Thursday, May 21, 2009

Carrot Cake Oatmeal

I have been eating oatmeal a lot lately. Getting up to go to the gym before work, I discovered an extra half hour of time in the morning allows me to make something for breakfast instead of shoving a bowl of cereal in my face on my way out the door. My usual combination for oatmeal is:
*1/8 cup oatmeal
*1/8 cup oat bran
*~1-2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds
*1/2 mashed banana
I cook all that with 1/4 cup water on the stovetop until it gets nice and thick--this doesn't usually take too long. It's probably about 5 minutes.
Then comes the fun part: adding shit in. My go-to is Peanut Butter & Jelly oatmeal, which entails the above ingredients and spoonful each of jam and peanut butter (about 1 T each). I have two peanut butters right now from PB & Co. One in particular is absolutely transcendent: the White Chocolate Wonderful. Oh my god. It will change your life.
Ok, not really. I hate grandiose statements like that. But it will taste delicious. I also have the Cinnamon Raisin Swirl, which is ok, except the raisins in it are really small and hard--not so good. The cinnamon is sortof grainy in the peanut butter, which is actually ok with me.

Anyhoo, I've been inspired to make a lot of different kinds of oatmeal by the following bloggers: Kath, Tina, Heather and Caitlin. This particular idea came from Kath (find it here).

I started with my usual base, then added in:
*3/4 of a grated carrot
*splash of vanilla extract
* 1-2 T brown sugar
*1 T raisins

And here's what I got:

I even made the "frosting" by mixing a little nonfat Greek yogurt with 1 T maple syrup.

So I pretty much was not a fan of this oatmeal. I did not really get any "carrot cake"; it pretty much tasted like oatmeal with carrots in it. I didn't use the mango or pineapple like Kath suggests, so maybe it was missing an extra element of sweet, but I don't think I'd try this again.

I was definitely original, though!