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.

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.