Happy Monday!
Did anyone else have a hard time getting started today? I woke up this morning at a normal adult-time *cough*8:30am*cough* but it was raining and thundering in Wisco-land. I couldn’t help but turn off the alarm and snuggle back in with the dreary weather outside my open window, so I got a little bit of a late start. I did walk the dog and do Jillian’s No More Trouble Zones before work, but now I’m just getting home and having dinner at 10pm. I was always eating late dinners in my Madison apartment, too – maybe I’m just destined to be a late dinner eater!
Breakfast this morning was a new experience for me, steel cut oats! After getting ready for work yesterday, I walked into the kitchen and found this fruit feast:
Mmmmm. Thanks Momma. After snacking on a selection I knew some of these fruit friends would be perfect toppings for steel cut oats, which my mom bought quite awhile ago but we haven’t had a chance to try.
We used Bob’s Red Mill brand of oats, which my mom found at the regular ol’ grocery store in town, but health food stores would definitely have them. Steel cut oats seem to be nutritionally the same as regular oatmeal, but I’ve heard they taste delicious and are sometimes considered to be “less processed”. Plus – Kourtney Kardashian eats steel cut oats! (ha.) All I know is they really filled me up and left me completely satisfied when paired with an over-easy egg.
To cook:
Use 3 parts water to 1 part oats (I used 6 cups water and 2 cups of oats – which resulted in a lot of oats, FYI. Glad I ended up liking them 
In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the oats, and sprinkle in some salt. Reduce heat to a simmer, then cook for 10-20 minutes (depending on how soft you want them. I went with 15 minutes and thought they were perfect!). Stir occasionally – once every few minutes.
Remove from heat, let stand to thicken for 2 minutes. Portion into bowls and add toppings!
Here was my end result:
Sorry for the sketchy phone photo, again.
For toppings, I used cinnamon, real maple syrup, 2 sliced strawberries and 3 sliced cherries. SO GOOD!!!! I’m actually glad I made excessive amounts of leftovers because they will make for a quick, healthy breakfast for the next few mornings I want to try other toppings, too, including my newfound love almond butter!!!! which after tasting a few times now, I think I might like even better than peanut butter – hard to do. I’ve always liked the semi-runny all-natural peanut butters, which geared me up for the all-natural almond butter, and I think the flavor is just soooo yummy.
Some other new things I’ve tried recently:
- Ate arugula in my salad tonight – I used to think I hated it, but found it to be pretty delicious mixed with some “artisan” lettuce (whatever that means, heh) in my salad tonight.
- I’ve been eating the chia seeds! I’ve been sprinkling them in yogurt, in drinks and on salads, and plan on having them with cereal/oats, too. They are so small I don’t even notice eating them, which is good since they are supposed to be so good for you – you can put ‘em on everything!
How was your Monday??