Meghan's Strawberry, Nanna, Peaches, Blueberry Smooovie

Long-time readers, family, and most friends know that about 3 years ago I had gastric banding surgery. This and a heavily scarred esophagus makes eating very hard sometimes. Therefore, we have a lot of smoothies in the mornings around here. This morning Meghan dictated what would go into our smoothies, and I must say they are FABULOUS!

Ingredients:

• 2 TBSp flaxseed meal, you could use whole flaxseeds, but I bought the meal so I could use it in my baking. I use the flaxseed for fiber not to mention the other health benefits.
• Two scoops of our favorite vanilla soy protein powder.
• 1 cup Almond milk, we use the plain flavored variety.
• 1 frozen banana, I take our bananas that get riper than we prefer peel them, cut them into thirds and keep them in a zip-loc bag in the freezer.
• Hand full of frozen strawberries, blueberries, and sliced peaches. I use frozen fruit in our smoothies instead of ice so we get our fruit and our smoothies do not become watered down as they melt.

1. Combine all ingredients in blender, with liquid on bottom.
2. Blend until all fruit has been blitzed and it looks like a milkshake.
3. *Meghan's direction: serve with cream (whipped cream)

Enjoy!

Hero's Never Fail Method of Overnight Oatmeal

Since MY post on overnight oatmeal was such a flop, I decided to ask Hero how he makes his overnight steel-cut oatmeal. Here is what he said:

1. Follow the directions as far as measurements for the amount of oatmeal you want to cook on the packaging.
2. Boil oatmeal for 1 minute.
3. Remove from heat, cool.
4. Place in fridge overnight.
5. To reheat in the morning place your oatmeal in a microwave safe container--nuke it.
6. Top as desired.

I KNOW this method works, because he does this often so he can have a good breakfast as this momma does not do mornings.

Enjoy!

Crockpot Oatmeal

We can be a finicky bunch. Oatmeal is a favorite breakfast around here, but if given the choice we will pick steel-cut oats every time--hands down! When we first moved to Korea, Hero found a recipe on-line that allowed him to start his oatmeal in the evening, place the pot in the fridge overnight and then finish in the morning after his run so he can have a filling breakfast before going to work.

For months I have been thinking about trying to cook oatmeal over night in the crock pot. Tonight is the night. After trolling the web looking for recipes, I learned the key to oatmeal cooked in the crock pot is the type of oatmeal used. Steel-cut oats reportedly achieve the best results. If you do not have any on hand, wait until you can get some. I promise, once you go steel-cut you will only use rolled oats in a pinch or to bake with.

You will need:

• 1 cup steel-cut oats
• 4 cups water, I have seen some recipes that call for as little as three cups, but we like our oatmeal moist.
• dash of salt

Once you have that it is up to your taste buds to determine what additional ingredients you add. Add dried fruits, nuts, spices...the book is open on this. For tonight's test run I have added the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cup milk for creaminess
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 TBsp butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all your ingredients in the crock pot, cook on low for about 8 hours. 

Enjoy!

Overnight Monkey Bread

I found this recipe on a friend's recipe blog. Go here if you want the recipe.

We made it for our Christmas morning breakfast. It was a hit with the entire family, Emma included. The only thing I did differently from this recipe is, I used a container of store bought cream cheese frosting to frost the monkey bread with. I just put it in the microwave at 30 second intervals until it was the right pouring consistency and then pored over the monkey bread while it was still warm. You really only need about 1/2 the container, but I used it all because I knew I didn't have another purpose for the frosting coming up soon.