Drink your Oats! 2 more variations of Warm Cream of Oat Pudding

More porridgey pudding goodness! And this time with varying protein sources! You can vary the consistency of your pudding based on your "splash" of milk. If you want to eat with a spoon more like pudding then go with 1-2 Tbsp. If you want to drinkable oatmeal, go for about 1/4 cup.

Please note that I realize I am the blogosphere WORST food photographer. These taste WAY better than my photos! (And yes, this is my really trying to take nice photos! With the tools I have at hand: no natural light, my point and shoot camera and positively no http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifphotography skills.)

Don't miss the original Chocolate Peanut Butter recipe here.

Maple Pecan Cream of Oat Pudding (with egg whites)

1/3 cup oats (either quick or old fashioned, nutritionally they are exactly the same)
1 1/3 cup water
2-3 egg whites
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp chopped pecans
a splash of skim milk

The night before:
Combine oats and water in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute, then stick it in the fridge overnight so the oats soak up the water.

At breakfast:
Take out your bowl of oats and microwave for 2 minutes until the oats get creamy and gloppy, then quickly stir in the egg whites and microwave for another minute. Plop into blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend smooth. Serve warm in a mug or bowl, you're choice!

I left out the stevia because the maple syrup is already sweet enough.

Cinn-a-Spice Cream of Oat Pudding

1/3 cup oats (either quick or old fashioned, nutritionally they are exactly the same)
1 1/3 cup water
1/3 package silken tofu (4 ounces of firm, soft, whatever you have on hand)
1 tsp cinnamon (I like this roasted cinnamon)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp MoreFiber Stevia Baking Blend (or 6-8 drops of liquid stevia)
a splash of skim milk**

The night before:
Combine oats and water in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute, then stick it in the fridge overnight so the oats soak up the water.

At breakfast:
Take out your bowl of oats and microwave for 2-3 minutes until the oats get creamy and gloppy. Plop into blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend smooth. Serve warm in a mug or bowl, you're choice!

** Replace the milk with water and this one is Vegan Cream of Oat Pudding.

Warm Cream of Oat Pudding

I swear, no one else remembers this but me but maybe 6 or 7 years ago Smoothie King used to have hot oat-based smoothies called Heaterz. The manager of the one by my house gave me the ingredient list (for the chocolate peanut butter cup variety, the one I was most addicted to): water, oat bran, peanut butter, non fat milk, Turbinado, chocolate protein blend (egg, soy, & whey) and chocolate whey protein. They also came in Banana Nut, Blueberry Muffin, Cinnamon Oatmeal Raisin, and Coconut. Did I mention I was sort of addicted? They were so tasty! I always had in my mind to try and replicate them but I was nervous that it wouldn't be any good and I'd waste perfectly good oats! (I know, OATS, they're just sooooo expensive, the caviar of breakfast. NOT! Like I couldn't spare 1/3 cup oats on an experiment this important?!) So I took Katie's Voluminous Oats idea and combined it with her idea of adding tofu to oatmeal. I used tofu because I have NEVER had good luck adding protein powder to oats, every time it turns out INEDIBLE! The tofu made it super creamy. I learned all about guar gum and xantham gum from Deb and now I use my little secret ingredient* whenever I blend up a creamy delight.So here it is! My version of the chocolate peanut butter cup Heaterz. And it is DELISH! And so creamy and warm and satisfying! I think I'm going to call it Cream of Oat Pudding though, because Heaterz is kind of a dumb name. Eat it with a spoon, drink it from a mug or with a straw! It's a smoothie, it's a bowl of oats, it's like hot chocolate but more filling!Peanut Butter Chocolate Cream of Oat Pudding

1/3 cup oats (either quick or old fashioned, nutritionally they are exactly the same)
1 1/3 cup water
1/3 package silken tofu (4 ounces of firm, soft, whatever you have on hand)
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 Tbsp natural peanut butter
2 tsp MoreFiber Stevia Baking Blend* (or 6-8 drops of liquid stevia)
a splash of skim milk**

The night before:
Combine oats and water in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute, then stick it in the fridge overnight so the oats soak up the water.

At breakfast:
Take out your bowl of oats and microwave for 2-3 minutes until the oats get creamy and gloppy. Plop into blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend smooth. Serve warm in a mug or bowl, you're choice!

*This is my little smoothie helper, it functions as both sweetener AND the guar gum and xantham gum to make it smoothie-like. But it would be just as tasty with plain stevia (or whatever sweetener you like).

** Replace the milk with water and it's Vegan Cream of Oat Pudding.

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: the whole thang

Calories 310 Calories from Fat 125

Total Fat 13.9g

Saturated Fat 3.1g

Cholesterol 0mg

Sodium 59mg

Total Carbohydrates 35.6g

Dietary Fiber 10g

Sugars 3.5g

Protein 16.0g

Note: For those who don't plan ahead the night before, you CAN just use quick oats, add the amount of water given in the recipe and microwave as instructed but the oats won't be quite as creamy. So no worries if you just can't be bothered to overthink your breakfast. :)

Come back next week for a post with a few more variations! Don't like tofu? One of them is made with egg whites.

Body for Life Wrap-Up

12 weeks is up and my first Body for Life Challenge is coming to an end. I am the exact same weight I started at (168.8), my before and after pictures look exactly the same (I'm sparing you pictures of my in my underwear), but I definitely have increased upper body strength. I'm not yet doing a full chin-up, which was one of my goals but I'm going to keep working on that. I won't be going right into another 12 weeks but there are things I'll be keeping and things I'll be dropping from the program.

Keeping:

small meals throughout the day-I really liked this approach and it seems to be what ALL the articles and websites tell you to do!

protein at each meal-This was a struggle with 6 vegetarian meals a day, but I think it's really helped my muscle retention.

more veggies at each meal, and whole grains-BFL made me focus on the composition of each of those 6 meals so I really concentrated on getting in those whole grains and veggies. Now I'm doing it without even thinking!

increased water intake-This is another thing that almost EVERYONE says is good for you so I'll be keeping up my water bottle habit.

planning meals for the week every Sunday-LOVED pre-planning. No thinking at meals means no bad choices!

weight lifting-I'll definitely be keeping 2-3 days of strength training each week, just not strict BFL style (because those workouts were getting BORING!)

nighttime "snack" meal before bed-I used to live by the "no food after dark" rule. But this experiment proved to me that a bedtime snack (high protein, low fat) will NOT pile on the pounds!

New recipes-I fell in love with several new foods that I never would have tried before BFL (egg white oatmeal, overnight greek yogurt oats, egg muffin cakes)


Not Keeping:

strict limit on cardio-I love my classes at the gym and I missed them terribly. I've already gone back!

SO much protein (especially dairy) at every meal-I'm ok with a protein/carb like beans and soy foods so I'll be a little more relaxed with what I consider acceptable protein.

6 meals- I'm dropping down to 5 per the Game On Diet. I'm keeping my afternoon snack and my bedtime snack!

1 splurge day per week-I put way too much pressure to get it all in. I tended to go overboard, trying to fit in everything that I had wanted that week into one day/meal, leading to horrible food hangovers and that's probably why I weight the exact same, I lost and gained the same 2 pounds for 12 weeks! I'm going to splurge a LITTLE when I want to and not put so much stock in one "cheat" meal.

Scrapbooking Software Giveaway

If you're a scrapbooker (paper or digital), you'll want to check out my review and giveaway blog! I just posted a really awesome giveaway!

Garden structures at Conner Prairie

We visited Conner Prairie a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it! I loved all the gardens best of all, each house in this historic reenactment village has a garden with plants that reflect the owner's heritage and occupation and each one has a different design. There was a four-square garden like mine, as well as more rustic designs and some that were very tidy rows. Some had flowers and herbs as well as vegetables, most of them had a great variety of different items and each had at least a couple of the heritage varieties that they sell seeds for at the gift shop. Next year I want to grow Mouse Melons and ground cherries! I was really taken with this garden structure, which is located in the garden of the loom house. Isn't it a lovely shape?
It's all tied together with twine. I'm sure they have to reconstruct it each year.
I loved how tidy the corners were!
And here are some of their trellises, made in the same fashion. I love twig structures in a garden!

Haircut

See that? I got a rather drastic haircut! It's the shortest hair I've EVER had and I'm loving it! So quick to dry, so fast to fix up with a little bit of pomade! I was going for Gennifer Goodwin but my hair has so much flippy wave that I ended up more Tamsin Greig. Which is fine by me!

This haircut is part of my Fall 2011 Take Back the Year plan! I just made that up but I really am taking back 2011, which has been all sorts of crappy so far. But THIS is going to be my season! I WILL do a chin-up! And the dog and I WILL proceed in competing in Open level obedience! And our family WILL get the trim on our house repainted before it snows!

Here's a before and after side-by-side:


And today I think I'm giving off a distinctly Peter Pan vibe. In a good way, though.