Peanut Butter, Banana, Chocolate Baked Oats, Oh My!

Peanut Butter, Banana, Chocolate Baked Oats

Here's another recipe for my Baked Oats!  I made it a little differently today so I thought I'd share what I did with the oats before I mixed & baked them.

Recipe:
~ 1/2 cup gluten free oats
~ 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
~ dash cinnamon
~ pinch Himalayan sea salt
~ 1T chia seeds
~ 3/4 small banana
~ 1.5T peanut butter
~ 1.5T mini chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients except banana & peanut butter in a bowl.  Pour into an oven safe bowl.  Slice the banana and layer the slices into the oat mixture.  Add the dollop of peanut butter right in the middle of the mixture.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Let cool for about ten minutes before eating.

I like my oats to be somewhat smooth, so I ground them in the food processor.  I do this in big batches (maybe 3-4 cups) and store them in an airtight container in the fridge.   Pulsing the oats in the food processor doesn't make them into a flour (although it's easy to grind them into a flour for something like a mug cake) but rather gives a finer texture in the baked oats when they're ready to eat.

My favorite brand of gluten free rolled oats

Here's what the oats look like in the bag

Here's the oats after pulsing in the food processor

Very Veggie Scramble with Sweet Potatoes Recipe

Very Veggie Scramble with Sweet Potatoes

I like making my Very Veggie Scramble because, well, I'm still not a big fan of eggs and this scramble is great for masking the eggy flavor.  Whatever works, right??

I grabbed the handful of veggies I had on hand for today's scramble.  This time of year it's easy to find prepped sweet potatoes at most grocery stores.  Sometimes I pick these up when I know I can use them quickly and easily in my recipes.  Today was a good day for it because my kids are all home from school.  I couldn't spend too much time doing prep work in the kitchen.

Very Veggie Scramble:

• 2 cage-free eggs
• 1/3 cup chopped bell pepper (I used orange - opt for Organic)
• 1/2 cup chopped white mushrooms
• 1/3 cup chopped vidalia onion
• 1/2 cup chopped broccoli
• 1/2 cup chopped baby spinach (opt for Organic)
• 1T coconut oil
• Spices (I used garlic salt, cumin & Mexican Fiesta seasoning)
• Optional: goat cheese, chopped avocado, chili sauce

Beat eggs in a bowl with your spices, then add all veggies.  Mix to coat veggies evenly.  In a shallow pan over medium heat, add coconut oil and let it warm.  Add your veggie & egg mixture and scramble it until your desired doneness.  I like mine to brown up, so I cook it for several minutes.  Serve hot, sprinkled with goat cheese, avocado, chili sauce or whatever floats your Very Veggie Scramble boat!  I added goat cheese to mine.

Pan Roasted Sweet Potato Cubes:

• 1 and 1/2 cups cubed sweet potato, peeled.  (I bought mine pre-prepped)
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1T coconut oil
• Spices to your liking (optional - I did not use any)

Heat a shallow pan over medium heat and add coconut oil.  Once it melts, add the sweet potato and onion.  Stir to coat evenly and allow it to cook for ten minutes or so.  I covered mine during cooking so it would cook a bit faster.

All veggies - washed, cut & ready to go!

I love this Artisana coconut oil!

Opt for cage-free eggs (and local!) whenever possible

My favorite spices - I use them in everything

I have WAY more veggies than egg in this scramble.

KK approved!

She liked the goat cheese and mushrooms the most

Very Veggie Scramble with Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Batch Meal Prep - Clean Eating

Hey friends!!  I haven't blogged in awhile - yikes!  Summer's here and all of my little princesses are home with me.  It probably goes without saying that my days are pretty busy and these kids are wearing me OUT!  Phew!

Today's post recaps my very first Batch Meal Prep!

6 portioned meals for the rest of this week & weekend

I'll save a lot of what I want to share for another post and keep it simple today.  In short, I am feeling unbalanced and not entirely healthy these days.  My stress levels are a bit higher with my girls home (more fighting, whining, crying, etc) and my adrenal fatigue is wearing on me.  I had been upping my cardio the past few weeks and it really did me in.  It put my adrenals into hibernation for a bit. Therefore, I decided that trying meal prepping & portioning might be in my best interest in order to keep my food intake on track...and also eliminate the stresses of making meals for myself and my kids, three times a day.

After some great inspiration from Instagram and a few Google searches, I came up with a quick (okay, it took me a few hours) and easy plan for the next 4 days or so.  I learned a bit and will plan better and more accordingly next week.  But this works for me right now!

My awesomesauce husband, Josh, picked up 3 organic, hormone-free chicken breasts from The Fresh Market the other day.  I rinsed and patted them dry, laid them on non-stick foil on a baking sheet and sprinkled them with salt-free Mrs. Dash.  Tossed them in the oven and baked at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes.  They were thick, hence the baking duration.

While the chicken was baking, I added a dish with 5 really small sweet potatoes and let those bake for about 50 minutes.  Halfway through the sweet potato baking time, I also put in a baking dish with asparagus.  I left it plain - no oil, no seasonings.  I left that in there for about 25 minutes.

I really liked being able to time out these three foods and use the oven for all of them at the same time.  It reduced energy used, and also cut down on my cooking times.

While the chicken, sweet potatoes and asparagus were in the oven, I steamed 2 heads of broccoli (plain) and a package of pre-washed green beans.  For a snack, I sliced up three bell peppers (yellow, red & orange).  I portioned these out into 6 containers - each had half of a chicken breast (sliced), asparagus, broccoli and sweet potato (some whole, some halved, depending on size).  I left the green beans & peppers in separate containers for snacks or meal additions.

Pictures follow - they show how I portioned everything out.  Hope this is helpful for anyone else who might want to start food prepping & portioning!

So pretty!  Lots of health benefits in different colored produce!

Seasoned chicken, prior to baking

Baked sweet potatoes 

I fully admit that I totally cheated and steamed these right in the bag!

Steamed broccoli

Chicken - after baking

Asparagus - baked plain, no oil or seasoning 

Here's a look at the 6 portions plus green beans & bell peppers

close-up of one of my portioned meals

Shredded Chicken Stuffed Peppers

Hey friends!!  This is part one of a two-part blog post.  I made two separate but awesome foods for dinner tonight (the other one was Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Cream Sauce) and I feel like they deserve their own posts.  Therefore, this is part one...Shredded Chicken Stuffed Peppers.

I visited one of our local farm stores today and picked up three chicken breasts.  I know the chicken is from PA, just a hop, skip & a jump away from MD - and I know that it's humanely raised with no hormones or anti-biotics.  I pretty much always buy my chicken from this particular farm store.

I tossed the chicken in the crockpot and added a mixture of about 1/3 cup of my FAVE chili sauce by Organicville and 1 cup water, then I sprinkled a Mexican spice mix over top.  The chicken cooked on low for about 6 hours and it shredded with just one fork (can't beat that!)

Ingredients:
1 and 1/4 cup shredded chicken
1/3 cup red bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup onion, diced
6-7 lacinato kale leaves, chopped
1T coconut oil
2 large green bell peppers
garlic powder
taco seasoning or Mexican spice mix
Daiya cheese, 3T chopped (or any dairy or non-dairy cheese of your choice)

Heat oven to 425.  Cut the tops off of the green peppers and scoop out the insides (pic 2).  Place in baking dish and bake for about 10 minutes before stuffing (pic 3).  Meanwhile, heat a pan on stove over medium heat and add 1T coconut oil.  Add red pepper and onion (pic 8).  Once those turn translucent, add the chopped kale (pic 9).  Cook for two minutes, then remove from heat.  Mix veggies in a bowl with the chicken and cheese.  Spoon half of the mixture into each green pepper (pic 12).  Put back into oven and cook 10-15 minutes (pic 13).

Let cool and serve with Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Cream Sauce (part 2 of this blog post).

Now - step by step pictures!

1. Organic, fresh bell peppers 

2. Cut off tops & scoop out seeds

3. After pre-baking for ten minutes

8. Red Pepper & onion, sauteed in coconut oil 

9. Sauteed veggies with kale added for final 2 minutes

10. Shredded chicken

11. Daiya Jack - my favorite cheese substitute

12. Before baking

13. After baking

Serve alongside my Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Cream Sauce 

Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Cream Sauce

Here's part 2 of my two-part blog post tonight:  Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Cream Sauce.  My earlier post was for Shredded Chicken Stuffed Green Peppers.  I served these zucchini noodles with the stuffed peppers tonight and they were heavenly!  A great pairing if you ask me.

A friend had posted on Facebook last week that she purchased a spiral cutter for veggies, to make noodles and such.  I have been wanting one for quite some time - well over a year now...so I jumped at the opportunity to get this Paderno spiral slicer on Amazon.  It arrived today and while I had already decided to make my stuffed peppers, how could I not use my brand new kitchen tool?  Just happens I picked up three organic zucchini this morning.

I want to say that while I will totally make raw zucchini noodles (recipes forthcoming), I decided to steam them tonight.  I liked the consistency, but I did really need to drain them.  Zucchini retain a lot of water!

Ingredients:
1 large zucchini
pinch Himalayan sea salt
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
1T coconut oil
2 avocados
1/2 lemon
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 tsp taco or Mexican seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder

I used my spiral cutter to make the zucchini noodles.  I did cut the zucchini in half crosswise to make sure it would stay securely on the cutter (pic 1).  It worked perfectly (pic 2). Toss zucchini noodles with a pinch of sea salt and steam for about 12 minutes.  Remove from steamer and drain well to remove excess water (pic 7).

In blender, add avocados, coconut milk, juice from 1/2 lemon and seasonings.  Blend until desired consistency, adding more coconut milk if you'd like (pic 4).  *Note - I only used half of this sauce for the noodles.  Set the sauce aside and heat a small pan on medium heat.  Add the coconut oil and red peppers.  Sauté for 3-5 minutes (pic 6).  Toss drained noodles, red pepper & sauce together - serve warm.

These noodles can be served with my Shredded Chicken Stuffed Peppers or any other protein dish.  Enjoy!!

1. Half of a raw zucchini, ready for spiral cutting

2. Raw zucchini noodles, before steaming

3. Avocado Cream Sauce ingredients

4. Blended sauce

6. Red peppers, sautéed in coconut oil

7. zucchini noodles, steamed & drained 

8. Serve with Shredded Chicken Stuffed Peppers