Treating myself
Today was a day of pampering
I had a GLORIOUS breakfast… Bruleed Banana Steel Cut Oats
By the way I know this is a food blog but I think healthy food and healthy exercise go hand in hand so I’ll mention that I ran 3 miles upon waking up on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday — morning workouts you are so refreshing. I did, however, take the morning off today, I mean come on it’s Friday and this allowed ample time for steel cut oats.
Toasting
Banana cutting
Layering
Brown sugar-ing, yum!
Melted with the broiler and topped with toasted almonds — it was SO GOOD you must try this
After class I dashed into Louisville for a haircut at Firiel and as usual I was not disappointed at how my hair turned out 🙂 My parents’ office is in the same building (they are both massage therapists, yes I am VERY lucky) so I popped in and found my mom and my sister, who invited me to lunch at Udi’s, score!
Udi’s is a Denver based company that specializes in bread, granola and gluten-free food. They have several cafes in Colorado and there just so happens to be one in Louisville. I’ve NEVER had something bad at Udi’s and besides having mouth-watering sandwiches, their potato salad is to die for — my whole family is OBSESSED.
My mom got the Rueben
My sister got the Vegan Delight
And for me, something new — Eggplant Panini (I have a bit of an obsession with goat cheese lately)
Check out how BIG this sandwich was!
And this was just HALF of it (I brought home the other half for later). It was nothing short of delicious.
Last night’s dinner went a little something like this…
I.LOVE.CORN.I.LOVE.CORN.I.LOVE.CORN.
Simple and flavor-packed plus my roommate, Hannah (the go-to expert on everything) educated me on quinoa — it’s great for vegetarians because it’s a complete protein (meat is also one and eggs are almost one), but it tasted good to this non-vegetarian too!
PLUS look how much we had leftover…
This dinner is certain to be repeated in the near future.
HAPPY FRIDAY 🙂
Success and Failure
I had a guest for breakfast this morning…
Yep, FINALLY got my sister to come over for her first bowl of oats! **Btw I call her Beanie or Little Bear but her real name is Colleen**
Blue = Lauren, Green = Beanie — she let me dress hers up for her
Rolled oats + vanilla almond milk topped with: 2 big strawberries, blueberries and organic peanut butter
I had to make her try the peanut butter so she could see how creamy it is — JIF does NOT melt like real peanut butter!
Rolled oats + vanilla almond milk topped with: 1/4 banana, blueberries, Honey Bunches Just Bunches, yum!
Beanie wants to try counting calories for a while just to see where she is and what she needs to cut back on/add more of so here is the count for both bowls:
Blue = 252, Green = 261 — a lot less than I thought! Yet we were both so full, aren’t oats amazing?
Brief sisterly montage from our trip to New Orleans last summer
I.LOVE.MY.SISTER
And now on to the failure…
Turkey Cordon Bleu Black Burger
This was a Whole Foods recipe that I really wanted to try because it combined cheese and ham inside a turkey burger (beef burgers make me literally sick, it’s so sad). Anyone have any tips on cooking meat? It seems like every time we use any kind of meat it starts to burn on the outside but is still raw on the inside, what the heck? Even if we put it on a super low temp and cook it longer (such as we did last night) it still ends up like this…
Ugh, we had it out there for at least 20 minutes and the recipe said it would only need to cook 6 minutes on each side.
Despite the extra CRUNCH on the outside the burger actually tasted pretty darn good, weird I know.
Here’s the recipe if you want to attempt it!
Cuckoo for Capers
I cooked with capers last night and it reminded me of the obsession I used to have for them. I ate them like M&M’s! I’d get a jar of them in my stocking and my Easter basket and would finish them off in a matter of days! It may have been more than an obsession…
After using them in the sauce for my eggplant parm last night I thought it would be interesting to see if they had any health benefits and guess what? They do! Turns out they’re a great source of natural antioxidant and could possibly fight off cancer and heart disease, awesome!
Anyways back to the parm. If you know anything about me you know I’m a sucker for this dish and it’s almost always my #1 pick at an Italian restaurant so I was definitely excited when I say a healthier version (not breaded or fried) on Kath’s website.
- 1 eggplant cut into ~1/2″ slices
- can of crushed tomatoes
- 1/2 can of tomato paste
- 1T capers
- dash oregano
- dash red pepper flakes
- 1 cup mozzarella
- 2T parmesan cheese
I learned about the salting technique for eggplant — we put the slices in a strainer in the sink and salted them for 30 minutes to “purge” them of their bitterness and bring out the juices — you learn something new everyday!
Toss the slices on the grill — I let them cook about 5 minutes on each side but a few were a liiittle crispy (oops it was my first time manning the grill on my own!). Mix the rest of the ingredients minus the cheese on the stove and when it gets hot pour it over the eggplant on a baking dish then sprinkle with both cheeses. Put in the oven for 10 minutes to melt — I did it on 325 because I it was already on that temp for the kale chips I was making.
Pre-bake
Post-bake
Kale Chips: wash and tear kale into small pieces, toss with olive oil + salt + pepper on a baking sheet, bake for 20-30 minutes, flip around every 8ish minutes. I tossed them with a little apple cider vinegar at the end, yum!
On Wednesdays I open Norlin Library so I have to be here at 7 am! Hence, overnight oats.
Rolled oats, chia seeds, almond milk, blueberries, 1/4 banana
All I had to do this morning was melt the peanut butter and pour it on
Et voila, a successful and quick breakfast!
But nothing compared to lunch…
Strawberries toasted on the grill
When you grill strawberries it creates this pool of juice that smells SO good — so I used it as the dresssing for the salad! Strawberry juice + a dash of balsamic + dash of olive oil = DIVINE. By the way corn and strawberries go so well together!
Off to help my parents with the ordeals of moving
Happy Hump Day!
Lauren Loves Good Food 