K.I.S.S.!

I tried baking a cake last night to bring to my coworkers. It called for 1 cup of oil. I used 1 cup of coconut oil instead of vegetable oil because I wanted it to have coconut flavor.

But I think the recipe is totally flawed! It ended up being such a greasy mess of a cake! Yuck! I realized I need to take a step back and go to the basics: simple, effective, delicious recipes. I have to remember: "K.I.S.S."

Keep

It

Simple

Stupid!!!

So, tonight I decided to make up for it and bake muffins... for the first time ever I actually created a recipe from scratch! My very own! I just threw together stuff I had in my apartment, but it was triggered by the two over-ripe bananas that had been sitting around.

Black-Eye Banana Muffins

Makes 12 muffins.

Nutrition and recipe here.

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 bananas, mashed

1/4 cup raw agave nectar

1/4 fat free yogurt

2 egg whites

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

12 blackberries

3/4 cup slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffin pan with non-stick spray.

Combine flour, oats, baking powder, and cinnamon in a large bowl and set aside.

Mix remaining ingredients except blackberries and almonds until smooth. Gently incorporate the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Spoon batter into each muffin well no more than 1/4 of the way full. Top with a blackberry, followed by remaining batter.

Bake at 350 degrees F until edges are golden, about 18 minutes. NOTE: The toothpick test isn't recommended because the blackberry will mess with the "clean" result! :)

Remove from the oven and keep in the pan for a few minutes before letting them cool on a wire rack.

After making these muffins, I felt really confident. I went for a bike ride and was so motivated and energetic that I decided to attempt making granola yet again! I've tried making granola not once, not twice, but three times in the recent past. Every time... I burned it. :(

But tonight was a success!

I didn't take any photos... maybe I will tomorrow while I enjoy a serving with my breakfast at work. It'll be low-quality (as my camera will be my iPhone!) but we'll see. Anyway, here is the recipe if you want to check it out!

Welcome to My New Kitchen

As I said in a previous blog posts, I moved into a new apartment on the 4th of July weekend. My kitchen is a bit much smaller than my last apartment, but there are benefits: gas range, stainless steel counter top, and more windows (which means better lighting for photos).

So, without further ado...

Welcome!

My workspace!

Yup, it's small. Also, since taking the photo above, I put my microwave to the right of my range... temporarily. I have most of the cabinets full, but I'm waiting on my boyfriend to arrive for me to put most of it away.

See all of my appliances still in boxes? That's because my boyfriend is bringing a 3-tier shelf/cart that I will be using to hold my appliances (including my microwave), as well as other kitchen things.

This will help free up my counter space, which is very little as is! So, until then I will be using hard work (not my Kithchen Aid mxier!) to do my baking, cooking, etc.

I haven't baked anything and haven't even cooked very much at all in the 2 weeks I've lived here. With all of my appliances (except my microwave) and some of my cookware still in boxes, I've been unmotivated to make do with what I have at my disposal thus far. That is... until this afternoon!

First, I had to hunt through my two remaining kitchen boxes to find my mixing bowls, as well as hope when I found them that they were all still in one piece! Luckily they were! Now, it's time to bake!

Mocha Oat Mini-Muffins

Makes approx. 44 mini-muffins.

Nutrition and recipe here.

• 1.25 cups whole wheat flour
• .75 cups rolled oats
• 1/3 cup dutch process cocoa
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 packet Starbucks Via coffee granules
• .5 cup coconut oil
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup light soy milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix all wet ingredients ins a small bowl and add to dry mix.

When combined, fill greased mini-muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake for 10 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove muffins and let them cool on a wire rack.

If you want to make large muffins, bake for about 15 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test.

Fill-You-Up Breakfasts

I've been trying to broaden my breakfast horizons lately. I want to try to stay away from boxed cereals, frozen waffles, and other foods that my lazy self normally enjoys and stick with whole foods. I'm no hippie (or maybe I'm in denial...) but I like cooking from scratch, so why engorge in boxed foods? I need to embrace my creativity... with minimal work, haha! Anyway...

Usually I use my over-ripe bananas to make banana bread; but, honestly, after a while it gets pretty mundane to just make banana bread all the time!

I decided to come up with a random breakfast food a couple of weeks ago using some bananas that were nearing their end.

Banana Pan-Cakes

Makes 6 Cakes

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup ground flax meal

2 ripe bananas

1/2 tsp cinnamon

a spash of soy milk

I mashed up all the ingredients together. It kind of looked like sticky oatmeal cookie batter while tasting like banana bread!

Form them into 6 patties (or however many you want) and brown them in a skillet. For me this was about 5 minutes on each side. Yum!

Next up, I really enjoy the idea of things cooking themselves while I sleep. A while ago I tried to make crock-pot oatmeal and failed miserably. This time I decided to stay away from the heat as to avoid further disappointment.

Maybe this isn't traditional muesli but it tastes good (and is good for you!) and I don't know what else to call it.

Lazy Girl Tropical Muesli

Makes 2 servings.

Nutrition information is here.

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt

16 pieces frozen mango chunks

3 packets Truvia sweetener

1/4 cup coconut flakes

1/3 cup unsweetened light soy milk

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until thoroughly combined. It'll be really thick. Cover with a lid and refrigerate overnight.

I've made this a couple of more times with fresh diced up strawberries and kiwi, coconut, and sunflower seeds. It's very versatile, so use whatever you have on hand!

Carb Addiction? Maybe!

I'm realizing more and more as I look at the foods I'm eating on my SparkPeople nutrition tracker that I'm totally enamored with carbohydrates. Not necessarily white sugar (as I tend to use Truvia in my coffee, baking, etc.) or breads, but I eat lots of cereal, oatmeal, fruits, and other things that are high in carbs and naturally-occurring sugars.

But, since I've been baking and cooking more frequently due to this blog (more so baking than cooking!) I've been completely carb-crazy beyond what I've been previously!

Anyway, here are some delicious creations that were pretty simple! One is my very own creation, and one is from another blog.

Strawberry-Banana Flax Pancakes

Makes 6 Pancakes

1 cup Heart Smart Bisquick mix

2 tbsp ground flax meal

1 banana, mashed

3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk

4 strawberries, diced

2 packets Truvia sweetener

1 egg white

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Make pancakes with a 1/4 cup measuring cup and cook until brown on both sides.

I don't think these need any syrup because when you get a bite that has a bit of strawberry in it, you get a punch of sweetness! Man, Bisquick is awesome -- perfect for lazy folks like myself!

Cocoa Banana Cupcakes

Makes 12 Cupcakes

Taken from Love and Olive Oil.

This was really simple to make! Substitute apple sauce for the oil and Truvia for the sugar and it will be not-so-bad for you in the end... right? (Haha.)

Overnight Failure

I wasn't prepared for disappointment this early in the morning. That pot with the brick-like object in the middle of a cloudy liquid? That's my crock pot as it was about 15 minutes ago this morning after an attempt at Overnight Oatmeal.

Epic fail indeed! About 85% of my steel-cut oats were nicely burned to the side of my crock pot, most of which was actually burned.

I was hoping that this morning I would be able to blog about how cooking oatmeal overnight is a great solution for those too lazy to make a nutritious breakfast in the morning. In the words of Borat... NOT! The only thing I did differently in this recipe was that my oats spent closer to 9 hours in the crock pot rather than 7-8, but 1/4 inch thick layer of burned oats doesn't just happen in one hour!

What to do, do? I need a quick breakfast with minimal effort!

Plain ol' oatmeal in the microwave.

1/2 cup quick-cook oats

1 cup water

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 packet Truvia

approx 2 tbsp Craisins

approx 2 tbsp chopped walnuts

Combine ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl, stir to combine, microwave for 2 minutes, and enjoy!

I'd consider this a learning experience, but I used the last bit of my steel-cut oats (which means I need to buy more) and the Overnight Oatmeal was supposed to yield 8 servings; that's 8 meals down the drain... literally!

Epic fail this early in the morning? Yikes. At least my last-minute oats were yummy.

A Brunch For One

Leftovers comprise about 75% of the food I eat. I live by myself (for now) and because it's difficult to find single-serving recipes, I make batches of food and refrigerate/freeze the extra portions.

Last weekend I bought some sweet potatoes and Thursday night I realized if I didn't use them soon, they'd go bad. I cubed them, baked them with minced garlic and olive oil, and the pot of sweet potatoes sit in my fridge waiting to be used.

I used some of them in last night's recipe but have a lot left over! I've never had sweet potatoes as part of breakfast, so figured a good after-gym brunch was in order!

I recently bought ramekins... and by "recently" I mean "yesterday", haha. I was so excited to use them today!

Sweet Potato Brunch
Serves One

1/2 cup cooked sweet potato, cubed

2 tbsp salsa

1 ounce part-skim mozzarella

1 slice whole wheat bread (I baked this bread with whole wheat flour last night), cut into cubes

1 egg

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly grease a ramekin with non-stick spray. (I forgot to do this because I'm a moron and now I have a ramekin with cheese stuck to it. So, don't make my mistake!)

Put the cubed sweet potato and bread into the ramekin and top with salsa. Tap the ramekin on a hard surface a few times to distribute the salsa throughout. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 7 minutes. Remove foil, crack the egg on top of the mixture, and bake uncovered for another 5 minutes or until egg white is mostly cooked and yolk is still a bit runny (mine was getting pretty golden on top).

Top with cheese and bake until melted and golden, which took about 3 minutes for me.

Serve immediately!


Full nutrition information here.