Oatmeal, Part 2.

You guys are the best! Thank you for all the responses about oatmeal. I actually made some this morning after my run! Speaking of my run, it was an "eh" kind of run. I did it, but not without a good amount of walking. I was glad when it was over. I added a hill into my run. The hill I've been avoiding since we moved back up here. And I ran up it once and walked up it once. It. Was. Intense. I don't know if it was the hill that made me so tired and "eh", but it wasn't an awesome run. I'll be repeating W6D2 for sure. Not a bad pace for most of the run portion. 2.84 miles completed.

Okay, now onto the oats. I'd like to try Overnight Oats, but I wanted to just try straight up oats first. I was going to do a peanut butter/banana, but I think I tried that before and didn't like it, so I just stuck with a basic cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Gathering Ingredients.

Oats. Skim milk. Cinnamon Almonds. Bowl. Measuring cup. Sugar.

1/2 c. of oats in the bowl.

1/2 c. of milk in the bowl. I added a splash more.

Ready to be nuked!

... And go!

"Mmm, I'm hungry. Let's have a snack!"

Overflowed. Guess I need a bigger bowl next time.

Ready!

"Oooh! Another add-in!"

Cinnamon Almonds. Peanut Butter. Sugar.

Looks pretty good!

But is it going to be good?

Hmm.

... Um...

It's a winner!

I ate about half of it and was satisfied. I'm gonna head out and do some yoga, then probably finish it up depending on if I'm hungry or not. The oats weren't awesome, but there were eatable. I'll definitely be trying it a bunch more times!

On a side note, Wells Fargo called me back this morning while I was out for my run. I tried to call her back when I got in, but I got the answering machine. I left a message, but she hasn't called yet. It's been over an hour. I think I'm going to call once more now. She didn't say any news, just wanted me to call her back. I don't know what to think. I'll keep you posted!

Update: still haven't heard from Wells Fargo, but I am enjoying my cold, leftover oats better than the warm, fresh oats.

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Do you prefer your oats warm or cold?

Oatmeal.

First of all, thank you for all the kind comments on my last post! Each and every one of them made me smile!

Today has been a lazy day, other than my ravishing (is that the right word?) hunger. I feel like I eat something, I'm stuffed, then 20 minutes later, I'm hungry again! What the heck? I didn't have a chance to work out today, so I don't even have the excuse that I burned some extra calories and need to eat them. Sigh.

I was a nice big sister and took my brother's car to get the tires rotated, then I stopped at the store for the pizza crust for dinner. I really need to start making my own. Someday. Now I'm catching up on blogs and doing laundry. We were really overdue in the laundry department, it was pretty bad.

Anywho, today I need some advice from you dear readers. I want to make some oatmeal. A few months ago, I was adding some of the already packages Quaker oatmeal packets into my breakfast routine. They were okay, but didn't fill me. I see people like Kath eating oatmeal almost daily. I want to like oatmeal and make it in all kinds of cool ways, but I just don't know where to start. All different kinds of oats and how to make them. It's a big mess.

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Tell me about your experiences with oats. What kind do you use? How do you cook them? What kinds of add-ins do you add?

Thank you!

weekend update!

1. I tried 2 new foods this weekend: brussel sprouts on Friday, and butternut squash soup yesterday.
-Brussel sprouts were good, I sauteed them in olive oil mixed with onion and garlic. Butternut squash soup was a fail. It took FOREVER to make and we didn't like it. I actually had a breakdown in the middle of cooking it because I filled the food processor too much and it started overflowing and I couldn't figure out how to pour it out. Mr. Skinny came to save the day, thank goodness. After all that work we didn't even like it and threw the whole thing out, not to mention the fact that we weren't eating dinner until close to 7pm and I felt like a terrible wife for feeding my husband so late.

2. We put an offer on that house!
-When we went to see it yesterday it was POURING! And I mean a downpour! The roof wasn't leaking, the water heater was replaced in 2005, the central a/c unit in 2003. Water was running away from the house, and the foundation was not cracked, from what we could see. The house was listed at $76,500 and we offered $75,000, and we're just hoping there aren't any more offers on the house that came in over the weekend. This is the only house in our price range that isn't in need of a complete remodel/renovation.

3. I started getting my summer clothes out!
-I'm leaving for sunny Florida is just 6 short days. I have a lot of stuff to do within those days (homework, cooking for Mr. Skinny, homework, pack, homework, you get the drift), so I pulled my summer clothes out and started packing this past weekend. One good thing is that the clothes I bought in summer 2009 when I lost 20 pounds fit me again! I was so excited, and I'm taking wayyy too many clothes, but that's a girl. I don't exactly know the weather, I want some options while I'm down there, I have to take a lot of clothes! On a side note, I'm glad my Momma doesn't take a lot of clothes, I might have to overflow into her suitcase! :)

4. I'm starting to stress.
-School. Sucks. Correction: Senior Seminar Research sucks. Seriously. I'm doing a paper (15-20 pages) on my paternal grandfather. He was a WWI vet, owned a machine shop, born in 1895 (he was 23 years older than my grandma, creepy, but not my call) and seemed to have an interesting life. I need to have 8 billion sources. Okay, more like 24 or something, and I have to know all the sources by March 24th. Yeah, it sucks. I have an outline, but I can't find the answers to any of my questions. I'm really starting to stress over it. I'm worried I won't find the information I need and I won't be able to write my paper, and I won't be able to graduate! It's on my mind constantly and I don't know what to do about it. I want to work on it, I want to write a paper on it, I'm just nervous it's going to suck. Sigh, I just have to keep working. I'm so nervous I'm not going to enjoy Disney World just because I know I have this to come home to. I don't want to ruin my vacation!

Serious, I rarely, rarely stress. But this is such an important paper and I don't know that I can do it, and it's worrying me so bad.

So yeah, I need to keep myself working on homework this week, and I hope I can enjoy my vacation. Any words of advice or motivation?

How do you deal with stress?

an ode to peanut butter & co.

This is the best stuff ever! I read about it over on ms.bitchcakes' blog and just kind of stuck it in the back of my mind. Well, over new years I was out food shopping with my favoritest cousin the world (yes, favoritest is a word) and while skimming the breads and peanut butters, this guy caught my eye:

Dark Chocolate Dreams

I've been trying to eat "healthier" and trying to cut out the processed foods. A few months ago, I picked up a jar of some sort of organic, all-natural peanut butter. I knew that my Jif wasn't the healthiest kind of peanut butter that I could be eating. So I tried it, and it was NOT my Jif peanut butter. I immediately tossed it and vowed to never cheat on my Jif again. I know I was being wasteful, but I love my Jif. I don't really eat chocolate, unless it's with peanut butter. Peanut butter IS my chocolate.

I gave up on the hunt for a healthier peanut butter, I decided to stick with my Jif. Until I found this baby. Peanut butter and co. is an all natural, vegan peanut butter and it tastes like real peanut butter.

The Dark Chocolate Dream tastes like a Reese's PB Cup - no lie, I would know. Smothered on an apple, or some toast with banana slices, oh man is that delicious. I did more research on Peanut Butter and Co. and they have ten, count them, ten different kinds of peanut butter. Not all of them look to my taste, especially the chunky PB and the spicy PB, but hey, to each their own.

They also have a restaurant in NYC! My mom and I make a few trips to NYC each year and I will be telling her that the next time we go, we are definitely going to this restaurant. Look at the menu! Amazing!

I will be trying a few more different kinds of Peanut Butter & Co. I can't wait to try to White Chocolate, the Maple, and the regular Smooth Old Fashioned PB. I'll keep you posted on how delicious they are!

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What are your most recent food finds? Have you ever tried Peanut Butter & Co.?

new food try: quinoa!

As per my January goals, I vow to try new foods.

I made a list:

-sweet potatoes

-quinoa

-tofu

-polenta

-lentils

I know, my list is pretty short, but it's a start, right? Today's new food on the menu: quinoa. I've heard a lot about this, and I've heard people say that this is the new power food, and it's taking the place of pomegranates which were always the popular power food. Anyways, yes, back to the quinoa. I had trouble finding it at the grocery store. I just shop at Giant Eagle, and we don't have a local Trader Joe's, or Whole Foods, sadly. It was luck that I found the expensive, $5 box of quinoa at the store.

Mr. Skinny was very skeptical about this food. He actually asked me if I had ground up spongebob to try to feed it to him. I would love to tape his response to this food. I was about halfway through my plate before he even touched his. He told me he wasn't hungry, because he was starving on the way home from work and ate his foreman's leftover lunch and all his snacks. Wonderful. Oh well, I told him that when he's hungry tonight he has to eat his leftover stir fry.

Quinoa is cooked just like rice. I wasn't quite sure how it would taste, so I cooked mine in chicken broth just to add a little flavor to it. While the quinoa was cooking, I made some stir-fry veggies that I had lying around. I added some leftover shrimp and soy sauce (of course!). I added some extra green beans, too, since the bag of veggies wasn't a huge amount. It made about 4 servings, and we had a huge plateful. It was pretty impressive.

The quinoa itself was pretty good. I was leary at first, but it was good. Now I have to find more recipes for the quinoa. I made Mr. Skinny taste it, and he was okay with it.

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Who has some great quinoa recipes to share with me? What are some new foods that you tried and now like?