Oatmeal

I remember the first time I had oatmeal. It was over 10 years ago when I had hired a trainer and he gave me a meal plan to go with my training and oatmeal was the first thing I had to eat in the morning. My first attempt was anything but delicious. One-minute oats mixed with hot water with a pinch of salt. Well, I was a good sport and I stuck with it for a while and you know what? I eventually got used to the texture and the taste but I still wouldn’t say that I liked it one bit. After 2 months though I’d had enough of the bland stuff and went back to eating the way I did before the meal plan. I wanted flavour. I wanted texture. I wanted variety. I wanted yummy stuff.

A few years later I started eating oatmeal again. Once again, one-minute oats mixed with hot water (no salt). I just ate it out of the comfort of not having to think about what to have for breakfast. What could be easier? All I had to do was scoop 1/3 C of oats with hot water from the water cooler and let it sit until the water was absorbed. I enjoyed them much more than I did way back then. But then I stopped eating it when I got married and had kids. With the lack of sleep and time, eating breakfast was the last thing on my mind and I would eat mindlessly all day long.

Last year I ventured into blog reading and I came across Kath Eats. She loves oats so much so that she even did a tribute. I never knew that oatmeal could be jazzed up except for when you purchase them in boxes of instant packets of flavoured oatmeal which I never liked. So I’ve tried her banana oatmeal and I use it as a basis for oatmeal. Here’s my favourite combo:

1/3 C large flake oats
1/3 C water
1/3 C milk
1/2 ripe banana

topped with:
1 Tbsp dried cranberries
1 Tbsp semi-sweet chocolate chips (blooming from being in the pantry too long)
1 spoonful natural almond butter

This bowl is so satiating. I find that if I have a bowl of oats for breakfast my sugar cravings are controllable for the rest of the day, which is a good thing, especially when there are still Halloween candies laying around.

The Beater Blade +

Now here’s a brilliant gadget:  the Beater Blade + (KA-TH) shown here is a paddle attachment made for tilt-head Kitchenaid stand mixers. If you don’t have this mixer, don’t despair as they carry different paddle models for different stand mixers. What is so special about this plastic paddle as opposed to the Kitchenaid solid-built paddle? Well the external sides of the paddle are actually flexible and are meant to act as a spatula so that there is no need to scrape the sides of the bowl when mixing. It also has an extra center prong that ensures that the mixture will have an even consistency. It’s great for making buttercream, icing, cake batters, and best of all, my favorite cheesecake! Here is the Mascarpone Cheesecake being made with the new beater.

    

I just can’t believe that something so delicious and smooth was so easy and quick with this gadget. So if you use your stand mixer frequently, I definitely recommend the BeaterBlade+.