Oatmeal Cakes

As a working mom I am always looking for recipes I can eat on the go, particularly in the morning. There has been a lot of cereal consumed these last few months since it is easy and fast in the AM, but it gets boring after awhile and I can't take it with me very easily.

A friend posted a link on Facebook the other night to these oatmeal cakes. (They came from this blog)  I tried them out and they turned out great! Fairly healthy too. Since we only had 3 bananas hanging around, I modified the recipe to make less. I also didn't want 25 of them hanging around.

Ingredients:

Wet-
3 ripe bananas
5 Tbsp agave (or just squirt in as much as you like, that's what I did) you could also use honey
2 cups water
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted (could also use vegetable oil)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry-
3 cups Old Fashioned Oats
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
3 tsp ground flax seed

1. Preheat Oven to 380 degrees.
2. Mix dry and wet ingredients separately. Stir wet very well.
3. Mix wet into dry, stirring very well.
4. Bake for 21 minutes.

They turn out kind of spongy, not hard, which I liked. It made them easier and faster to eat than a granola bar. You can also add in other things you like-raisins, dried cherries, nuts, etc. The sky is the limit with these yummy breakfast cakes!

Happy baking!

Weekend Update

Everyone have a good weekend? I know we did. We pretty much did nothing. It was great.

The last two weeks have been insanely hectic for us. C had a lot going on at work that was due March 1 and between doctor appointments, physical therapy and baby classes my afternoons and evenings have been just packed. By the time I get home I have just enough energy to let the dog out and feed her before I crash on the couch. So needless to say, this past weekend was a welcome respite.

Thursday night I was home and while browsing the internet I found a new granola recipe and decided to try it out. It is SO GOOD. I've noticed that with the vegan recipes I have tried there is a lot of cinnamon and other ingredients used that I get tired of quickly. What drew me to this non-vegan one is that it uses peanut butter and boy does that make a difference if you are a peanut butter lover! This granola has been my savior the last few days since I am more hungry and need to snack more at work. I keep a baggie of it on my desk and go to town when I'm suddenly hungry out of the blue.

Friday I had the big glucola test to see if I have gestational diabetes. I didn't eat much during the day, I tried to stay away from carbs and sweet items because they can throw the test and then you have to take the 3 hour test. Blah. My efforts paid off because I found out yesterday that I passed! So I don't have GD and I don't have to take the 3 hour test! If you don't know, the first one is a one hour test. It wasn't too bad, I went in and went straight back to the lab and drank the sugary drink. It didn't taste as bad as people make it out to be-I opted for fruit punch since I like that better than orange- but it did get a bit long in the tooth by the end. You have to drink it in 5 minutes or less so at least it's fast. After that I went and had my regular doctor appointment which lasted about 30 minutes so I had 30 more minutes to kill before I went back to the lab. It really wasn't that bad...until later.

I celebrated the good news yesterday with a cupcake from Frostings! Makes sense, right?

I learned my lesson. If I ever do this again, I am taking the glucola test at 8AM. I took it at 1:30PM this time and I was still wide awake at 1AM. It seriously felt like I had drank about 2 highly concentrated Red Bulls, and I don't drink that stuff. I cannot remember the last time I even saw those wee hours in the morning. I tried to go to bed but my mind was racing so I went downstairs and laid on the couch and watched TV till I feel asleep about quarter to 2 in the morning. I woke up at 2:30AM and was able to go up to bed but I was up again by 7AM, vigorously deep cleaning the kitchen. I was all out of sorts all day and so was my baby. He was rolling, flipping and kicking like I've never felt before. I crashed hard on Saturday night to say the least.

BABY UPDATE! My doctor measured my uterus with a tape measure and said I was about 31cm. These are supposed to coincide with whatever week you are and I am only 29 weeks. Excited I asked if this changed my due date and she said, "No it just means you're having a big baby." Great. I guess that's what I get for marrying a guy who wears size 13 shoes. Might get one more ultrasound to find out just how big he is and I hope that if he is a beast they take him out early. I'm seriously ALL baby, which is great since I haven't been exercising and I eat whatever I want, but my stomach aches constantly and little man is always sticking a body part out or pushing somewhere that is not comfortable. It's like he is already out of room and I really don't know where else he is going to go except straight out.

RECIPE! (not even really a recipe but you know...)
For dinner Saturday I tried making calzones I had seen on Pinterest. All you do is roll out a pizza crust (I got the kind that comes in a rolled up dough form, don't use frozen) and put a little sauce and your toppings in the middle. Then slice the side so they look like ribbons and fold them over your toppings. They turned out REALLY good and we had enough toppings left over to have them again.

Cheesy goodness!

Sunday we went to Lowe's and ordered a shed. My husband likes fixing and building things, so we have a lot of power tools in the garage. The garage has been a sore point for us for awhile because we always have something to put out there or something we need to fix out there and there is never any room. The shed will be a huge help because we can store some stuff in there that we don't use all the time and finally have a garage again. I'm actually pretty excited even though it's more for him than me.

And so begins another busy week!

Cocoa Steel Cut Oats

Awhile ago I discovered steel cut oats while checking out the recipes over at Oh She Glows. I tried it out and enjoyed them, although I think they take a little getting used to since their flavor seems a little different than that of good old rolled oats. I used about half of my bag and they've been in the pantry ever since.

Then the other week I read about 10 different pregnancy "super foods" that are really great for your growing baby. One of these was oatmeal.

This past weekend I was lamenting over not being able to run any of the fun, upcoming races that i usually do this time of year, so I pulled out one of the Runner's World magazines I haven't read in about 5 months now (since I haven't been running, I haven't been reading...) and came across this recipe for steel cut oats. This recipe seemed (and was) a LOT more simple than the ones I've seen at OSG. So I tried it out.

Although it kind of looks like gruel, it was tastey. I had to add a little sugar on top to make it sweeter (I grew up putting sugar on oatmeal) and from there I was good to go. Plus I was all proud of myself for feeding my child something healthy.

I actually made less than the recipe called for, and of course, changed a few things to make it my own. I've been eating less lately, it doesn't take much to fill me up, and when I was done cooking I had enough for about 3 breakfasts. I wouldn't keep this hanging around for too long, eat it within a few days of making it.

Cocoa Steel Cut Oats

1 cup steel cut oats
1 cup water
1 cup milk

-boil these 3 in a pot, simmer 15 minutes

1 mashed banana
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 cup water

-mix in these 4 and cook for 10 minutes

Sprinkle sugar on top if you like your's sweeter :-)

I Love You Cupcakes

While at work today I decided I needed to make cupcakes. One way to tell my husband, "I love you" is with white cake with chocolate icing, it is his favorite. Cupcakes needed to be made today.

I remembered having a box of white cake mix in the pantry so I stopped by the store on the way home and grabbed chocolate icing, eggs and cupcake liners. All set to go, I headed home. Of course the first thing I do when I get home is change into yoga pants, t-shirt and sweatshirt as always. After getting all situated in the clothing department, I headed down to start baking, open the pantry....and no box of cake mix.

Well, crap.

Having changed my clothes, I was not really in the mood to go back up and change and I really didn't want to go back to the grocery store. Being the creative person that I am, I grabbed my iPad and started looking up recipes for cake mix. How hard could it be really? It's just a box of what looks like flour, I got this.

Oh no, I don't got this.

I keep things like flour and sugar in the house, but I do not keep things like dried milk, (wth?) self rising flour, or a sifter. Apparently I need to invest in a sifter.
I randomly started searching vegan recipes because one thing I have learned is that vegans put together a lot of random ingredients and come up with some crazy good food.
I found a recipe that I had most of the ingredients for and just changed a few things to make them white. I have to thank Oh She Glows for this one. Here is her recipe.

This is my version of it.

I Love You Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Dry

• 2 cups + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

Wet

• 1 & 3/4 cup water
• 1/8th cup apple cidar vinegar
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Note: I only used confectioner's sugar because after 1 cup of sugar, I was out of regular sugar. Next time I am going to us 1 and 1/8 cup of regular sugar because they could be a tad sweeter.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl. Mix together the wet ingredients in another. Mix both together with a mixer on low-medium speed until just mixed. Put paper liner in a cupcake pan and bake for about 20 minutes. Be careful not to overbake. They should spring back when you push them gently in the center.

You can also lick the batter right out of the bowl. It's pretty tasty. Remember licking the batter off the spoon as a kid? I used to LOVE doing that, and then my mom got salmonella poisoning once from a raw egg that was in the batter and licking the spoon was banned from our house. I have since been paranoid to lick the spoon that has anything containing raw egg. Nothing to worry about there when it comes to vegan baking!!

I like to tell myself that these delightful cupcakes are extremely healthy and almost fat free. I know I am kidding myself because of the sugar, but they still have to be better than the store bought ones with butter and everything else in them.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Muffins

It's 2012 and I have officially been a runner for 4 years now. My, time does FLY! It's been an awesome four years so I really can't complain. With these 4 years I have also had a subscription to Runner's World for about the same amount of time. This magazine is seriously my saving grace some days. While sitting on the couch I read it and get inspired to lace up and run. It's full of tons of great information and inspiring stories to keep you running.
A few weeks ago I found a recipe for sweet potato muffins. I finally got around to making them the other night and they turned out fantastic! I decided to try my hand at adapting the recipe to make them vegan and it worked out really well. Not sure how "healthy" they are exactly but hey, its a step in the right direction.

Ooooo look at the pretty muffins! yummmm....

Here is the recipe after I made it vegan:

Dry ingredients:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cups sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (I used sea salt cause I had it laying around and it worked well)

Wet ingredients:
1/4 cup Earth Balance (unsalted butter, margarine works too)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 mashed sweet potato
1 flax egg (1 tablespoon ground flax, 4 tablespoons warm water)
1/2 cup almond milk

Heat oven to 375F. Grease muffin tin or use liners. Mix your flax egg and set aside so it can thicken. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in another. Fold the wet into the dry. Fill the muffin tin and bake for about 25 minutes.
I also added pecans to my dry ingredients and sprinkled some brown sugar on top before I threw them in the oven. It really added something to the muffins, but be careful because the brown sugar starts to burn after too long.

Enjoy!