RECIPE: NUTELLA & BANANA OATMEAL

I had a post all ready about my epic six-layer chocolate and peanut butter cake, but then yesterday was National Nutella Day (as well as Sean's half-birthday) and I just had to celebrate. I've missed every other NND in the past so being home all day (mainly because I was feeling lazy), I felt like yesterday was a NND not to be missed!

Nutella and I have quite the history. When I was really young, I would make myself Nutella sandwiches (Nutella spread inbetween slices of sliced white bread) but every single time I ate those sandwiches, I would get a nose bleed soon after. I knew I wasn't allergic to chocolate and I wasn't allergic to nuts either, so I had no clue why Nutella had this affect on me. I could no longer eat Nutella. I'd watch and sigh as my brothers ate Nutella sandwiches. I'd think about having one and sometimes make one for myself as an afternoon snack, but the same thing always happened, that darned nose bleed. I've ungrown that stage, thank goodness, but it did last a pretty long time.

For 2011's NND, I immediately knew what I was going to make: Nutella hot chocolate from Eat, Live, Run. Two ingredients were all I needed and what I had on hand. I waited until the perfect moment to make it (right after the sun had set) and enjoyed my cup while waiting for my fondant flowers to dry:But then this morning I woke up and decided that Nutella shouldn't just be celebrated on one day and that I would in fact, make this National Nutella weekend by making Nutella & Banana Oatmeal! Sounds good, right? Well it tasted even better!
NUTELLA & BANANA OATMEAL Ingredients:
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 recipe of Nutella hot chocolate, cooled (see first link above for recipe, the recipe makes 1 cup)
1 teaspoon chia seeds
1 teaspoon psyllium husks
1 ripe banana, chopped
Toppings: sliced strawberries, choped hazelnuts, drizzled Nutella, etc

Directions:

1. Place rolled oats and Nutella hot chocolate in a small pot. Cook on medium-high. (I always start my stove at high and then reduce the heat when it starts to boil.)
2. Add chia seeds and psyllium husks and continue to stir.
3. The seeds and husks will thicken the oatmeal. At this point, add your bananas and stir some more until your desired consistency is reached. I like my oatmeal is a little on the thinner, rather than thicker side. If it gets too thick and gloopy, I just tend to stir it around in my bowl and not eat it. If yours gets too thick when you're stirring, just add more milk.
4. Serve in bowl and top with your favourite toppings.
   

My parents had just bought some strawberries the day before and I was dying to dig into 'em. I have no clue where these berries are coming from--probably California, because they are pretty sweet for February.Now if that doesn't sound like the most enticing oatmeal for a Nutella fanatic, I don't know what is. I, myself, thought it was pretty darn tasty:
Breakfast? Check.

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING 'BOUT...

Normally I don't blog about one lunch in particular, especially when it comes to work lunches, but this one takes the cake, especially on a day when it's going to be 30C, 35C with the humidity.

Leftover avocado-cucumber soup with cucumber, corn and olive oil garnish:Kidney beans that my dad cooked in the pressure cooker, finished off with some onions:And a whole lotta leftover fruit from yesterday, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes and cherries:It's the perfect work lunch. Now let's just hope I can eat all that in 30 minutes without looking like a pig at a buffet!

Cheers everybody, I'm off to work. TGIF!*

FOOD RECAP

6th...Tuesday
Lunch on Tuesday was epic! It featured a bunch of stuff from Longo's' (is that one too many apostrophes? Where do I put that last one?) salad bar plus a bunch of fruit:and some more fruit, including frozen grapes at the bottom:Let's take a close-up of that cold salad bar container:
You can't really see what's going on in there but there's a couscous salad (with corn, red peppers, red onions and some other stuff), fake crabmeat salad (that I mixed with plain crabmeat since it was dressing overload), romaine lettuce with some croutons, a few strawberries, a mango, some pasta salad (penne, feta, red peppers, some other stuff) and a chopped up beef burger from a local farmer that I picked up at the Stouffville farmer's market. The burger is hormone- and antibiotic-free and grass-fed. Yay for healthy beef!

Tuesday night I headed off to Sean's but not before stopping off at a new-to-us restaurant for dinner. Suggested by Janice during our brunch on Saturday morning at Cora's, we stopped by Xin Jiang Restaurant for their western Chinese food. Sean and I scanned the large menu and went with a couple of Janice's suggestions and a handmade noodle with beef dish ($7.99). Unfortunately no photos because I left my camera at home and I knew my iPhone wasn't going to cut it. We ended up ordering a lamb skewer for each of us ($1.60 each) plus a lamb dish that came with these fried naan (crouton-like) things and veg (onions and red/green peppers, $9.99). The dish was seasoned with lots of cumin and was really delicious. There was even enough for me to take leftovers of each of our larger dishes home.
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7th...Wednesday (day 3 of dreaded heat wave; I had had enough already)
Lunch was a mixture of leftovers and whatever cold produce I could find in the fridge. In the fruit container I had pineapple slices, blueberries (used for second breakfast oatmeal consumption), grapes and cherries). In the veg container was cucumber sticks, baby carrots (yeah, we're back with those again) and red/orange pepper strips. At the very bottom left is leftovers from last night's dinner with Sean. It tasted just as good or even better than the night of.Delish!
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10th....Saturday
Moving right into lunch on Saturday, I had a small bowl of vermicelli noodles with pork and veggies:Followed by a half an apricot a couple hours later:What's so special about this apricot you ask? Well it's from my backyard! Yep, apricots are ready early this year. I remember almost a decade ago they weren't ready until August! This season's produce has been super early...I should have known that with the early fiddleheads back in April. A few hours later I consumed a bowl of cherries, sadly, not from my backyard:And I have no clue what dinner was. I do remember eating this blueberry-banana yogurt pop because I have evidence of it:Yay for photos!
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12th...Monday
Lunch was pasta salad. It contained Catelli Smart macaroni, cucumber, garlic scapes, romano beans (because I didn't have black or navy beans), canned corn kernels and canned salmon.I also had more veggies on the side including baby carrots and red pepper strips, along with green grapes and cherries:
and strawberries:===
13th...Tuesday
Lunch on Tuesday was more pasta salad but this time, I had variety! It was rotini pasta with king oyster mushrooms, red peppers, cucumbers, garlic scapes and that's about it. Along with the strawberries that I had for second breakfast with my oatmeal and the grapes and cherries that I had with my lunch, it would have been a perfect vegan morning had it not been for the small container of honey lavender ice cream you see in the bottom right corner: Hehehe, I brought my own ice cream to cook. That's the best perk of working 5 minutes away from home. Now do I really have to move out? Uh, yes.

I had some leftover pizza at Sean's house (pepperoni, mushrooms, garlic from the Pizza "Nazi") since we spent the early part of the evening at the mall getting summer-ready clothes. The pizza was totally awesome. It was thinly-sliced mushrooms galore! And with minced garlic! I could not have been happier. Well, actually...it would have been awesome-r if I could have heated my slice in a toaster oven instead of the microwave but Sean doesn't have one. Boo-urns to that. His family really needs to get with the program.
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14th...Wednesday
Lunch was a lot of food. I brought it all along just in case I needed it all but I didn't. In the left container I had last night's dinner (from my house) which was baked salmon with veggie stir-fry (zucchini, portobello mushrooms, red/orange peppers). At the top I have more pasta salad and for fruit I had strawberries, cherries and green grapes hiding at the bottom:===
15th...Thursday
I'm not going to be ashamed...I had half a honey lavender ice cream sandwich for first breakfast. It was hot outside and I felt like it! Second breakfast was the usual oatmeal. Lunch was more pasta salad (no need for another photo) along with more grapes, cherries, strawberries and cantaloupe--the latter of which I forgot to take a pic of. Nothing new but at least I didn't have to cook anything for three days. Score!

FIIIIIIIIIREWORKS!!

I'm like a moth to a flame when it comes to fireworks. Seriously. If you're one who believes that one method to deter zombies is to shoot off fireworks then call me a zombie! I've been hearing fireworks go off for over the past hour and every time they die down, I walk away. Then another set of fireworks goes off and there I go, running towards the window again.

Let's rewind to when the sun was still out...

Today's dinner was spring mix with strawberries and watermelon, dressed with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper:

Along with a plate of homemade fries:
My brother baked these at 450F for 30 minutes. Along with some organic ketchup, it was a great dinner for a super hot night.

Now back to the fireworks!!! Here's a few that I managed to take from the neighbours across the street:
My favourite one is the second from the top. It reminds me of a rose. Pretty! Okay it's now way past what should have been my bedtime but it's hot and I'm cranky so that's my excuse for staying up this late. Oh wait, it was the firework actually.

AND THE DOCTOR SAYS...

I've got a mild case of food poisoning. Pretty much what I suspected the whole time. So why did I let it the symptoms go on for so long? Well, like I said, it's a mild case and pretty much like all the other sicknesses I've felt for the past little while, I thought it would go away on its own.

I'm now on a course of electrolytes (darn no Vita Coco around):
and Gaviscon for the abdominal cramps:
Plus some prescription cream for my hand rash. Just finished off this glorious platter of strawberries:
and am digging into this bowl of egg congee with BBQ pork:My dad made it with organic chicken broth so there's a little bit more oomph than usual.

I'm catching up with all my favourite food blogs (ie: all the ones I've got bookmarked which is shockingly close to 30) and then I'm probably going to lie down and take it easy. News alert: just read the ingredients on the box of my Gastrolyte and it contains aspartame ("as sweetening agent") so I will definitely not be consuming that. I'm on the search for Gatorade which we will probably not have in this house. Oh well. I hope that the almond milk I'm downing now will help replenish my fluids.

Earlier in the day I had a small handful of kale chips (yum!) and half a banana, in the car while heading to the doctor's. I'm still getting stomach upset after I eat so I'm trying not to overdo it but I have lost about 1.5lbs overnight so I'm trying to put some of that back on. I haven't really been feeling hungry though--a miracle, for sure--so it's been slow to start.

MIGRAINE DEPRESSED

I give up. I've had a migraine for more than 48 hours now and I don't know what to do. I'd rather have any other ailment than a migraine. Give me stomach cramps that feels like stabbing pains that last hours into the wee hours of the night or acid reflux or clavicle pain (which I had this morning anyway). Just give me anything but this damned migraine. I've had migraines for more than a decade now and it's ridiculous considering I'm only 27. Almost a year ago I got together with three of my girlfriends to celebrate one of their birthdays and one of them mentioned having a migraine for the first time in their life. They told me it was a kind of pain they had never felt before in their entire life. They then "commended" me because they never wanted to experience that kind of pain ever again. She should only be so lucky. I think back to the time when I had 11 migraines in two weeks. That was just plain ridiculous.

In less than 48 hours I have gone through 3 IcyHot Patches (I thought maybe it was just muscle pain leading to a migraine), four different types of medication (including two types of migraine medication, Robaxisal and Advil XS), B&BW aromatherapy roll-on for headaches and the Magic Bag around my neck, in hopes of relieving some of the neck and shoulder pain I've encountered on top of the severe migraine. I have not been in this kind of pain in months. I honestly don't think I've felt this bad since last October or thereabouts. I'm seriously at my wit's end.

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Onto today's eats...I woke up around 1pm and while I really didn't have an appetite for anything, my dad said I should eat a banana. Not one for bananas and a little bit paranoid that I had a staph. aureus (a form of food poisoning) or salmonella or botulism (which is really unlikely) from some possibly bad chicken on Sunday, webmd.com told me that my best bet would be to follow my regular diet. So I opted for a full breakfast for lunch instead. I had two eggs (sunnyside up) with two slices of whole wheat toast, three slices of tomato (I really just wanted to use up half a tomato in the fridge) and two slices of Halloumi cheese. On the side I had a bowl of fruit (a pear, blackberries and three strawberries) along with a mug of Traditional Medicinals Chamomile with Lavender (to relieve tension and sooth a sore stomach) along with some organic 2% (which I didn't drink):That's definitely what I'd consider a full lunch. I grazed on the above for a long time though so it kept me satiated for quite some time. The migraine pretty much did me in too, so my mind wasn't really focused on food.

Dinner wasn't until five hours later. (See, the food really was consumed over a long period of time. Normally food like that eaten in a short span of time would only keep me full for about two hours, tops.) Dinner was basmati with free-range chicken, mushrooms and snap peas:After that I wanted something sweet and opted for banana soft serve but since I couldn't find the blade for the Magic Bullet, I just ate the bananas semi-frozen and also had some strawberries:Call me ridiculous, but I like strawberries when they're shaped like hearts. I'm a sap like that.

I spent the rest of the evening making Earl Grey tea muffins using the recipe from justbento.com, which can be found here. I didn't have any buttermilk so I used the milk and vinegar method. I also used vegetable oil as my fat and decreased the amount of sugar for my dad who is watching his sugar intake. My muffins were a lot more airy than the ones shown on justbento.com. I have no idea why as I was extra careful not to overmix and even decided to incorporate the tea leaves before the dry ingredients were properly folded into the wet ingredients. No matter because my dad really liked them. My batter resulted in 24 minis and 2 regular-sized muffins and I baked them exactly as instructed on justbento.com. With the decreased amount of sugar, they will be perfect with a bit of jam. I can't wait to try them out in the morning with jam or heck, even coconut butter. It's been quite some time since I've dabbled into that jar.

Now I'm sipping on a mug of hot earl grey with honey before I call it another early night. I'm hoping to wake up to a migraine-free morning since I MUST go to work tomorrow; I can't afford to take another day off work.

Oh by the way, the muffins are fabulous! The slight hint of bergamot is addicting, which I think, is why my dad loves them. I love them too. I already ate both regular-sized muffins along with three or four mini ones. I kind of lost count...oops.

BAKING UPDATES!

I've done a lot of baking in the past month but haven't had a chance to post about it yet. There's been much Olympic-watching going on and a lot of sickness, plus I decided to take Wednesday off blogging (not one food photo!). Here's a recap of recent baking:

BAKERELLA CAKE POPS:
I made these for a work bake sale last Thursday with the proceeds benefiting the Hospital for Sick Kids. I followed Bakerella's recipe but halved everything as I was feeling under the weather and wasn't really in the mood to be baking. I honestly wouldn't have followed through with this recipe had I not already signed myself up for the bake sale early last week. Because I just really wanted to go to bed rather than create these things, I only made a dozen. Here's the process and the reveal at the end. There's so many final end product photos because it took so long because I was sick.

So first thing's first...you have to bake an entire sheet cake and crumble it. Again, I halved the recipe and since I wanted to keep the rest of the cake as cupcakes, I used a cupcake box mix and made 24 cupcakes. Thank goodness Sean's food processor started working again that night because there's no way I would have gotten this fine crumb without the use of a food processor:

After that I added in the cream cheese and then mixed it all together until it stuck together and was sweet enough. I ended up using about half a can of cream cheese frosting:

After that was complete I rolled the mixture into 15gram balls. Yes, I actually weighed each ball. I think I ended up with around 30-something...I think 34 or 36 to be exact. Then I started dunking and decorating.

Here are my final dozen:I completely forgot to pick up a big block of styrofoam so I made do with some styrofoam I found in the basement, cut it to size and then wrapped it up in some festive tissue paper. It did the trick. It was now nearing 1am so I just wanted these cake pops to be over with. Here's a few more pics:
I like the way the sprinkles come together in a circle in the white one above. It was completely unintentional as I was dipping the pops in a bowl of heart-shaped quins. It kind of reminds me of a Valentine's Day baseball.

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MERINGUE COOKIES:

I went a little bit nuts making meringue cookies last week. I made two batches on the 12th and then another batch the next day. The first batch I made I split into two and flavoured as follows:

Above are chocolate with chocolate chips and I also made a batch of chocolate with dried cherries:

My second batch made the next day were vanilla meringue cookies with dried cherries. As I was packing the cookies into an air-tight container, I had to flip a few upside-down in order to make them all fit. That's when I stumbled upon this one and decided to keep it for Sean:

Cute huh? I think he liked it. He's Sean so he probably thought it was corny and cheesy and silly but I liked it. I mean, how the heck do hearts just appear on the bottom of meringue cookies? It did all the work for me.

My second batch of meringue cookies were vanilla with dried cherries but I forgot to take photos of them. They were incredibly sweet though. I followed the recipe to a T but found them to be ridiculously sweet (hence the use of fruit sherbet served to Sean and his parents but the sherbet was ridiculously sweet anyway). By the way, you can find the recipe here but if you do plan on using the recipe, I'd cut the sugar down by at least 1/4. I also piped my cookies with a pastry bag instead of spooning them onto a cookie sheet. It saved time and effort. Oh and cream of tartar is key to keeping your meringue stable...very key!

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STRAWBERRY COCONUT CUPCAKES WITH VANILLA BEAN AND MALIBU COCO FROSTING:
I wanted to make cupcakes for dessert for dinner at Sean's. I wanted these to have a Valentine's Day theme and was going to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting but wanted to include coconut since I love coconut. I couldn't find a coconut cupcake recipe that I was happy with so I decided to stick with a favourite but had to include some kind of fruit puree. I decided to go with strawberry for a strawberry coconut cupcake--yum! After piping with vanilla bean and Malibu Coco-flavoured frosting and decorating half with toasted coconut and the other half with heart-shaped quins, this is what I've got:

Here's a couple close-ups of each. First up the toasted coconut (my fave):

And the heart-shaped quins:

And that's all the baking I've been up to lately. I have wanted to bake some more but there aren't enough taste-testers in my household--boo!