Carrots before Christmas

I asked Joey to get some carrots at the grocery.

He returned with this bag.

That’s right, 5 pounds of carrots.

In an effort to use of some of those carrots I thought I’d try out Angela’s carrot cake oats recipe, slightly modified.

Carrot Cake Oats for One (modified from here):

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/2t lemon juice
• 1T coconut cream (the cream off the top of the full fat can of coconut milk), divided
• 1t pumpkin pie spice
• dash of salt
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup finely grated carrot
• 1/2t vanilla
• 1T crunchy topping of your choice (walnuts, pecans, peanuts, almonds, granola, whatever you’d like)
• 1T maple syrup, divided

Directions:

1. Add water, almond milk, lemon juice and 1/2T coconut cream to a pot over medium heat.  Stir.
2. Add pumpkin pie spice and salt.  Stir.
3. Add oats and carrot.  Cook 10 minutes or until thickened.
4. Once thick, add vanilla and 1/2T maple syrup.
5. Mix 1/2T maple syrup and 1/2T coconut cream together in a small bowl.  Drizzle over oats with crunchy topping of your choice.

It looked a little scary at first but the end result was quite lovely (and orange!) looking.

Considering I’ve never had carrot cake I don’t think I’m qualified to say whether or not this oatmeal tasted like the real stuff but I do know I enjoyed this bowl.

Nothing like getting in 1/2 cup of carrots before 9 AM.

After breakfast I got going on some Christmas cooking but I’ll spare you yet another picture of green bean casserole.  There was a slight sweet potato fiasco.  Not only did the grocery only have Jersey sweet potatoes (which are white!) but while peeling them I kept coming across mushy spots and finally I just tossed the whole bag of them 😦

Stress has officially set in.

Oh well, I took a breath, made some hot chai and took out my frustration on some wrapping paper.

Then I dashed out to do some last minute shopping (oops!) and returned for some lunch.

Hello, Big Salad (Seinfeld, anyone?)

In the mix:

• mixed greens
• honeycrisp apple
• dried cranberries
• goat cheese
• roasted chickpeas
• dressing (balsamic, apple cider vinegar, honey, salt, pepper)

Piled high.

I may have finished off lunch with a cookie (or two).

Hoping to hit the gym for a run but we’ll see how the day pans out.

By the way, did I mention I had some excellent butternut squash ravioli at Venice last night?

Blogger Confession:

I sometimes take pictures of the meals I plan on eating for dinner during the day so I can take advantage of the day time.  So no, I haven’t actually eaten this meal yet but I plan on eating it tonight!

Back to the ravioli.

Check out the sage leaves.  I’m not entirely sure what they’re coated in but they were crisp!  Joey and I couldn’t decide if they were tasty or just weird.  I’ll have another chance to decide tonight.

The raviolis themselves were awesome but between the ravioli, the bread and the appetizers I had a lot of food on my plate (literally) so I only made it halfway through my entree.

I’m off to finish my to do list and I’m hoping to watch Joey bowl tonight 😀

I hope you’re having a stress-free day! 

I just remembered it will be Friday by the time you all read this post so let me just say, Merry Christmas Eve!