Protein & Oats Pancakes

I have a sweet tooth, I admit.

Especially when it comes to breakfast. French toast, pancakes, waffles, crepes... if it's sweet? I love it.

Over the last year as I've slowly been making changes to my diet, breakfast has been one of the harder ones. On a regular basis, I make plain old fashioned rolled oats with either blueberries, flax and honey or whatever other berry I have in my fridge. When I get tired of oats, I make eggs. When I get tired of eggs, I ask my children, "Hey!? Do you boys want pancakes??" And of course their answer is... "yes".

I've been seeing friends post photos of their "Protein Pancakes" and just haven't been brave enough to try them. It's hard enough for me to choke down my protein shake sometimes, let alone think of making a pancake out of it.

So, today, I finally did... grabbed some eggs, old fashioned rolled oats, protein powder and almond milk. I adapted this recipe from a friends recipe that used 4 eggs and oats, changing the measurements slightly.

(I didn't realize I'd need the almond milk until I had blended the first three ingredients together)

I thought about mixing in a bowl, but I didn't really want "chunky" pancakes, so I threw all of the ingredients in my Ninja single serve blender cup.

I blended everything and then added almond milk since the consistency was a little thick and poured on to my pan. 

I was very impressed with how similar this recipe was to actual pancakes! It bubbled just the same and was easily flipped to cook both sides. 

And just like that, I had pancakes! They were a little dense, so maybe next time I will add a little more almond milk? I was still able to eat them both and satisfy my sweet tooth. I topped them with Earth Balance Coconut Spread and All Natural Maple Syrup. 

Delicious!!

Protein & Oats Pancakes

1 Egg

2 Egg Whites

1/4 C Old Fashioned Rolled Oats

1/4 C Almond Milk

1 Scoop of Life's Basics Plant Protein Powder, Vanilla 

Cinnamon (lightly sprinkled on top while cooking) 

Blend all ingredients, pour onto pan and cook until lightly brown. 

For The Love of Bread

In an effort to eat "healthier" over the past couple of years, I have cut several items from my diet.

When I was pregnant with Travis (23 months old) I stopped drinking cow milk and went to strictly almond milk. It was a bit of a transition and an acquired taste, but now I can't live without it. I can't say that I have cut dairy out of my diet because cow milk really is the only thing I've been able to say "no" to 100% of the time.

Cheese, yogurt, ice cream and some of those snacks that come in boxes or a bag (that contain dairy) are the ones I am having a hard time with. And cookies, don't forget cookies. It IS getting easier though. What really opened my eyes was when I had given birth to Travis and he had an extremely sensitive tummy, gastritis and severe food protein allergies. I had to do a total elimination diet (which you can read about HERE or HERE) and really learned how many of the processed foods have dairy, soy, wheat, eggs and are manufactured near in factories with nuts! I was amazed! It truly is what started to open my eyes.

As of now, I have gone from eating yogurt and cheese daily to eating a yogurt *maybe* once a week and stealing pieces of cheese squares from Travis' lunch or dinner plate. It has been hard, and I miss my smoked gouda cheese on crackers with apple slices!

My efforts to change my diet don't solely surround weight. I do feel blessed in the body I was given and I thank my excellent genes that I haven't ever had to battle with weight issues that so many women my age do. I have a fast metabolism and always have. Has it slowed down? Yes, but it is still fast.

I am changing the way I eat because I am trying to get the crap out of my refrigerator and pantry. I don't want my children growing up on crappy sugary cereals (that we all love, including me) and I want them to eat real, natural, not made in factories food. I can't call myself a vegetarian, yet, nor can I call myself a vegan. I just have goals to eliminate certain foods, one at a time. None of this cold turkey crap in my house. (Yes, I am an addict and I AM addicted to ice cream)

Each week I am trying to make a few subtle changes.

This week, instead of purchasing Dryers Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream at the grocery store I replaced it with SoDelicious Almond Milk Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream and I am making every effort to not eat bread. No PB&J's, toast or bread and butter. I had the ice cream last night and it was just as good as "cow-milk" ice cream so that was an easy no brainer.

Today, after my workout at bootcamp, I was craving protein but did not want my usual chocolate or vanilla protein shake. Instead, I was craving (yes, craving) eggs. Egg salad to be exact, so I grabbed two hard boiled eggs, mashed them up and drizzled yellow mustard on top to mix it in. I used both egg whites, but only the yolk from one of them.

It was tasty. Since I am making every effort to cut out bread, I went to my hydroponics garden out back and picked some fresh butter-crunch lettuce leaves to substitute as bread. Who would have thought that egg salad lettuce wraps would be so good!? They were delicious and so easy to make. I added a few stalks of celery to my lunch to give me the crunch that I crave and I had the perfect healthy bread-free lunch I was hoping for. 

Easy Egg Salad Lettuce Wraps:

2 eggs (hardboiled, 2 whites, 1 yolk)

Yellow mustard, to taste

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Any leafy greens that can be used to sandwich the salad 

Post Yoga Quinoa Salad

Friday is yoga day. I love yoga day because I get to stretch and hydrate my muscles. They are fatigued from cardio and circuit training all week. Usually, after a workout I come home and have a protein shake to curb my dinosaur like hunger that hits. On Yoga days, I like to cook more of my "normal" lunch foods. It's always a good day to make a quinoa (pronounced KEEN - WA) salad so that I have leftovers ready to be eating throughout the weekend. I made 1 C of quinoa as my base. It's so easy to make and a heck of a lot quicker than making brown rice or something like nasty Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!

All of the ingredients that I put into my Post-Yoga Quinoa were items that I already had on stock and I  had just picked some fresh kale from my garden this morning, perfect! Other items were a tomato, an avocado, 1/4 of a red onion, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper and some cilantro to give it a little more flavor. 

I chopped everything up while my quinoa was cooking. Once it was nice and fluffy to my expectations I mixed everything together, seasoned with a small amount of salt & pepper, juice from one lemon and topped with freshly chopped cilantro. 

YUM!!

It was the perfect lunch to follow an amazing yoga flow class! I feel amazing and am ready for the weekend!

1 C Quinoa (cooked w/ 1 1/2 C Water)

1 Tomato

1 Avocado

1/4 of Red Onion

1 Lemon

Handful of Kale

Handful of Cilantro

Salt & Pepper to taste

**I'll post how I cook my quinoa in a different post!**

     

Cake Balls

So, thanks to Pinterest I have become quite the baker and cooker. (Is that what you call it?) I am finding all sorts of dinner recipes and a few sweets recipes too. I can't wait for summer time to settle in the desert so that I can try the delicious drink recipes I am finding. Now if only I had friends and family to entertain...

For Valentine's Day this year I wanted to try something new. Something I had a taste of at a party I went to a few weeks ago. Cake Balls. Delicious little balls of cake. I found a recipe for Red Velvet Cake Balls here  via Pinterest. It looked pretty simple so I thought, "why not?"

I bought the ingredients and proceeded to make my first batch of balls. (hehe)

I crumbled the cake (and sampled a little too) and added the cream cheese frosting...



I proceeded to roll the mixture into scrumptious little balls... and placed them in the freezer so that I could have them done before the end of the night.



Now.. the hard part was dipping them into the chocolate. Since this was my first time, I really had no idea what it was going to be like or how it was going to work. It didn't go so well, the chocolate was getting hard pretty quickly (like after two balls) and since I was doing only a few squares of bark at a time, I was running out fairly quickly as well.

I managed to get quite a few of them dipped and am hoping to find some blogs that can help me to make them better "looking" next time, because the taste was not an issue. OH-MY-GOODNESS are these delicious. I can't wait to start making more and experimenting with them. I just might have to send them to work with dh, so all of my running doesn't go to waste ;) Or who knows, maybe I can try gluten-free, dairy free or sugar-free???