Carrot Cake Protein Baked Oatmeal

Carrot Cake Protein Baked Oatmeal 

By Emma P(Tiktok)

Makes 4-5 servings.

200g rolled oats

2 bananas

60g soy protein

420ml milk

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp cinnamon

70g grated carrot

40g raisins

pinch of salt

For the top:

150g thick yoghurt + honey + lemon juice 

30g walnuts (optional, I'm not a walnut fan)

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C fan. 

2. In a 9x6 baking dish (line if yours tends to stick), mash the bananas until smooth. Add the oats, soy protein, mixed spice, cinnamon, baking powder, milk, grated carrot and raisins. Stir until everything is fully combined, then smooth the top and clean down the sides,

3. Bake for about 35 minutes, until golden and set in the middle.

4. Meanwhile, mix the yoghurt with a little honey and lemon juice to taste.

5. Once the baked oats are out of the oven, let them cool for 5-10 minutes so the squares hold their shape. Spread over the yoghurt mixture and finish with the chopped walnuts.

6. Slice into portions. Microwave for 1 minute to warm through or enjoy cold for more of an oat-bar vibe. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Smoothie Breakfast

I am trying to follow some of the advice of Peas and Thank you using her Pealightful-Plan.  This is based on the smoothie from the breakfast plan.  Now, you have to excuse the colour since it looks a little green but that might be the spinach.  There are a few new additions to my normal smoothie mix.  I usually use fresh banana, frozen fruit and milk, but this time I added just frozen bananas, unsweetened almond milk, fresh spinach, raw oatmeal, natural peanut butter,  and cocoa powder.  It was delicious, although I decided to add another 1/4 c of oatmeal next time I will try to add it all at the beginning to make sure that it is ground finer then it was.  I was amazed by the smoothie, it was delicious.  I was doing a banana, chocolate, peanut butter flavour and it as thick and delicious.

Good Morning Smoothie

based on Peas and Thank You

1 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk

1-2 cup Frozen Banana

2 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1-2 tbsp Natural Peanut Butter

1-2 handfuls Spinach

1/4-1/2 cup Old Fashioned Oats

1 Place all the ingredients in the blender and wizz it up until it is all blended together and smooth.  

2 Place in a glass and Enjoy!

I'm back

I haven't been posting in the last little while since my life has become very entrenched in studying for an up coming licencing exam.  Plus, my self esteem hit a bump, although, I am not actually sure what that bump was.  I decided that I need to start looking after myself, especially since I have had this stupid cold for almost 2 weeks and I am running out of energy and I ran out of patience last week.  So I started with my breakfast which is the easiest meal to get better but also one that is fairly easy to not have time for.

I bought some vanilla almond milk last week and thought that I would like to substitute that for milk.  Well it so didn't work in my tea, but it worked really well in my oatmeal.  So I vamped up my oatmeal.   

Morning Kick Start Oatmeal

1/3 cup Old Fashioned Oats

2/3 cup Almond Milk

Sprinkle of Cinnamon

0.5 oz (about 10) Almonds, chopped

1 small box  (14g) Raisins

1 tbsp Unsweetened Coconut

Place all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and cook on high 1 1/2 minutes.  Let stand 1 minutes and then enjoy.

Simple but filling.

Recently, I have been truly interested in anything butternut squash relate,  I have made 3 different lasagnas and tonight concoction is a Roasted Butternut Squash, Red Lentil and Chickpea Curry served on a bed of sauteed Kale.

For this Kale I sauteed it in the bacon drippings from the kids breakfast this morning, delicious.

There is nothing better then roasted butternut squash; I knew I was putting it in the curry so I didn't bother to cut it up and that worked well for this application.

Fairly simple curry but still has a whole bunch of flavour.

Although I looks like a pile of kale, this Kale has that something extra with a bit of bacon fat.

Roasted Butternut Squash, Red Lentils and Chickpea Curry

1 Whole Butternut Squash, halved, seeded and roasted at 350 until tender and some what caramelized

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Butter

1/2 large Onion, diced

3 cloves Garlic

Salt to taste

2 tsp Curry Powder (I used a vegetable curry blend)

1 tsp Garam Masala

1 cup Red Lentils

1 L Chicken or Veggie Stock

1 can Chickpeas

-In a heavy bottom pan, heat butter and oil to medium.  Add onion and cook for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and cook another 2-3 minutes.

-Add the spices and cook until fragrant.

-Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until lentil are cooked soft and the chickpeas have a nice texture, about 20 minutes.

-Serve over sauteed Kale.

Oatmeal Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Ladybug wanted make lemon sauce.  Sauce is her favorite thing she wants to make, it is usually a random list of ingredients that she mixes in a bowl.  Instead, I decided that we should make muffins and Ladybug asked for lemon blueberry muffins - score!

I wanted to make a whole wheat muffins so in steps the internet to save me :)  Cooks.com was happy enough to spit out a few choice from which I decided to make Oatmeal n' Wheat Blueberry Muffins and then I made modifications.  I apparently I can't look at a recipe without modifying it.

Oatmeal Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

1 cup Quick Oats

1 1/4 cup Buttermilk or 1tbsp + 3/4tsp of lemon juice and then fill up to 1 1/4cup of milk

1/2 cup Honey

1/4 cup Oil

1 Egg

1/2 tsp Lemon Extract

1 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1 cup Blueberries

*Preheat oven to 375 and grease or line 12 muffin cups.

*Soak oatmeal in the milk for 5 minutes and then add honey, oil,  egg and lemon extract.

*In a small bowl add flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

*Add the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients until just mixed and then add blueberries.

*Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Mummy's helper, she measured out the flour and I didn't even double check it was right, I though about it but didn't :)  As you she did manage to get some on her knee, but overall a fairly mess free exercise.

Here are all the wet ingredients.  I think I need a 3 or 4 cup measuring cup since I really like mixing in it; it make one less bowl to wash.

In the oven.

Don't those look nice.  I opted to grease the pan rather then line it since I still have to grease the cups. If I don't then I lose a lot of muffin to the liner.

They came out really well.  Only one broke coming out of the pan.

Saturday was a Long Day

Preschool Garage and Bake sale today (okay, it was yesterday but it was a long caffeine filled day) I had to return the pans to Crumsby's by 8am so I actually dragged myself out of bed by 7:15 to get a shower and then drop off the pans and pick up the cupcakes which I had left at a friend's place. Then off to the preschool to move, categorize, and price all the junk stuff that everyone had brought in. The picture only shows less then half of the stuff we had, we also had a huge kids section, housewares, knickknacks and probably a dozen bikes. I spent the morning selling and then I deeked off around 12 to get some lunch at the lovely as always Shine Cafe. I got back just in time to help count money and then a quick trip to the bank and another 20min rolling coins and we raised a total of $732.54. Score !!

Here are half of the cupcakes that we baked, the blue bubblegum with gumballs in the front were a great success. We sold all but a dozen of 240 mini cupcakes. Aren't they pretty

I was totally exhausted for some reason so I spent an hour+ in bed watching mindless tv. Jaime BBQ'ed a lovely meal of grilled zucchini, asparagus, mushrooms, potato and BBQ'ed tofu or steak. I had the tofu and it was lovely. No pics, too tired.

After dinner and after all our guests had left I decided to try to make cold oatmeal(I need to figure out a new name something more descriptive, ha ha)

How about:

Steeped Oatmeal

1 cup large flake oatmeal,
1 cup milk,
sprinkle of cinnamon,
handful of nuts,
handful of raisins,

mix together in a bowl and cover.  Leave in the refrigerator overnight and enjoy cold in the morning.


As this was intended to be my Sunday breakfast, I put things that I like since I like my oatmeal less sweet then the kids and with a bit more interesting things in it. Unfortunately, the kids has some of the oatmeal but didn't like it as much as they would have if I had left the raisins and nuts out of it. I thought it was delicious.

I tried to go to bed early but my caffeine filled day left me wired and I was still wide awake at 1am. I gave up at 2 and took some Bach Formula Rescue Remedy to help ease my tension and slow my brain down since I was stressing myself into wakefulness.