Back to School- Homemade Oatmeal Packs

I loooooove breakfast.

I am very very grumpy without some coffee and breakfast in the mornings.

Now that school is back in and my mornings are a bit more rushed I need to be sure that I have a grab-n-go breakfast handy.

Oatmeal is so awesome. Oats are a whole grain, they're heart healthy, full of fiber, and mmm mmm tasty to boot. I have been making my own oatmeal from the tub for a couple years now and stay far far away from the packets. I have found that there are so many more flavor options if you make it yourself using quick cooking oats, and you can control things like protein, calories and sugar!

Comparing the Nutrition Info, the tub of oats wins!

I've made my own oatmeal packets that I can take to work and either add milk or water, zap in the microwave and eat before I see my first kids in the morning. They're yummy, filling, and so incredibly cheap and easy to make. (the packets, not the kids!) It really just takes 10mins of your time to make enough packs for the week!

I made mine with:

1/2 cups oats

3/4 scoop protein powder-vanilla

2tbs sliced almonds

sweetened shredded coconut- to taste, the more the sweeter

Mix it all up in a ziplock baggie

*this is 1 serving*

I'll add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of milk or water and zap in the microwave for a couple mins and I'm good to go! The flavor options are endless!!!!

I am hoping that life gets less craaaazy by next week- this first week of school so far has just been non-stop!

Dear Followers

Dear New Followers,

Welcome to the Adventures in my Kitchen!!! I am so glad to see that you have clicked that "follow" button, and am super thrilled that some of you are now following me on Pinterest and Instagram, too! I hope you enjoy my little site and we become the bestest of invisible internet friends!

Dear Old Followers,

I am so very grateful to have you, as well!! I hope that you're enjoying the Adventures in my Kitchen and are having plenty of your own adventures! I would love love love to see more of you all on Pinterest and Instagram! Please feel free to head over to the Chronicles of Ruthie Hart where I am part of a giveaway! Go, enter, win! And tell her I sent you ;-)

I am working on some supremely scrumptious stuff, but you're just going to have to wait there on the edge of your seats for a bit longer. In the meantime, please drool over this picture. I poured hot blueberry syrup over angel food cake stuffed with whipped cream for dessert. Mmm, mmm, tasty!

Protein Powered Breakfast Cookies

Short and sweet today, I just really want to share this recipe (and blog) with y'all!

I found Watching What I Eat on Pinterest. I saw the pin for "Peanut butter banana oatmeal breakfast cookies" and, of course, was intrigued. I love that she uses protein powder (something I had been thinking about trying in my breakfast cookies) and that there are still no flours, eggs, or sugars!
I read her comments with reviews, some of them were stellar, some of them were not-so-nice (I've gotten some of those, too) but I still just had to try these babies for myself. Her other recipes looked mouthwatering, so I clicked that "Follow" button and I'm so glad I did.

These cookies are phenomenal!

Make these, you won't regret it.

Peanut Butter Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies
slightly adapted from Watching What I Eat

2 bananas, smashed. (I used two overly ripe bananas I had hanging out in my freezer)
1/3 cup peanut butter- smooooooth and reduced fat
2/3 cup applesauce- unsweetened
1 scoop vanilla protein powder (about 1/3 cup)
2 tsp vanilla ext
1.5 cups Oatmeal
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips- optional but I love them. Antioxidants!

Preheat oven to 350*F.
In a medium bowl, combine smashed bananas, peanut butter, applesauce, and vanilla extract. In a large bowl, mix together Oatmeal, protein powder, and chocolate chips. Mix wet into dry and then pop the dough into the fridge for 10-20mins to let everybody get acquainted. Spoon the dough onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 15-30mins (her recipe says 30, but I made mine pretty small and tested at 15, and they were done).

Disclaimer: I am not advertising these tasties as a "health" food by any means, I am just telling you they are delicious.

Bean Salad

I go back to work next week.
This is week #2 of vacation, and while I knocked out a doozy of a "ToDo" list for last week, this week has started off pretty lazy. Looking forward to my 2 solid weeks of vacay, I thought "this is awesome, I'll get to try the mid-day classes at CG Arena, I'll go every day!"

Uhhh.....that's actually happened once.... and it was not a mid-day class. *SIGH*

I went to try a class called Extreme Dance (extreme!). It was pretty fun, I danced in high school and college so it was a nice change from my regular boxing and spin (which I have not been attending.....shame.) I was not nearly drunk-enough for the hip-hop part of class, but it was really only one song, and by that time I had gotten over the paranoia that everyone was watching me, and realized that everyone was watching themselves.

Anyway, so since I've really just been lounging around for the past couple days, I've realized that my eating habits have totally changed. I'll still have breakfast and coffee, but then it's a crap shoot as to when I eat again. I'll feel a bit hungry and I'll nibble on something but then I get distracted by Pinterest, or an episode of How I Met Your Mother.

This bean salad is once of my somethings to nibble on. It's quick, easy, healthy, and cheeeaapp. Make it to eat for snack, make it to eat as a side dish to an end of summer gathering, make it for breakfast, whatevs! Just make it.

Bean Salad
1 can chick peas (garbanzo beans) drained, rinsed
1 can kidney beans drained, rinsed
1 can black beans drained, rinsed
1/4 medium red onion chopped
1/2-1 bell pepper chopped
1 tbs minced garlic
3-4 tbs lime juice
salt and pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients in a large bowl, refrigerate for a couple hours to let all the flavors get nice and friendly. Serve chilled.

Note: This is kind of the base recipe, my mom and sister have made it with all kinds of additions. Quinoa, cilantro, asparagus and corn are big hits.

Spicy Blueberry Cornbread

When blueberries went on supersale a little while back, I stocked up. I bought Lord knows how many pints, washed them and threw them in my freezer. That way they stay fresh and they're good to just throw in cereal or oatmeal, smoothies, or perhaps some Blueberry Lemonade, or shoot.... my cornbread batter! My spicy cornbread batter!

I normally make a sweet and spicy cornbread when I make it, so I knew this would work- it did. and it is deeeeelicious. I also needed a reason to use my new mini-bundt pan :-)

Spicy Blueberry Cornbread

1 pkg Jiffy cornbread mix

+ 1 egg, 1/3 cup milk

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

3/4 cup frozen blueberries tossed in flour (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom)

Preheat oven to 400*

Mix together the cornbread mix, egg, milk, and red pepper flakes.

Fold in the blueberries tossed in flour.

pour batter into a cupcake tin, or mini-bundt pan- your choice.

Bake at 400* for 15-20mins until top is golden brown.

Blueberry Lemonade and Crazy Dreams

Ever have one of those dreams that just really messes you up? Like, you wake up, go "wtf?" and then it lingers with you, leaving you in a funky weird-dream mood for the rest of the day.

Early Monday morning (okay, it was like 9am, but I'm on 2 weeks vacay, so it was early) I had that dream.

In the dream I was holding a baby. In the dream it was my baby but please know that in real life I have a total of zero biological children, only one fur-baby. So in the dream I'm holding a real baby -my baby- and it's crying because it's hungry. So I go to the kitchen to make it's bottle. I'm trying to get the formula powder in the bottle but I keep spilling it. There's powder everywhere, and it's green.

Screaming baby in my left arm, trying to fix the bottle with my right hand, minty green formula powder all over the counter. THEN some guy walks in the kitchen and says something that makes me feel like he's some kind of maintenance man. He proceeds to open the freezer which swing to hit me in the back/shoulders and is now pressing me into the counter. I am so annoyed. I'm just trying to fix my crying dream baby their minty green bottle!

So I wake up and I'm confused, and a little pissed off at the dream maintenance guy, and I keep thinking that I am a terrible mother. But mostly, I keep wondering..... why was the formula green???

Well, I may not be able to fix my non-existent baby their minty green formula bottle, but I sure can make some blueberry lemonade! This simple recipe is tart and sweet and tays-ty. You win some, you lose some.

Blueberry Lemonade

simple syrup

1 cup blueberries

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup water

combine in a small saucepan, bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 mins. Let cool.

the other goods

1/3-1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (depending on how tart you want it)

filtered water

ice

extra blueberries for garnish

Combine lemon juice, and strained blueberry simple syrup in a large pitcher.

I pushed my blueberry syrup through my hand held ricer, you only want the syrup, not the big blueberry bits.

Add enough water to make 1-2 qts. depending on how strong you want your lemonade. Chill in the fridge. Serve over ice with extra blueberries.

Family Reunion in Pictures of Food

Krekels is a family owned joint, only in the Decatur IL area.

o.m.g.

Ginormous Veggies!

Everything in the pot spaghetti

cheesy goodness

roasted veggies in place of french fries

life is now complete- YUM

alot of this happened. alot.

best combination ever. ev-er.

my cousin decided I could in fact cook after I mixed this up.
in reality, I can chop veggies and toss them around in a bowl.
win.

chewy, gooey, cantstopeatingthem.....

Pizza from Monical's- a once a year thing.

the other pizza from Monical's... okay, twice a year thing....

sweet IL corn

Corn salsa

My uncle is a chef, so there's always a lot of eating going on during family reunions. There are daily trips to wal-mart because there are between 10 and 13 people to feed in my grandmothers house when we're all there! I spent the week after I got home detoxing- surprised?

Giveaway Winner!

THANK YOU to everyone who entered my 100th post giveaway (and also my very first giveaway!)

and WELCOME to my new followers! What I loved about all of your favorite kitchen gadgets was that they're all so simple! Not one of you said your food processor, stand mixer, or personal chef. I guess simple is best!

and the winner is.........

Michelle Jurgens!

Congratulations Michelle! Contact me: susandikeman{at}gmail{dot}com with your shipping address! 

Michelle does not have a blog, but she absolutely should- she has two of the most adorable baby girls and is one awesome Momma!

PS- I recently got Instagram (though I swore I never would...) so while I'm learning how to navigate that, wanna follow me? I like friends.

Username: SusanD86