Thanks for all of your “night-off” love. The huz and I enjoyed a delicious dinner, at Taj Mahal, a new-to-us restaurant. All of our favorite restaurants are in walking distance to our house, and this is now added to the list. I am absolutely loving the location of our house and loving Ft. Collins in general. We actually shared plates last night [a rarity!] and dished on Aloo Chole, Dal Saag + loads of rice. Lucky for the husband, I’m avoiding gluten. He got all of the garlic naan ALL to himself. The Aloo Chole was just okay. However the Dal Saag [lentil + spinach dish] was outstanding. Definitely going to be recreated at home! Hopefully! Not sure I can master such deliciousness!

Since eating the buckwheat bakes, it’s even more apparent that oats just don’t hold me over the same. I can get a good 4-5hrs of feeling full from the buckwheat bake but only about 2.5hrs from oats. The nutrition profiles are typically about the same, so it’s kind of confusing why this is.

I’m determined to get more satiation out of my oats! [is that weird? am I weird?] answer: yes.yes.

My first attempt was adding 1/3c cottage cheese at the very end of cooking. I see Kath do this frequently but have only tried it once before. I use organic, 2%, cottage cheese [grass fed!] and it is quite tangy. I love it paired with fruit, or just with a little salt + pepper, but I’m on the fence about it in my oats.

I also added 1T chia seeds to this bowl as well. I’m not the biggest fan of chia seeds in oats because it ends up quite gelatinous. However, this time I stirred them in at the very end, so they didn't’ have as much time to gel. Definitely worked better!

The mix included:

3T rolled oats
2T buckwheat groats
1T oat bran
3/4c water
3/4c unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cottage cheese [stirred in at end]
1T chia seeds [stirred in at end]

topped with:

almond butter
jam
almonds
love grown foods granola
1/2 banana
honey

The verdict on my hunger? It definitely held me over for about 3hrs. I ate a 1/2 banana which kept me going until lunch.

The verdict on taste? I’m not the biggest fan of the flavor the cottage cheese adds.

Oat experiment #2!

For awhile, I was adding 2T ground flax meal to my oats. I liked how voluminous it made the oats, but I also didn’t like how gelled it made them [like the chia]. For this bowl, I added the flax in the last 1-2min of cooking. Problem solved! The oats did not become gelled at all, and were filled with delicious, nutty flax. And since I’ve been on a masa harina kick lately, I decided to try adding that to my bowl as well. Loved it!

In the mix:

3T rolled oats
2T oat bran
2T masa harina
1 1/4c water
3/4c unsweetened almond milk
2T ground flax meal

on top:

almond butter
jam
1/2 banana
honey drizzle

Hunger verdict? It definitely held me over for about 4hrs.

Taste verdict? I liked this much more than the cottage cheese + chia oats.

Thick. Creamy. Breakfast-goodness.

Adding 1-2 whole eggs to my oats, definitely works as well, and is oh so delicious. Helloooo French toast oats! However, I’ve been out of eggs for nearly a week! Do just plain rolled oats keep you full? Or have you figured out a method to make them stick for a full 4-5hrs?

Definite eggmergency.

Today, I took a tiling break, and walked down to the food co-op.

I picked up…

organic/local eggs
organic/local tempeh
organic/local/raw/vegan/GF dark chocolate

Local, fresh eggs are like no other. There is a small restaurant in town [Avogadro’s Number] that makes their own tempeh, and it’s by far the best I’ve had. The texture is much softer and it has more flavor than store bought. I sampled this chocolate recently, and when I spotted it at the co-op, I had to have it!!