchy cereal onto their plain cheerios or bran flakes and held a revolt when I refused to buy any more.  (I shouldn’t have ever purchased it, but that $.50 sale snookered me.)

Solution for both?  I started to wonder if I put the cranberries into sweet crunchy granola I might have the best of both worlds.  I could use up a few cranberries, and the kids could sprinkle sweet stuff on their cereal.  Only I would know what was in it.  The trouble is, there aren’t any granola recipes on the web that call for fresh cranberries.  What if it didn’t work?  What if I wasted all the nuts?  What if I wasted money?!!  So I had to think about it for a few days .

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Then I remembered the joke Darren and I had when I first started this blog.  I would try a LOT of new ideas and recipes that didn’t work.  We decided my subtitle should be:  Wasting my money so you don’t have to waste yours.   It made me feel a little better, lol.

So I decided to save all of you from wasting your money and try making granola with fresh cranberries and it was AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!  Crunchy, sweet, clumpy–everything granola should be.  Now, I have to keep telling myself, “It’s for the kids.  It’s not for you!”   I could fill a heaping bowl and cover it with raw milk and mindlessly eat thousands of calories while watching an entire season of Downton Abby and not even feel sick.

Here’s the recipe exactly how I made it, and then at the end I will tell you the changes I’d like to try, just to improve the nutrition a bit.

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Orange Cranberry Granola

6 cups old fashioned rolled oats

1 1/2 cups wheat germ (for gluten free, you could try oat bran, flax meal, or chia seeds–the wheat germ helps things clump up, so when subbing ingredients keep that in mind.)

6 Tbs dark brown sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 orange, zested

1 cup almonds, chopped (I measured from the 3lb bag sold at Costco, because they are the best price anywhere.)

1/2 cup pecans, chopped (Also bought from Costco, these are almost twice the price of almonds so I went light.)

1/2 cup sunflower seeds (purchased from a bulk food bin.)

2 cups fresh cranberries (frozen and then roughly chopped while still frozen hard)

1/4 cup white sugar (I think you could do with less or even sub stevia for this.)

3/4 cup honey

1 stick butter, melted

1.  Stir together the cranberries and white sugar.  Set aside

2.  In a large bowl, combine oats, wheat germ, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nuts, cranberries, and orange zest

3.  Melt together honey and butter and bring to a boil for 1 minute.

4.  Pour honey mixture over oat mixture and stir until everything is completely coated.

5.  Spread into greased baking pans.  (I used two large cookie sheets with a lip.  The more spread out it is the crunchier it will get.)

6.  Bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring after every 15 minutes.  Rotate the pans every time you stir.

I started baking mine at 275 degrees, but the extra moisture in the cranberries makes it cook more slowly.  So I upped each baking session to 20 minutes and then added a fourth for 15 minutes.  The pan closer to the heat source got darker than I wanted during that last 15  minutes session and then I found out that it didn’t get as crispy as it will until it was completely cool.  The butter helps with this :).

So next time, I will take out the white sugar completely.  And dust the cranberries with stevia.  And I might take out some of the brown sugar.  It helps the cereal get crunchy and adds a nice flavor, but mine was plenty sweet.  It was deliciously sweet, actually, but sweet enough that I think I can get away with reducing the sugar some and no one would notice.

Also, I wonder if I could use a little less butter and use some of the juice form the orange instead?  There seemed to be plenty of sauce for the amount of stuff I had.  It was perfect enough that I wondered if I could ease up a bit and not miss it.    Also water/juic mixing with wheat germ makes even more clumps.

 

 

Always Ready Oatmeal Muffins

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My friend, Allison Hall, has an amazing recipe for Always Ready Bran Muffins. I tried it this week using rolled oats in place of the bran and they were a hit.

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Always Ready Oat Muffins
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup hot water
3/4 cup brown sugar or raw sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
21/2 cups whole wheat flour (or gluten free flour blend with xanthan gum)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 cups sour milk (or milk with 2 Tbs lemon juice–dairy free milk will work too.)
1 cup white chips or dried fruit

Mix oats and hot water. Let stand 5 minutes to soften oats. In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugar, eggs and molasses. Add oat mixture, soda, salt and flour alternating with milk.  Store in the fridge up to 4 weeks.

To cook: Fill greased muffin tins or cupcake liners 2/3 full (I use an icecream scoop.) Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Makes about 3 dozen.

Cook as many as you need and chill remaining batter for next time.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Apple Pudding–guilt free!

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6 oz mountain high, 2 Tbs peanut flour, 2 Tbs cocoa powder, 1 Tbs stevia, 1 chopped apple

Oops!  This post was supposed to go over to my other blog (centsablyfit.com.)  It’s my breakfast :).  If you haven’t popped over there this is a sampling of what you will get.  Lots of super fast and easy recipes that facilitate fat loss and muscle building.  This one was super delicious!  I love the combo of peanut butter, chocolate and apples.  This one is completely guilt free!

Best Ever Protein Pancakes

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I’ve seen several recipes for these floating around pinterest and decided to try my own version.  They were amazing!  My protein pancakes are different because I used whole eggs, levening, and a little stevia for flavor. Also added a little almond milk to make it easier on my blender. It’s little known that the egg yolk contains almost as much protein as egg whites.  Yes, they have fat and cholesterol, but they also have folate and lots of other vitamins too.  A little fat in the diet is essential for healthy skin, hair, nails and balanced hormone production. And the lecithin in the egg white works with the cholesterol in the yolk to neutralize the negative effects. When God made eggs, He made the perfect food!

The small amount of leavening in this recipe makes the texture just like a regular pancake. My kids gobbled them up.  They even thought they were white flour pancakes–not bad for 100% whole grain.  For my gluten free friends, if you get gluten free rolled oats–these are perfect for you. I have to watch my dairy–lactose makes me miserable, but cottage cheese is cultured enough that it doesn’t bother me. If you have a dairy protein allergy or an egg allergy, then these aren’t for you.

 

Here’s the recipe:

In a blender or food processor combine:

1 cup rolled oats (or quick oats but not instant oats)

3 whole eggs

1 cup 1% cottage cheese

2-4 Tbs milk (I used almond milk) enough to get the blender flowing

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbs stevia blend (I used stevia in the raw.)

Blend on high until a thick batter forms.  If your eggs were bigger than mine, your batter may be thin–but it will thicken upon standing.  Oats soak up a lot of liquid. Cook these on a griddle preheated to 350 degrees.  It makes 9 3-4 inch pancakes.  3 pancakes has 20 grams of protein and 243 calories.  Add 1/2 cup of applesauce or other fruit for a perfect 300 calorie breakfast.

 

Whole Fruit Popsicles

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It’s raging summer here and temperatures are expected over 100 degrees tomorrow and Thursday.  To get ready, we made some whole fruit popsicles.

I peeled whole kiwi (6) and sliced each into 3 pieces.  Inserted a stick (we used craft sticks and no one died or got sick.) and froze them on trays. I also found 6 ripe bananas, that we broke in half and froze too.

Then we melted 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips with 1/2 cup of coconut oil.  To make a really thin chocolate that hardens immediately on the cold fruit.

Then dipped each piece.

As the chocolate got shallower in the cup, we used a spoon to help.

We had just a touch of chocolate leftover and used it to drizzle designs on the finished pops.

Brandon somehow managed to get chocolate all over his white shirt--should have seen that one coming, lol.

The Kiwi popsicles were so cute–but pretty sour. The bananas are by far our favorite. Now I’m wondering…what other fruit can I put a stick in to freeze and dip?

Cinnamon Soft Pretzels

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The Grocery Shrink Plus menus take most of my free time to write these days, but it’s so much fun! The ladies over at our facebook group are amazing and often take pictures of what they cook and share with the rest of us. Last Friday the snack was cinnamon soft pretzels.  Nicole posted this picture on her facebook page:

Baking and photo by Nicole Cotts

Pretty soon she was fielding a bunch of requests for the recipe :).  Nicole, these look fantastic.  Way to go! And for your friends, here’s a printable snapshot of the recipe :).  Click on the photo below to enlarge and print.  As a plus, I took this snapshot from an actual page of the menus so you can get a feel for how they are set up.  If you like it, find out more at the “Menus”tab above.

Smoothie Concentrate

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Smoothies are a great way to get in fruit and veggie servings plus protein. And in the warmer months, this lovely cold thick meal can’t be beat. (I mean, really, it’s like having ice cream for breakfast.)

Now fresh smoothies are easier than ever before, with homemade concentrate.

It’s easier to start with fresh or thawed fruit, since it blends up faster with less wear on the blender.  I used mango chunks from Dollar Tree, ripe bananas, and a can of pineapple in juice.

Blend.

Pour into muffin cups and freeze. (That’s Grants baby finger.  He can’t wait to have some!)

 After a couple of hours, you can unmold them and place in a freezer bag.  To use, mix 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup greek yogurt, and 2 smoothie cups (cut into 4ths) in a blender until smooth.  I like to add my frozen bits a little at a time.  I burned up my motor one time throwing in too much frozen at once.

These smoothie cups are also delicious just eaten plain and would make fantastic popsicles too. Think about the possibilites!  If you like green smoothies, this is a great way to use up all your spinach before it goes bad.

The Twins

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I’ve been haunting craigslist for a china hutch for the dining room. Nothing seemed quite right until I saw a matching pair. I called immediately and found out that the price I thought was “each” was for “both!” But also that they had sold just a few minutes before. Bummer.

I mentioned the bummer a few times over the next few days and Darren urged me to “get over it.” Not long later, I saw the very same cabinets pop up on craigslist again.  The lady that bought them only needed one and was selling the twin.

I took a risk and called her pleading with her to consider selling both.  As it happened a minor crisis that occurred after she bought the cabinets made her a willing seller. So here they both sit in my dining room

The table is a folding church style banquet table and seats 10. It was hiding in the basement when we bought the house. I cleaned it up and bought a rental style table cloth for it from Amazon. It is perfect for us!

The chairs are another craigslist find. They were salvaged from an old restaurant and are really sturdy, but most impotant to me, they match (each other).  They are mission style and the cabinets are French country, but some darling slips covers will have the styles melding in no time.

I’d like to paint the room pale turquoise above the chair rail and white below. Crown molding and higher base boards would be lovely. I’ve seen those things on Craigslist too.

As a side note the menus are coming along swimmingly. We now have a lively facebook group where we can discuss the recipes and make new friends. It’s not too late to sign up for this week’s menu with the mini lesson of artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. And the next week will focus on making and using homemade mixes.  Here’s a picture of the breakfast bars from this morning’s breakfast.