witch's cauldron oatmeal

Witch's cauldron oats aka green smoothie oats are the big sister to the green monster smoothie, same basic genetic makeup but a little more grown up. And oh boy, is she a looker - NOT!

This recipe starts with a simple green monster:



Mine included one and a half cups of nonfat milk, half a banana, two handfulls of raw spinach and a half a scoop of chocolate protein powder. Pour into a pan and bring to a boil.



Stir in a cup of oatmeal.



Reduce heat to medium and stir, stir, stir.







Somewhere in the middle of this process, I haphazardly stirred in 2 heaping spoonfulls of nonfat cottage cheese (approx. 1/4 cup). Then I plated it and topped it with peanut butter and a drizzle of maple syrup.





Not for the faint of heart but it sure was tasty!

Witch's Cauldron Oatmeal:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups nonfat milk
• 1/2 banana
• 1 cup raw spinach
• 1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup cottage cheese
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter (optional)
• maple syrup, to taste (optional)

Directions:

Blend milk, banana, spinach and protein powder in a blender. Pour into a pan and bring to a boil. Add oats and cottage cheese, reduce heat to medium and stir continuously, cooking for about 5 minutes until thickened. Add toppings if desired. 

This makes two portions so if you can't find someone brave enough to eat green oats with you, you can always half the recipe or save half for tomorrow (what I did). 

 For those who are curious, here are the stats for one serving:

shredded brussel sprouts salad

I have been on quite the brussel sprouts kick lately! I feel like I missed out on them all my life because they got such a bad rap and I was scared to try them. Now I eat at least a bag a week, I have to put forth effort to eat other vegetables! Truthfully, the reason I haven't blogged more this past week is because I thought you would get sick of seeing roasted brussel sprouts.

Well, as you can imagine, I nearly squealed with joy when I saw the Shredded Sprouts Salad post on How Sweet It Is! A new way to eat brussel sprouts? Yes, please!!!

I started by shredding my sprouts...



Notice anything missing? Like... the blade? Imagine my surprise when nothing happened.



Much better!



You want them shredded, not pulverized!

Then, saute them with olive oil and garlic over medium heat



After they start to brown, add a glug or two of vinegar and a few dashes of salt, cook for a couple minutes more. DONE! Easy, huh?

I had mine with a Trader Joe's chicken burger and an unpictured slice of Matt's Trader Joe's frozen four cheese pizza which I thought was unimpressive, but like they say, even when it's bad, its still pretty good!





Oh ya, and a healthy sprinkle of Romano cheese right over the top. I didn't have any bacon, but I bet it would be amazing with :) Head over to Jessica's blog for the full recipe.

harvest grains blend stuffed green peppers

Tonight, I made a twist on my previous stuffed green peppers recipe. This version featured something new that I picked up at Trader Joe's a few weeks back and have been itching to try.





Harvest Grains Medley!

This medley was so goooooooood :) Although it called for butter, I used a glug of olive oil. I think I may have to buy another package to bring to Thanksgiving in Miami, it was just that good!

While the grains were cooking away, I microwaved two hollowed out green peppers a la Matt's mom to make the cooking process go by faster (I was hangryyyy after a good sweat sesh and yoga). Soon, it was time to make the stuffing.





My stuffing consisted of approximately two cups of cooked Harvest Grains Blend, two heaping spoonfulls of cottage cheese, two heaping spoonfulls of roasted garlic hummus, a small handful of Trader Joe's smoked cheese blend and a few dashes of garlic salt. Somehow I made the EXACT right amount. I placed the two peppers in the oven on a baking dish at 400 degrees for approximately 20 minutes.



I grilled up a piece of Trader Joe's marinated mahi mahi for some added protein.







And all gone...



This was one tasty meal, not to toot my own horn. I like the Trader Joe's smoked cheese blend because it is VERY smokey and therefore a little goes a long way. Otherwise I could just drown myself in cheese. I really could.

Today was listed as a "Strength and Stretch" day in my workout plan. For the strength portion I did three rounds of The Fitnessista's latest bootcamp using the new free weights Matt picked up for me the other day.



I used the 5 pounders the whole time and was definitely feeling it the most on the lateral lunges with overhead press and, as usual, burpees were killer!

After I sweated up a storm through the "Strength" part of my workout, Matt and I headed over to the gym where he lifted weights and I took a yoga class. I'm usually pretty unimpressed in general by gym yoga classes (not that I have tried a studio, but still) but this teacher was really amazing! Apparently he even has a Facebook where you can follow him and make requests. Someone had requested hips so, oh boy, did we get our hips stretched out. I felt pretty clumsy and uncoordinated in the yoga class but that just motivates me to work on it more, especially since I left feeling very limber :)

Goodnight, my bleaders (blog readers, I think that's from Julie and Julia)!!

vegan mexican hot chocolate pudding

This post is going to be short and sweet. Pun intended.

It was supposed to be a "vegan 3 ingredient pudding" recipe so here are my three initial ingredients:



I blended a block of firm tofu in the food processor with 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and a couple tablespoons of agave syrup. Afterwards I felt like it needed a little "kick" so I added a tablespoon of maple syrup and a dash of cayenne. Hence, the "Mexican hot chocolate".







This had an interesting texture and taste but it satisfied my sweet tooth and craving for chocolate while still being pretty healthy, for pudding that is.

pumpkin cheesecake parfait

Pretty, no?

I've been seeing parfaits all over the blog world but have never created my own layered concoction. This one started with a simple and healthy recipe for pumpkin cheesecake dip. This is all you need:





Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup non fat cottage cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 1/2 tablespoons agave syrup

Directions:

Put everything in a food processor or blender and give it a whir. 

To make this parfait I crumbled the majority of a graham cracker in the bottom of a clear cup followed by layers of pumpkin cheesecake dip with rolled oats. I topped the last layer of pumpkin cheesecake dip with sunflower seed butter and the remainder of graham cracker.

This was a great fall dish, appealing the eyes and taste buds :) Also, why does pretty food taste better? 

one bag of pasta, two recipes

I cooked one big bag of Trader Joe's brown rice pasta tonight and used it in two fun recipes, a pumpkin macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight and a pasta salad for lunch tomorrow and throughout the week.

Pumpkin Mac N Cheese:
Inspired by this recipe











Rather than follow the linked recipe, I just caught the gist of it and eyeballed it. I emptied out the rest of an already open can of pumpkin into a small pot with some unflavored almond milk. Stirred till heated through and added 3 tablespoons of goat cheese. Once the goat cheese was fully incorporated I turned the heat to low and stirred in a mix of a smoked cheese blend and a shredded sharp cheddar. At the end I added sea salt and a dash of nutmeg and cayenne.

The intense flavor of the smoked cheeses strongly overpowered the pumpkin. While it wasn't the greatest macaroni and cheese, it was definitely the healthiest! :)

Macaroni Green Bean Tuna Pasta Salad

The ingredients:



Oops, forgot one!











Ingredients:

• rest of the package of cooked Trader Joe's brown rice pasta
• package of green beans, steamed in microwave
• can of garbanzo beans
• can of tuna
• a dozen or so kalamata olives, chopped
• Greek salad dressing
• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• goat cheese, to taste
• garlic salt
• paprika

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients together! :)

I love this recipe for an on-the-run lunch. Make it ahead of time and you'll have tasty lunch for a week! I pack it up with some extra dressing to spruce it up next day.

shepherd's pie and chocolate chip cookies

Our latest "thing" in this apartment is to make one "big meal" and use it for leftovers throughout the week. This week's meal came from one of my favorite cookbooks and happens to be a Matt-approved meal, shepherd's pie!













What is it about men and meat and potatoes? Speaking of potatoes, do not put your potato peels down your garbage disposal. It turns into a starchy mush causing the whole thing to clog. And, as they say, "you learn something new every day" and this was my "something new" for today! Of course, this was learned the hard way... After some tears (mine) and a bottle of Drano interspersed with some plunging action, Matt managed to save the day, the garbage disposal and the need to call the landlord, yayyy! And all in time for a delicious meal :)







I filled my plate half-full of roasted brussel sprouts and broccolini with BBQ sauce and then served myself a hearty portion of shepherd's pie. The brown crust that forms against the side of the stoneware is the best part! This recipe makes a LOT, so Matt and I will have plenty of lunch leftovers :)

And as any hero should be, Matt was rewarded with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (the only kind of cookies he ever requests). I used this recipe that I found on Tastespotting because the cookies in the pictures were fat and fluffy and this recipe did not disappoint!















This is officially my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe to date. I used a tablespoon measure to drop the dough onto the baking sheets and it made 34 cookies exactly, so about 3 dozen depending on how much or how little dough you use. I was glad it made so many given that it took a stick and a half of butter and I'm not too worried about "getting rid" of them, I have a feeling they'll disappear on their own...