It's the most important meal of the day: Breakfast. Why is that? I'm sure doctors and researchers will tell you lots of things about why eating breakfast makes you more likely to be healthier. For me? What I eat for breakfast sets the tone for what I eat all day. If I start my day with a sugary donut, well, you can imagine what goes across my taste-buds the rest of the day: more sugar.
After starting a "new life" in a new city recently, I thought maybe this was a good time to alter some of my bad habits into good (or at least better) ones. Among these: Be intentional about what I eat for breakfast. I've learned that adding protein to my breakfast routine helps keep me full longer, which means I don't reach for my morning snack quite so quickly. Because I'm also a coffee drinker, I need some carbs in my breakfast to keep my coffee from eating my stomach. Thus, after I'd joined the world of "egg muffins" (recipe below), I added a frozen waffle or two each day to counter-act my coffee addiction.
Then one day as I was perusing
Pinterest, I came across a recipe for
baked oatmeal. I'd heard about baked oatmeal before, but wasn't yet a believer that oatmeal could be that good outside of cookies. I don't dislike regular cooked oatmeal, but its not great, nor is it something I can eat on the way to work. [Have I mentioned I'm not a morning person? Sleeping is my favorite.]
I used the
recipe I found on
Pinterest as a basis for my baked oatmeal. However, because I don't keep everything on her ingredient list on-hand, I made some substitutions, coming up with my own recipe, making some additional adjustments for taste and consistency. I've made several variations over the course of a few weeks, and have found only one way so far that I don't like the baked oatmeal: with peanut butter.
None-the-less, following is a great recipe that can be made like a cookie (with nuts & chocolate chips), like a muffin (with berries), or just plain (with a light banana and cinnamon flavor).
Baked Oatmeal
INGREDIENTS:
1 Banana
1 cup Natural Applesauce (2 4-oz individual cups)
2 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
6 oz Vanilla Yogurt
2 Tbsp Splenda Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp. Ground Flaxseed Meal
1-2 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
2 1/2 cups Rolled Oats (Old Fashioned Oatmeal)
1 cup Skim Milk
Various mix-ins (Chopped Walnuts, Blueberries, Chocolate Chips, Raisins, Craisins, etc.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 24 muffin cups with cooking spray.
Peel banana into a microwave-safe mixing bowl. Microwave 30-45 seconds to soften banana (unless using a very ripe/brown banana). Mash banana. Whisk in applesauce, eggs, vanilla, yogurt, and Splenda. When mixed well, whisk in flaxseed meal, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Stir in oats with a wooden spoon. Finally, carefully stir in milk. If you're going to add any mix-ins, now is the time to stir them in as well.
Using a cookie-dough scoop, scoop mixture into the muffin cups. Divide remaining mixture among the cups evenly. I've found that to divide into 24 "muffins," each muffin cup will get approximately 1 1/2 scoops (a little more if you're using mix-ins).
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. I usually keep them on the wire rack while freezing so that they don't stick together, and then transfer to a zipper baggie for storage.
Word to the wise: don't over-do it with your mix-ins. Less really is more in this case.
Without the mix-ins, each of these is approximately 75 calories, as are the egg muffins, so any combination of 4 muffins makes a 300-calorie breakfast. (If adding nuts and/or chocolate chips, you will go well beyond 75 calories. Berries, however, only alter each "muffin" by a couple calories.)
COOKIE EDIT: Tonight before adding the milk I put a scoop of the mixture onto a cookie sheet (sprayed with cooking spray), flattened slightly with my fingers (the cookie won't flatten out in the oven like normal cookies do so go ahead and make it as flat as you'd like at this point), and then baked for about 12 minutes. When I pulled it out of the oven, I placed 5 dark chocolate chips on top, and after they melted swirled them with my finger. Once cooled, it made a FANTASTIC cookie! It was very soft, so next time I might try this before even adding the yogurt. [8/19/2012 EDIT: I tried it without the yogurt this time. Its still soft, more like cake than a cookie, so I'm going to keep trying different things to make it more like a cookie. Nonetheless, it still tasted incredible.]
APPLE-CINNAMON BAKED OATMEAL: (9/19/2012 EDIT) Its officially Fall this weekend (and I didn't have any bananas at home), so I decided to try an apple version of the baked oatmeal. Mixing and baking instructions are the same, but I used the following ingredients:
1 apple (peeled, shredded)
1/2 Cup applesauce (1 4-oz individual cup)
2 Tbsp oil
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
6 oz Yoplait® Apple Turnover Yogurt
1/4 Cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed meal
1-2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 cups rolled oats (old fashioned oatmeal)
3/4 Cup milk
Yield: 24 "muffins" at approximately 80 calories each - If you'd like a little crunch, chop an additional peeled apple into tiny chunks and mix in with the milk. You'll only add an additional couple of calories per "muffin." Dried cranberries could be a yummy mix-in for this one as well.
Egg Muffins
Now for the protein. I actually started doing this before I found all the recipes for "egg muffins" on pinterest. I knew an egg was the best way to get protein into my breakfast, but, as I mentioned before, I'm not very good at waking up in the morning, so anything I can do to be prepared for my morning routine is best done well in advance. Thus, I decided to make "egg muffins." Its as easy as beating eggs, adding whatever goodies you like, bake in a muffin pan, and you've got yourself a pre-made breakfast. Most people say you can keep them in your fridge for a week. I just go ahead and freeze them, that way I can microwave my egg and oatmeal at the same time while I'm packing up my lunch.
INGREDIENTS:
12+ oz Eggs (mixture of whole eggs and egg whites - to your liking)
3 oz Sharp Cheddar, shredded
1 oz fresh Parmesan, shredded or grated
1 tsp. Ground Mustard (optional)
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Ground Pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.
I use a plastic Tupperware shaker when mixing this up, it includes the measurements on the side so I know how much egg I'm getting. You can get 12 oz of eggs in several different ways: 5 whole eggs + 5 egg whites, 6 whole eggs + 3 egg whites, I think you get the picture. The more whole eggs you use the more calories you will be including. However, its OK to have calories at breakfast. [Really.] Add ground mustard, salt & pepper to the eggs, seal the container, and shake til the eggs are "beaten."
Divide cheeses (or various mix-ins such as ham, veggies, etc) into the muffin cups. Then pour in 1 oz of the egg mixture into each muffin cup. I say to use "12+" ounces of egg as its sometimes difficult and tedious to get exactly 1 ounce into each cup. (Honestly, I use a measuring cup that looks like a shot-glass - measures 1/2, 1, and 1 1/2 ounces.) Stir each "muffin" lightly with a fork to mix in the cheese.
Bake 20-25 minutes. The egg will puff up in the oven, and then shrink back down when cooling. Once they've shrunk back down, cool on a wire rack. Freeze on the wire racks, then move to a freezer container that will be easy to reach in the morning in my pre-coffee stupor.
Morning Routine:
Pull your desired amount of Breakfast Bites out of the freezer, wrap in a paper towel, and microwave for 60-90 seconds. I eat 4 Breakfast Bites each morning, and 90 seconds is just about right.
INGREDIENTS:
8 oz rice noodles, cooked per package instructions (like pasta)
Cook eda mame and carrots. I use a microwave rice cooker/vegetable steamer. You can also just put them in a microwave-safe bowl with a couple Tablespoons of water. On the stovetop, cook rice noodles per package directions.
