the joy of overnight oats

Baking is becoming a part of my weekend routine.  It’s not that there’s some cause I’m trying to support with a bake sale, or that I’m preparing for a life of domesticity where I keep my husband happy with cookies, or even that I’m disguising some unhealthy relationship with food by making tons of it and pawning it off on my coworkers (tell me you know these people, too!).  The real reason is that I love eating cookies, cake, granola bars, muffins, you name it- but I disagree with how most people, especially food manufacturers, make them. My biggest gripes are the over-representation of refined sugar, refined carbohydrates, preservatives, and crap I can’t pronounce, and the lack of whole grains and healthy fats that can be easily integrated into treats.  So instead of depriving myself the immense joy that can be obtained by eating baked goods, I make them myself.  I do a little research, I spend a little (lot of?) money at Whole Foods, and I give myself some weekend time in the kitchen to insure that my week’s snacking is taken care of.  A lot of the time, I don’t even consider this stuff share-worthy, because I know that most people would take one bite of what I’m calling a “cookie” and be very confused.  Not that it doesn’t taste good, but most of us (myself included) are very accustomed to the nutritionless versions of these things.  My plan is to wean myself slowly, so that one day eating conventional sweets will just be a junk-overload on my system and consuming them will be impossible.  I’ll let you know how that turns out…

Today, I made Karen Morgan’s gluten-free cherry oat bars. They’re a lot like my chewy cherry oat bars, but way easier and with less ingredients.  Mine are sweeter and something I would maybe even peddle as dessert; these are really just a granola bar.  But, at least for me, they satisfy that sweet/carby craving I get after a meal.  Also, I am in love with these videos- I can only find 5 of them but they’re humorously edited and the theme song is damn catchy.

Another trend in my life (because that’s why you read this, to know about trends in my life?) is OVERNIGHT OATMEAL! Caps lock very necessary.  Basically, I can’t currently think of a better breakfast option than oatmeal in terms of ease, simplicity (I always have rolled oats and water, usually nutmilk, and they’re so easy to fancy up with whatever else you have on hand!) and, most importantly, nutrition; basic whole grain, very amenable to the other nutrient-rich stuff you throw in it (fruit, nuts, nut butter, flax!).  I know they can be microwaved, and that even on the stovetop they don’t take very long, but I’ve stumbled upon a way to eat them that I like even better and takes even LESS time.  Allow yourself to consider eating cold oatmeal for a second.  Not cooked oatmeal that’s been sitting out for god-knows-how-long-but-you-eat-it-anyway, but delicious, RAW oats that have been soaking in nutritious nut milk all night, topped with other delicious goodies.  And, the best part is, you do all the work at night, and literally just have to grab the tupperware out of the fridge on the way to work! I think that’s my favorite part and the root of the obsession- the 15 minutes I’ve shaved off my morning routine.

Here’s a basic how-to:

1. Start with 1/4 cup rolled oats.
2. Add 1/2 cup soy, almond, or hemp milk (or regular milk, I suppose- haven’t tried it).
3. Stir in 1 tablespoon ground flax OR chia seeds.
4. Put it all in a sealed tupperware overnight, give it a quick stir in the morning, and enjoy!

Flavor/texture ideas:

• Vanilla or almond extract
• Unsweetened applesauce
• Organic canned pumpkin
• Honey
• Nut butter (you can add this in the morning or at night)
• Fruit! Bananas especially! (add this in the morning)
• Cinammon, nutmeg, cardamom- add these with some pumpkin and you’ve got yourself pumpkin pie for breakfast!

The oats will absorb the liquid and acquire a texture not unlike cooked oats, but a little better in my opinion- less mushy, I guess.  Do NOT omit the flax or chia seeds.  These both absorb liquid, too (chia seeds especially- 10 times their weight!) and help “cook” the oats.  They are also both omega fatty acid superstars, so you should eat them, anyway! Chia seeds turn into gelatinous little blobs, which sounds gross, but isn’t. It’s pretty cool, actually. I promise.

I don’t consider my bowl of oats complete unless it has something a bit sweet (so if I don’t add a banana, I’ll use honey in the mix at night) and some kind of nut butter.  Almond is a great neutral flavor that I found works great with the pumpkin pie flavors, or with applesauce and cinnamon.  Peanut butter is a stronger flavor but I know I don’t have to remind you how awesome it goes with bananas.

Give these a try before it gets too cold and you want hot oatmeal all winter! And maybe carve yourself (pumpkin joke) some time next weekend to do some healthy baking? Here are some of my favorite recipes if you need inspiration:

Trailmix Cookies from 101 Cookbooks
Doughballs from Peas and Thank You
Breakfast Bake from Edible Perspective <–(I turn these into muffins)

the winner

Every once in awhile, I throw a hodge podge of stuff into a pot and hope for the best. It’s never terrible, usually enjoyable to consume, and sometimes, it’s flipping delicious. This one wins. I don’t even know what else to call it besides “the winner.”

The Winner

• 3/4 cup quinoa (cooked with vegetable broth for extra flavor if you want)
• 3 small carrots (they were real small), chopped
• 1/2 large zucchini, chopped
• 3/4 cup green beans, chopped
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 1 cup chickpeas
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• cranberries
• cilantro

1. Cook the quinoa.
2. Sautee the veggies (carrots first, then add the zucchini, and green beans last) and add the curry powder as you cook.
3. Throw everything together- don’t forget the cranberries and lots of cilantro! You won’t regret it.

Winning.

some thoughts on quinoa

Floating island of Uros on Lake Titicaca

Last summer, I spent 11 weeks traveling throughout South America.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if I had been majorly influenced by the traditional cuisine of the countries I visited, and came home with new, exotic eating habits?  For sure.  But it didn’t really happen.  Despite living with locals and trying my best to glean gastronomical knowledge, I have to say that South American fare left me relatively unimpressed.  Some observations: Argentinians eat boatloads of red meat at late hours of the night.  Chileans like their meat, too, and lots of refined carbohydrates (one big bonus: avocado at nearly every meal). Prevalence of stomach bugs in Bolivia drove me to eat a strict diet of Clif bars while I was there.  The one gift Peruvians gave me is quinoa; since it’s a bit of a health food fad in the states, I was already pretty well-versed in the grain.  However, Peruvians eat quinoa in a whole new dimension than Americans do.  I present to you my one South American gastro-takeaway: Quinoa for breakfast.

When you think about it, there’s no good reason that the only whole grain that’s been mainstreamed as an American breakfast food is oatmeal (I guess you could count grits, but corn isn’t exactly a grain).  Oats aren’t inherently any more breakfasty than rice, barley, millet, and least of all, quinoa.  We’ve just arbitrarily assigned them to be our hot cereal breakfast staple when there’s a variety of other whole-grain options to choose from.  And I recommend quinoa.  First of all, it’s so flipping good for you that NASA feeds it to astronauts on space missions.  It’s a complete protein, meaning it contains a balanced set of amino acids; this is super rare for plants, especially grains.  Speaking of protein, a cup of cooked quinoa gives you almost 10 grams.  Tell that to the genius who thinks you need animal products at breakfast.

There’s a caveat.  Like many foodnomena of the past, Americans have found a way to take an amazing discovery, exploit it, and produce it in a way that’s terrible for the world.  People of the Andean region (Peru, northern Chile, and Bolivia mainly) have been enjoying the nutritional benefits of quinoa sustainably for literally thousands of years. “Quinoa” is a Quechua word. Quechua, as in, the language of the Incas, who fed quinoa to their soldiers.  We’re talking old-school here. Now that every yoga-pant wearing Whole Foods shopper is hot for the stuff, the demand for quinoa in the Andes has sky-rocketed.  That’s great if you’re an Andean farmer, because, cool, more people want your quinoa.  But it sucks majorly if you’re a poor, rural-dwelling citizen that now can’t afford to eat the nutritious staple of your ancestors.  It’s fine, though, because the corporate food products of the U.S. are so pervasive that you can probably find highly processed, mass-produced crap for very cheap.  We’ll be over here in America, eating your quinoa.

Sad, ironic, true… and probably confusing.  Like, should I eat quinoa, or what?! Yes, you should, but not by the truckfull.  And more importantly, stop buying processed food products made by big U.S. corporations.  When you do this, you’re voting with your dollar to support the companies that are making our country, and the rest of the world, malnourished.  You have the luxury of making informed decisions about what you eat, but not everyone can be that fortunate.  Little Bolivian children are growing up on white bread and Coke that were produced here.  Part of the reason that I found South American food so underwhelming is that much of the traditional, culture-rich diet has been replaced with our depressing Western one.  Any given day of my travels, I could have more easily eaten McDonald’s than anything culturally or nutritionally significant; this is sadly becoming the way of our world.

Wow, I think I started this post to tell you a new delicious breakfast idea, and have ended it with a miserable rant about the state of our global food system.  Wahmp, wahmp. Sorry ’bout it.  In short, be informed about where your food comes from and what was sacrificed for its production.  Specifically, buy as locally and as in-season as you can.  Don’t support large, multinational food processing giants by buying their products.  Educate yourself! Buy this so you don’t have to guess.  And try this for breakfast:

Breakfast Quinoa
I won’t pretend like this is a “recipe” with “ingredients”… Just cook quinoa like you would normally but sub milk (skim, soy, almond, whatever- I use unsweetened almond) for the liquid. Anything you use to spruce up your oatmeal can be used here, too- I love a little bit of agave for sweetness, some vanilla, and cinnamon.  Fruit, nuts, peanut butter, etc. can add some substance. My Peruvian host family would keep sweetened quinoa in the fridge, then throw it in a blender with milk.  Kind of like Horchata!

The End.

three kale ideas

hipster kale

I’ve been pretty pumped about raw kale recently, and I realized that it’s ALL in the dressing. Here are three super simple ways to dress your kale and make it something you want to eat, instead of something you think you should eat:

Avocado: Combine 1/2 avocado with a bit of olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic salt to taste. Toss with kale (duh).

Crunchy parm: Dress kale with olive oil and lemon juice, then add parmesan cheese and bread crumbs.

Honey lemon: Drizzle honey, olive oil, and some lemon juice on kale and toss.

Then…and this is truly the secret of all three of these ideas…add SUNFLOWER SEEDS. They will not disappoint you.

Enjoy!

watermelon salad

I thought I hated watermelon, but when the CSA box forces me not to be a Wasteful Wendy, I find out all kinds of things about myself. Simple, healthy, sweet and salty summer salad. Enjoy!

Watermelon Salad

• 1/2 small watermelon, cut into pieces
• 1 cucumber, same size pieces as the watermelon
• Maui sweet onion, or green onion, chopped ~1/4 cup
• Feta crumbles
• Fresh mint to taste, chopped

ANDI and some chewy cherry almond bars

Do you know what an ANDI score is? You might have seen signs advertising the concept at Whole Foods recently, as they have adopted this system of “scoring” food to help you make better choices.  ANDI stands for Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, and it is based on the research of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, founder of Eat Right America.  I don’t know much about Dr. Fuhrman, and quite frankly, I think anyone who has a picture of themselves in a lab coat on the masthead of their website should immediately be viewed with skepticism, but ANDI scores make a lot of sense to me.  The score, a number from 0-1000, is determined by the amount of vital nutrients in the food and the calorie content.  Basically, it represents nutritional bang for caloric buck.  Of course, we can’t JUST eat foods with super high ANDI scores, like kale (what a show-off!):

…because then we wouldn’t get enough of things like important fats that obviously have a lot of calories (olive oil’s score is only 9, for instance).  However, you can use ANDI to see that some fats are going to give you more nutrients than others, like avocado versus eggs and cheese, making them a smarter way to spend your fat calories. Here’s a list, courtesy of Eat Right America, of several foods and their scores:

You’ll notice that meat, dairy, and processed foods like white bread go at the very end, which I think is the main take-away of the ANDI system.  It’s so often recommended that we base our diet in plants for a very good reason; they’re dense in the nutrients that we need most.  Dr. Fuhrman preaches a lot about weight loss, and I’m sure that following a nutrient-dense, plant-based program like his is the best way to lose weight if you really need to.  But even if you’re blessed with the metabolism of a 16 year-old cross country runner, or let’s say you ARE a 16 year-old cross country runner, your body/mind/being/self will be better off with a diverse, plant-filled diet.  Thin, fat, old, young- everyone needs what nature has grown to nourish us.

The inspiration for this recipe was two-fold: One, I saw in the bulk goods at Whole Foods that sunflower seeds are the winners of the nut/seed section:

Then, I was watching daytime television (#summervacation) and caught the end of Rachel’s Favorite Food at Home, which I believe is a British show syndicated on public access.  Anyway, Rachel was baking up some chewy apricot bars that had sunflower seeds in them, so I thought, hey, let’s see if we can’t make an even more nutrient-dense version of these with whole-food ingredients!  I used cherries instead of apricots, added some almonds, lessened the sweetener, used brown coconut sugar instead of refined, whole-wheat flour instead of white, and Earth Balance instead of real butter.  I also kiinda over cooked them, so they’re especially chewy, but tasty nonetheless. Hopefully they will be enjoyed on my week-long camping expedition to Colorado for a bluegrass festival, starting early Tuesday a.m.!

Chewy Cherry Almond Oat Bars

• 1 1/3 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup dried, unsweetened coconut
• 1/4 cup spelt or whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 cup vegan margarine, like Earth Balance
• 1/2 cup brown rice syrup
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar or other brown/unrefined sugar
• 1/2 cup dried tart cherries
• 1/4 cup dry roasted almonds, chopped
• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Mix together oats, sunflower seeds, coconut, and flour. Set aside.
3. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter, syrup, and honey together.  Remove from heat, then add almond butter, sugar, and vanilla.
4. Combine the dry ingredients, butter-sugar-syrup mixture, cherries, and almonds.  Mix well.
5. Line a 9×11 pan with parchment paper, or do a grease/flour combo. (I did a really special mix of olive oil spray and flour- not recommended. Goopy mess.) Press mixture into pan evenly.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until edges start to brown.  Don’t over-bake!
7. Let cool for 10 minutes, then cut into squares.  

And just for fun, because they were so flipping cute and I was proud of them, birthday cupcakes for my friend Josh (vanilla cake with homemade, coconut sugar-honey-buttercream frosting):

lunchtime

Just a quick post to brag about the lunch I’m eating right now.  Lunch is usually a really hard meal for me during the school year.  Like most people, I have to pack what I want to eat ahead of time and rarely have time to eat out (which is fine for money/health purposes).  Leftovers are a great idea, and I generally have a lot of them since I only cook for my own little self (wahmp wahmp), so much so that I get sick of whatever I’ve prepared and can’t bring myself to eat it all week.  Sooo…yeah, cry me a river, eating lunch is hard sometimes, the end.  Moral of the story, reason #229,583,482 I’m thankful it’s summer right now, is that I get the luxury of preparing my lunch at home and not having to think ahead.  Here’s what you need to know about this wrap:

• Whole wheat flax tortilla, microwaved for about 10 seconds to soften it up
• Hummus, spread in a thin layer over the tortilla
• Red leaf lettuce- thanks CSA!
• Tomato- woo CSA!
• Maui sweet onion- CSA is the best!
• Apple, sliced very thin- seriously, sign up for a CSA box.
• Avocado
• Queso fresco- a light, salty, crumbly Mexican cheese that I love love love.  You can use it almost anywhere you’d use feta, and it makes a great quesadilla.
• TEMPEH! Let me introduce you if you haven’t already met my Indonesian friend, Tempeh.  Tempeh, like tofu, is a fermented soy product; however, since it retains the soybean in its whole form, it has more protein, fiber, vitamins, and whole-food swagger than tofu.  It’s also a lot firmer and more dense (it usually has other grain, nuts, or veggies incorporated into it), making it a great meat substitute.  Although, I have to say, I’m not one that feels like I have to have something to replace meat in a meal (especially when it’s replaced with something like seitan, which is just wheat gluten and arguably not great for you in mass quantities).  Plants have protein, and I eat plants.  But tempeh does offer some substantial texture in a vegetarian meal that might be mostly mush without it.  It’s also delicious.

tempeh, browned in a pan with a bit of oilve oil. you can eat it raw, too!

 

aaaand lunchtime (I had chips, too).

 

Come to think of it, this could probably be a feasible school-year lunch if I plan ahead and make sure my fridge is stocked with all of the goodies that make it so GOOD. Don’t be a weenie; try tempeh! Happy Friday!

 

prepare to stuff your face

Does anyone’s book club actually read the book and have an intelligent discussion about it? Rather, do anything other than drinking and socializing happen at the meeting? To be fair, this month’s meeting of my book club was to discuss The Hunger Games, so there wasn’t a ton of intellectual subject matter to be thrown around.  “Do you think she’ll end up with Peeta, or Gale?!” “I can’t believe they cast Lenny Kravitz as Cinna in the movie!!” And to our credit, most of the conversation did have something to do with the book; although, we spent more time stuffing our faces with dinner than we did talking.  After you try this recipe, you’ll understand why.

I have to give a shout-out to my sous-chef and co-creator of this dish, Elizabeth Barry Stocksdale, without whom my natural and whole foods path would be much lonelier and lame-feeling.  If I had a dollar for every hyphenated word in that sentence, I could buy an Enchirito from Taco Bell.  But I wouldn’t, because this is way more delicious and at least 8 thousand times better for you.  I won’t try to claim that this isn’t labor intensive, but if you plan ahead, it’s not too bad.  You could probably make it ahead of time, too- it might even make it more delicious.  Hold on to your pants; it’s time for Veggie Enchilada Casserole.

The absolute beauty of this recipe is that it is not a recipe.  More of an idea, really.  You can use any vegetables you want, mix up the layers, spice it differently- the possibilities are endless.  Get creative.  I will say, though, that what seems to really bring it all together is the mix of the heat in either the fire roasted tomatoes or the enchilada sauce if you go spicy, and the sweetness of the sweet potato.  It’s a surefire success.

Veggie Enchilada Casserole

• 1 sweet potato/yam
• 1 zucchini, cubed
• 1 yellow squash, cubed
• 2 ears of corn
• 1 onion
• 1 can fire roasted tomatoes with chiles/chipotle flavor
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• 10-12 small corn tortillas (I used Ezekiel sprouted grain)
• Shredded cheese of your choice
• Avocado, cilantro, and greek yogurt for toppings

1.  Bake your sweet potato at 400 for about 30 minutes, or until it’s tender.  Don’t forget to poke holes!
2. While your tater bakes, cook the rest of your veggies (zucchini, squash, corn, and onion).  For this batch, we grilled the zucchini, squash, and corn, and sauteed the onions (with mushrooms actually- but I’m leaving that out because I hate them.  Feel free to add!).  But really, it doesn’t matter much how you cook the veggies- I think in the past we sauteed everything but the corn.  Canned corn would also work.
   

   squash, zucchini, and sweet potato

   

   cuttin' the corn- thanks Liz!

   

   onions and (blech- I need to expand my horizons, I know) mushrooms

3. Combine all your cooked veggies (chop them into small pieces if you grilled them whole) with beans, tomatoes, and cubed sweet potato.  Basically, you’re making a big mushy veggie hash, so don’t worry if it looks messy.
   

   mmmm, mush.

4. Soak your tortillas in the enchilada sauce, then lay them in the bottom of a large baking dish/roasting pan.
   

   the best.

   

5. Spoon a layer of veggie mush on top of the tortillas.  Maybe throw some cheese on there.  Then add another layer of tortillas.  Repeat this as many times as you want- you could have multiple tortilla layers, or maybe just a top and a bottom! It really doesn’t matter- deliciousness will ensue regardless.
6. End with a tortilla layer, then top with remaining sauce and more cheese.
7. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted inside comes out feeling nice and warm.
8.  Stick it under the broiler to make that cheese bubbly.
9. STUFF YOUR FACE!

This is really, truly remarkably delicious and filling.  I love how simple and adaptable it is.  I personally ensure its crowd-pleasing abilities- even with meat-eaters who think they need meat to feel full.  Oh, and don’t you dare forget to put avocado and greek yogurt on top- I know it sounds weird, but greek yogurt is an amazing sour cream substitute.  You won’t even notice, and you’ll be getting all kinds of pro-biotic goodness and healthy, unprocessed protein.  Hurrah!

getting sick: check!

You’re not supposed to get sick on vacation, right? There has to be a rule about that somewhere. I think it also applies to birthdays, anniversaries, your own wedding, but most importantly, vacation. Granted, this is a real long vacation of which I’m in the midst. And I probably shouldn’t be complaining anyway, because what better do I have to do besides lay in bed, blowing my nose and reading The Hunger Games? Well, guys, I hate to break it to you, but I’ve got a pretty long list of things to do this summer, and getting sick was not one of them. In fact, I have several lists. So you can imagine my dismay when I woke up with a fever and stuffy nose and found myself out of commission, unable to check off any list items that would free up my already free time. Naturally, I went first for the Neti-Pot. It helped a little, as did the zinc supplements and gallons of water and OJ that I downed throughout the day. But I knew that at some point, I was going to have to lean on the old, tried-and-true, comforting home remedy for colds: Soup.

Sinus-Clearing Black Bean Soup

• 1 can black beans (or soaked equivalent)
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1/4 cup salsa
• Seasonings to taste
• Avocado slices
• Cilantro for garnish

Blend the beans with some of the broth in food processor or blender. Combine that with the rest of the broth and salsa in a pot and heat on medium. I added some garlic powder and a pinch of salt. Top with avocado and cilantro garnish, eat, sweat, and enjoy!

My version was preeetty spicy, but that of course depends on the kind and quantity of salsa you use. I think it made my nose run more than it actually cleared anything up, and the sweating just reminded me of the fever I was trying to kick, but it was delicious and gave me something to blog about which IS, I’ll remind you, on my to-do list. Check.

summer sampler

Oh, hello! Welcome back to my sad, abandoned blog.  May 23rd? Seriously, Roellke? Get it together.

Once again, I let my bad habits get the best of me, and the result of that is no blogging for a full month! I fell off the good food wagon hard, and spent the last month stress-eating my way through mountains of chocolate and late-night bowls of cereal. If I’m not updating, you can be sure it’s because I’m eating terribly and ashamed to tell you about it. But it’s summer now.  And I have no job.  Therefore, I have no more excuses.  We’re back in the saddle, folks, so grab your forks and join me for the ride!

There are so many things I could write about, it’s paralyzing trying to get started.  Just like at Applebee’s when you can’t decide between chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, or potato skins, let’s order a little bit of everything (with way less saturated fat): The Sampler Platter.

Item 1: The Fork
First and foremost, this now hangs over my bed.

It’s giant, and random, but not SO random considering how much I think about food, and if you ask me, really awesome.  That is all.

Item 2: Kristin Wartman and MyPlate
It seems like lately I’ve been hearing the same sad story over and over about the sad state of affairs in our country’s food system, about how the unhealthy relationship between our government and food industries has resulted in an unhealthy population of Americans.  Michael Pollan, Jonathan Saffran Foer, Eric Schlosser, Jamie Oliver, half the food blogs I read… they’ll all tell you tales of complicated corruption that have gotten us to where we are today (misinformed and fat).  She doesn’t go into a ton of detail, but Kristin Wartman will give you the run-down on her recent blog post.  It’s a good overview and eye-opener.

http://kristinwartman.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/my-beef-with-myplate/

Item 3: When Mom brings you lemons, make lemonade!
My parents visited this week with roughly 700 pounds of lemons from their tree in tow.  Liz and I filled no less than 5 ice trays with lemon juice to be used in future lemon projects, and were still left with upwards of 30 lemons.  We pureed some strawberries and added them to our first pitcher of summer lemonade (1 part lemon juice, 1 part sugar, 5 parts water).  It doesn’t look like much more than red barf in the picture, but it tasted way better than that.

a fraction of the supply

Item 4: My new favorite oatmeal
I know that oatmeal seems like something not worth taking the time to make yourself on the stove, but you’d be surprised at the junk they slip into those little convenient packets.  Plus, if you make it yourself, you can come up with your own inventive concoctions that are delicious and nutrient dense, like this one!
Cherry Almond Oatmeal

• Rolled oats
• Almond milk
• Cherries- I used fresh, but you could definitely get frozen ones and add them while you’re cooking the oats.
• Almonds
• Almond extract
• Agave

Cook the oats with the almond milk.  I totally make up the proportions here… whatever looks right.  Probably about 1/4 cup oats to 1/3 cup liquid? Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer, stirring frequently.  Stir in a drizzle of agave for sweetness and some almond extract to make it extra almondy!  Pour it into a bowl and top with cherries and chopped almonds.  I could eat a large bucket of this.

That’s all for now, folks.  Keep on me this summer if I lag in posts.  My goal is twice a week! There, I said it! Now I have to do it! Waaah!