Jar of oatmeal

Today I felt like I had gotten punched in the head when it was time to wake up. I still kind of feel like that - put together the 93 degree heat yesterday with my intense sunburn and I feel like every ounce of strength has been sucked from my body. This sucks because today starts summer shape up by Gina over at the Fitnessista. My workouts have been totally crappy lately so I am looking forward to doing some different stuff to break out of this rut. I tried her spring abs workout Saturday AM and it was intense! Nice and short and intense. I hate hanging around the gym forever! Unless I am avoiding something - like work - then I will stay all day.

But seeing as my dissertation is due to my committee in EXACTLY ONE MONTH I don't have time to avoid writing.... crap I should stop blogging about breakfast and get my life together.

Anyway - I love the idea of oats in a jar. Kath does them a lot - and given my extreme love of peanut butter they definitely help me get out of bed in the morning.



Monday Oats
Almost empty reduced fat peanut butter jar
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 tsp chia seeds
1/2 large banana chopped
shake cinnamon
shake splenda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cup fat free plain greek yogurt

Mix everything together in the jar and leave it overnight. Easy enough, right?

Umm yum. So filling. So good. Serve with a side of 5 cups of coffee for hallucinogenic purposes. (Weird science - give me that PhD instead).

Ok I'm going to digest, write some dissertation crap, and head to the gym for Summer WO number 1. Yay!

Egg-y breakfast

Today I am refining my talk for my final post doc interview. I'm being flown up north to a very prominent university tomorrow. I am so nervous! I leave tomorrow afternoon and get in really late - in fact the guy who booked my flight gave me a 5 hour layover in Atlanta (one of my least favorite airports). Hopefully I can get an earlier flight out of there, because I will be in a BIG city and don't really want to be arriving at my hotel at midnight.

Thursday I meet with the department in the AM, have lunch with a current post doc and accompany her on grand rounds - which is immediately followed by an hour long talk by yours truly about my work. That is the only thing that's really making me nervous- I'm a pretty good public speaker, and I've spoken in front of all types of people, but never for an interview! Ah. After my talk I spend the rest of the day meeting with the lab staff I would be working with, so hopefully it all pans out and we know for certain where we are living next year.

Today I plan on spazzing out over my talk all day - reading old papers of my potential mentor - and getting a new outfit later on. To fuel up I started with a simple egg white burrito on a low carb whole wheat tortilla. I love these with salsa verde, a la the Fitnessista. Accompanied by a smoothie of a small banana, 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, 1 cup spinach and 1 cup unsweetened almond milk.



Now to perfect this talk!

Pasta and an Oats Parfait for good meausure

Hey there. I am currently at home blogging. I got a LOT done yesterday in the writing department, so I'm cutting myself some slack (I will write at night and am generally more productive all together when I take my mornings to myself. Just me and my french press Fresh Market espresso. No sharing). I just have to write up a discussion for my third study - and there I go, all three chapters written and done!

My knee has been flaring up again, and I have an appointment with a Sports MD at 2-ish. However, whenever I go get my knee checked out it's like taking in my car. You know what I mean... your car will be making some noise for a week, and when you finally take it in, the noise will NOT present itself and the mechanics can't find anything wrong and everyone thinks you're crazy. Well, I am taking matters into my own hands today by heading to a lunchtime spinning class before my appointment. Spinning REALLY flares my knee up - though it should be zero impact - and my knee ends up swelling up to the size of a grapefruit. A grapefruit that lives on my leg. Well, the doctor today will get a nice swollen knee to look at and I won't waste his time or mine.

When my friend was in town, she pulled out some old magazines to keep herself busy while my husband and I snoozed. I had forgotten all about the February 2010 issue, which is plastered with a beautiful picture of Roasted vegetable linguini. It looked so good, and I had purchased basil for the Strawberry Mango Basil Salsa I saw on How Sweet it Is - so I figured this pasta would be a great way to use it up. The re3cipe was simple and delicious, and made enough for an army. A small portion found its way into mine and my husband lunches both yesterday and today, and there's still more left!



Roasted Vegetable Linguini with Torn Fresh Basil
2 cups sliced shiitake mushrooms
1/2 pound asparagus, sliced into 1.5 inch pieces
1 small onion, chopped (I used a red)
2 Tbsp/ olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 13.5 oz. package linguine (I used Cavatappi)

Preheat over to 450 - toss all of the veggies with the olive oil, minced garlic and pepper flakes. Roast 20 minutes (use a roasting pan, it will be a lot of bulk). Add the cherry tomatoesand roast 10 minutes more. Dump veggies in a bowl while you make the sauce.

Start making the pasta - be sure to save 1/2 cup cooking water for the sauce

Add wine to roating pan, scarping off any browned goodness on the bottom. Let wine reduce by half. Stir 1/2 cup cooking water into wine. Add pasta and veggies to roating pan and let everything co-mingle and get delicious.

I also wanted to talk about my breakfast lately. I have been looking at the pretty picture of Vegan Overnight Oats Parfaits on Oh She Glows for awhile now. I've never made them because I just didn't feel like getting out my food processor in the morning, and I used to eat overnight oats every day and I got sick of them.

Well, I finally made the plunge yesterday with the Cherry Bomb parfait. Wow - I am so glad I did. Seriously - just putting a banana and some frozen cherries into a food processor is like magic. It really does taste like soft serve ice cream. I made Strawberry Banana softserve today- though the picture came out super crappy. This breakfast is a lot to get down, I reduced the serving of oats to 1/4 cup - I don't need to eat lunch until 1. Crazy. Do yourself a favor and try one of these recipes.

Writing and eating tofu burritos

I have really been enjoying writing from home. I've been working at a great pace. Everyone's been teling me that a dissertation progress averages about a page per day. I've been at two/day, so maybe I'll be done twice as fast! And my second manuscript is going through final edits so hopefully I can resubmit soon and get that taken care of also. Yay graduation!


One thing I enjoy about being at home during the day besides being with my puppies....


is cooking breakfast and lunch! Yesterday I made these muy delicioso tofu burritos with a tofu cake that crumbled when I went to slice it. It expired yesterday so I guess thats what happens!

Tofu Burritos (makes 4 burritos)
1/2 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 cake tofu
2 cups spinach
1 tsp curry powder
shake or two of Mrs. Dash or similar salt-free seasoning
Oregano
4 tortillas

Saute onion and garlic until translucent. Add tofu and stir until moisture evaporates, maybe 3-4 minutes. Add curry to turn egg-like color to fool yourself and the rest of the spices. Add spinach and let wilt. Serve on tortillas with salsa and sriracha added to the top! Yum

Blueberry Oatmeal!

Just a quick post describing the awesome breakfast I had this morning. I wolfed it down so quickly I barely remembered to breathe. The original recipe can be found HERE on Chocolate Covered Katie.

My oats this morning:
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup almond milk
1/4 cup silken tofu
1 tsp cinnamon
2 packets splenda
1/2 cup frozen blueberries.

Soak oats and milk overnight. In the morning, cook for about 2 minutes in the microwave. Pour all but blueberries in blender and blend. Microwave frozen blueberries for about 1.5 minutes and add in at the end. Stir up and you are done. It tasted like blueberry cobbler. SO GOOD.

Crustless, Eggless Quiche

Doesn't sound very fun, eh? Well, let me tell you - this quiche tastes GREAT. I couldn't believe how smooth the tofu gets from a whirl in the food processor- it was unreal. I saw the recipe HERE initially, on This is Vegan. The original recipe can be found HERE. I left the sweet potato out because I didn't have one, though I didn't feel I was missing anything!

Garden Quiche:
1 package firm tofu
1 small onion
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 red pepper
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1/4 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. miso
1/2 cup nutritional yeast


Saute Veggies.



Put the rest of the ingredients in food processor and blend.



Fold together and bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Let sit and eat! I had mine with a nice salad with some of my balsamic dressing from yesterday.

Bagel and Lox Breakfast Casserole

My husband has been reminscing of all the "bad-ass food" I used to make when we first got together and I was an omnivore. For our first date I made him chili-rubbed tilapia with mango salsa, roasted peppers with balsamic vinaigrette, sauteed cherry tomatoes in rosemary infused olive oil and chili mashed potatoes (yes, I still remember). His favorite was Chicken marsala- which I loved to make for him because there are only about 3 ingredients involved in the dish. I began to feel bad - so I decided I would make him something as a treat for the week.

He also has a hard time maintaining his weight (he loses very quickly unless he eats quite a bit - the opposite of everybody else on the planet pretty much) so he has been getting skinny, and I make it my personal mission in life to keep him at a healthy weight (he once got down to 133 - oh boy). He loves salmon so I figured I'd throw together a breakfast casserole for the week for him to eat rather than cereal. There were about 20 eggs in my fridge so it helped make a dent in a food I don't even eat. This recipe is not vegan or vegetarian (as I know not everyone is who are reading this!) so though I will not eat it- I feel some of you may enjoy this simple dish that takes care of breakfast for the entire week. This recipe is loosely based on a recipe I found on my whole foods iPhone app:

Ingredients:
5 cups cubed bagels (I bought mini Thomas' bagels)
2 cups spinach leaves
1 container either smoked salmon or nova trimmings (the trimmings are cheap at whole foods)
8 eggs
2 cups whole milk
2 cloves minced garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 tsp sage
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Layer bagels, spinach and salmon in pyrex dish. Mix eggs, garlic, salt, pepper, sage and milk together and pour over other ingredients. Cover with tin foil and bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Take off foil and bake for about 10-15 minutes longer. You want the bagel pieces to look nice and browned. I can't vouch for taste- but it looked pretty good!

Pumpkin Oatmeal... my life is now complete

The other day I remade some banana peanut butter oatmeal, and I happened to add some cinnamon. It reminded me of banana bread, one of my favorite foods. Then I took a trip down gustatory memory lane to the time when I tried to add pumpkin puree to my very favorite banana bread of all time and it ended up COLLAPSING and I was very sad. Then suddenly I decided that I needed to try to make pumpkin oatmeal.

I had a test run yesterday that tasted all right, but today I NAILED IT. This oatmeal was so good I could barely stand it. Thank you CCK, for introducing me to blended oatmeal. This was the best breakfast of my entire life.

Pumpkin oatmeal:
1/4 cup oats
1/2 cup plain almond milk
1/4 cup silken tofu
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/8 cup So Delicious Coconut Creamer
1 shake of cinnamon
1 shake of pumpkin pie spice
1 packet splenda*

Cook oatmeal and milk in microwave for 3 minutes. Add it all to blender (I used my new magic bullet) and blend. I heated mine up in the microwave for a minute so it was nice and warm for fall. Oh. My. God. Try it. You must. Now.




*SPLENDA - yes I use it. Sucralose i is manufactured by the selective chlorination of sucrose (table sugar), which converts three of the hydroxyl groups to chlorides. Basically it's chlorine attached to a sugar ring. Since our bodies cannot process chlorine, the chlorine and sugar passes through the digestive system unaltered, therefore not allowing our bodies to drive calroies from it. I figure there is Chlorine everywhere - water, the POOL, and I am always swallowing it anyhow- so how much could it hurt. Right? It's a personal thing!

Back to school muffins!

Back to school means very little to me (except that I am officially a 5th year student in my program... shudder). I stopped taking classes at the end of my second year of school - and I haven't had a summer break since I was 21. Actually- I technically get no breaks now, but I do manage to take AS MANY AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO SAVE MY SANITY. Caps, aside, the only thing that does affect me is the fact that I have to prepare for lectures. This year- I have new topics, meaning I actually have to create new powerpoint presentations, thus causing me to have to go to lab/work at a decent hour (not noon). Hey, I do human research - sometimes I am working only evenings or on the weekends, so when I don't have that going on, I don' rush in.

Back to school also means that my husband is back at school, teaching high school. That means that he is gone super early- leaving me some quiet time to enjoy my coffee, listen to NPR, and catch up on my non-science related reading (a.g. food-involved reading). This past Sunday I made muffins, strawberry-goji muffins to be exact, to grab on my way out to work, or to enjoy with my morning coffee at home if I have more time. They are very good and VERY low in calories!

The muffin recipe comes from Nava Atlas' The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, which is absolutely one of my favorites. The muffin base is the "basic muffins, seven ways recipe:"

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 Tbsp ground flax seed
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tsp baking soda
1/3 cup natural granulated sugar
1 cup yogurt (I used coconut) or applesauce
2 Tbsp safflower oil
1/3 milk (I used plain soy)

Mix dry ingredients, add wet and stir. For fillings I added 1 cup fresh strawberries and 1/3 cup goji berries.


Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes - makes 12 muffins!




Without fruit, they have 126 calories each - so they are a great snack with my coffee!