I don’t know if y’all remember back when I was in healthy living blogger mode (over a year and a half ago) but I ate oatmeal almost every day. This in and of itself is not a bad thing…except for the fact that I hated oatmeal and loathed having it for breakfast all the time. But that’s what healthy living bloggers did back then, and I wanted to make sure I was doing it right! After a while I learned that it’s about what I want to eat and moved on to smoothies, but I was pretty sure I was never going to eat oatmeal again.
But now I do – I eat a LOT of oatmeal! You could definitely say it’s back in the game.
These days I eat oatmeal for two reasons: one, it helps in the milk-making department and since Wes is exclusively having breastmilk right now (p.s. if we need to we are 100% OK with giving him formula, but luckily I’m able to produce enough to feed him or pump and bottle feed) and two, I found out that if you put chocolate and peanut butter in oats they are A-OK. My new problem now is that I crave them all the time!
Here’s the thing now though – portion control. And not portion control for the amount of oatmeal I eat – portion control for the amount of chocolate chips (HEAVEN) that I add. I tend to be a little heavy-handed, so I now have to find a way to cut down on those babies and make the oats more oats than chocolate. After reading through this great list of 100-calorie oatmeal toppings from Cooking Light, I finally came up with a blend that I love! Here’s my favorite oatmeal – for now:
MY FAVORITE OATMEAL
- 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 1/4 cup nonfat milk
- 2 Tbsp milled flax
- 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
- 1 Tbsp dried cranberries
- stevia to taste
Basically I just cook the oats on the stovetop with the cranberries (so they plump up) and milk until almost done, then I remove from the heat and stir everything else in until combined. I let it sit for a few minutes to cool down and so that the flax has time to thicken the oatmeal the remainder of the way, and then I dig it! It’s chocolatey and peanut buttery and I don’t feel like I just ate an entire chocolate cake in one sitting. Oh, and it means that I can use the chocolate chip for other baking endeavors. YUM!
I love your oatmeal combination! I really enjoy oatmeal (somehow I can’t do the whole smoothie thing in the morning and had the feeling that all bloggers had that for breakfast :-)) and one thing that I really enjoy is to make my own homemade “Cacao Bliss” and put that on top, together with some nut butter.
I always use an empty glass jar and make several servings: I melt about 2 or 3 tablespoons coconut oil, then stir in around 2 heaping tablespoons of really good cocoa or raw cacao and then I sweeten it with some agave. YUM! It will melt on top of your oats and cover your bowl with chocolaty goodness! (and you can still save your chocolate chips for fun baking endeavours ;-))
Love your baby posts by the way – Wes is growing up FAST! Cute little boy – so happy for you! 🙂
chocolaty hello from Germany!
oooooooooh that’s a great little recipe! i’ll have to try the cacoa thing, it sounds amazing!
thanks so much marie-sophie!
I don’t know why I got the urge to make this for breakfast today, but I pulled it up and made it. It’s so yummy! I don’t usually like oatmeal, but this is really good! Thanks!
I’m always trying to work on my portion control
I’ve got to add some peanut butter to my oatmeal next time
ahhh I LOVE oatmeal and chocolate and pb is the best combo ever so I can only imagine how delicious this must be.
Ok, I will have to try this. I really hate oatmeal, but it’s so good for you! I keep trying other combos to see if I’ll like them…so now I’ll try yours.
LOVE it! So yummers!!
That you whip this up daily on a newborn-having, first-time mama’s sleep ration makes you a hero among heroes in my eyes. Rock. The FUNK. On!
I wholeheartedly agree!
Mm! Your oatmeal looks delish!
What brand of stevia do you like? I’m in the market for some and would love a pointer or two!
i really like NuNaturals – they have it in pretty much every form you can imagine and it’s delicious!