Warming Foods

Though it was certainly colder in many other places, Charlottesville was not immune to the polar vortex that swept North America early last week.  I am glad to report that I survived the coldest temperatures I have ever experienced--a mere 7*F or nearly -14*C--with lots of layers and hot foods.

• The Stuffed Cabbage Soup was easy to put together, and practically a whole meal in one pot.  The only downside I experienced was as a single eater, I still have a serving left over a week later.
• Looking to eat a bit lighter these first few weeks of the new year, I tried this Stir Fry with Collards & Mushrooms recipe.  The flavor was quite good, but I don't think my stomach nor palette are big fans of nearly raw collards.  
• Somewhat surprising given the weather, I only had oatmeal for breakfast once this week.   I think I overdid it with this bowl, which I had trouble finishing.
• I dusted off my crockpot to make a batch of vegetarian chili, and then had to come up with some creative ways to finish it off.  The "fries" (oven roasted potatoes) were the end of it, thankfully.

I did my meal planning for the week yesterday, choosing two new recipes to try out and making a grocery list that seems much shorter than usual.  Hopefully that doesn't mean I will run out of food!

Me want cookie!

Yeah, what else is new?

Sunday night, when I probably should have been re-vamping a power point and practicing a presentation, I decided to empty my cupboards instead to make a massive batch of Quaker Oats' Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies. A bold choice that did wonders for my sanity at the time and feelings of accomplishment for the weekend. Unfortunately, I don't have the same positive remarks for the presentation :-/

Most of the ingredients. I can't believe I forgot to feature the oats. Duh.

1 3/4 sticks of butter plus 1 1/4 cups of sugar. We're off to a great start!

Who needs a mixer? Look at that creaminess, achieved with only a mini spatula and a mild arm workout. Next the eggs and vanilla get added.

Once the wet is combined, in goes the dry. 1 1/2 cups of flour and 3 cups of oats. Almost needed a bigger bowl, but somehow managed to get it all mixed with same mini spatula and minimal spillage.

And now the fun part! The original recipe calls for raisins. As if by only adding dried fruit, the nearly 2 sticks of butter at the beginning don't exist. These are cookies, and cookies = dessert, so I added my mix-ins accordingly: semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, shredded coconut (I did go with unsweetened here,) Craisins and pecans.

I used a heaping teaspoon to parcel the dough out onto the cookie sheets and ended up with about 60 cookies.

Although by the time I went to bed, there were only about 55. Quality control is an essential step that I take very seriously.

At least when my less than stellar grade comes back later this week, I will have sufficient sweets to drown my sorrows with.

Red, white and blue!

Happy 4th of July!!

I have been thinking about this patriotic breakfast since Saturday, when I stopped at Paradise Bakery on the way home from work and picked up a dozen cookies to share with dinner guests. In the box, between the snickerdoodles and plain sugar cookie was a sugar cookie all dressed up for the 4th in red, white and blue sprinkles.

Thankfully, there was still a chunk left this morning when I opened the cookie tin. Had I wanted to use a chocolate chip cookie, I would have had no such luck. And when you have a good thing going, why change it? My oats also got a healthy dollop of Greek yogurt, strawberries and blueberries under the cookie crumb dusting.

Plus, I used the red and white bowl and a blue mug!

Delicious cookie crumbles! My mom gives me a bit of a hard time about adding dessert to my breakfast bowl, but I really have been trying to limit it to special occasions recently. Pretty sure Independence Day is a special occasion, and the the perfect one to be an independent, out-of-the-box breakfast eater!

I like to oot, oot, oot...

...Ootmeal in the moornings. I like to uut, uut, uut uutmeal in the muurnings. Hopefully, you get my Raffi reference. If not, you are undoubtedly really confused.

But really, there isn't much simpler in the morning that putting 1/2 cup of oats in a bowl with 1 cup of water and putting in the microwave for 2 minutes. I got on my current oatmeal kick after becoming a regular reader of this fantastic blog. When someone else loves something enough to have page after page of photos of it, it's kind of hard not to get a little excited, or at the very least try some.

Monday morning's bowl with daily cup of joe. Yeah, those are ice cubes on the top. Warm oatmeal and hot coffee are a bit too much on mornings when it's already reached 80 F by 8 AM.

Quaker Oats topped with 1 Tbsp strawberry greek yogurt, blueberries, 1/2 of a peach and some Trader Joe's trail mix granola cereal.

A wonderfully satisfying blend of textures.

T.G.I.F.

And unlike last week, I don't have to work on Saturday! Sunday is another story, but I don't want to get into that here. Oh, the joys of retail.

Because I worked through the weekend last week, this week has seemed kind of long. I had Tuesday off, but Wednesday was a long day and everyone seemed like they were in a rush yesterday, so I am really looking forward to my day off tomorrow.

To get the pre-weekend celebration started before my last shift this week, I made myself an extra fancy bowl of oatmeal this morning. I'm calling it berries-n-cream.

I topped my 1/2 cup of quick cook oats with 1 Tbsp plain yogurt, 4 sliced strawberries, a sprinkle of dried cranberries and some white chocolate chips.

After the photos, I gave it all a big stir with my spoon and dug in. The chocolate chips melt in the hot oatmeal and combine with the yogurt to give the whole bowl a nice creamy taste that is just a little bit sweet.