By the seat of my pants

While I enjoy others cooking for me, I also like making my own food because I

want my meals a very specific way

am a control freak

change my mind multiple times while cooking.

Stove-top oats are a prime example.  More often than not, I have no clue where my bowl of oatmeal is heading when I start boiling water. 

Yesterday morning I wasn’t in the mood for anything too sweet, so I decided to make (plain) Greek yogurt my breakfast’s main ingredient.  Sometimes tangy trumps sweet. 

After adding the yog to a bowl, I got the brilliant idea to add peanut flour and make it nutty flavored.  Why not?  I whipped them all up together to get the above peanut-infused Greek yogurt. 

Then I added hot-off-the-stove-oats. 

 

I still wasn’t quite satisfied though (it didn’t feel done), so I chopped an apple to throw on top as well. 

As I mixed it in, the texture went from thick to THICKER.

 

I’m still unsure of what happens physiologically to uncooked peanut flour in the stomach.  The glue-like consistency scares me a bit. 

Not wanting to choke down a gallon of gummy flour and then watch it slowly expand over the next few hours, I decided to thin it out a bit before consuming. 

 

I added a heavy pour of So Delicious French Vanilla coconut creamer.

 

And that’s how I ended up with a big bowl of creamy, tangy, peanutty oatmeal.  Just goes to show you how things can change as you go and morph into an entirely different meal from what you set out to make. 

Do you plan dishes ahead of time or do you let things happen organically as you cook?  I’m really not a fly by the seat of my pants girl with the exception of salads and oats.  I often throw things in without a pre-meditated game plan when it comes to those meals. 

More than anything else, I focused on fluids for the rest of the day.

 

TJ’s pomegranate cherry drink mix – sweetened with cane sugar and stevia.

 

Emergen-C – a Vitamin C power house.

 

Honest Ade lemonade – stevia sweetened and organic.

I think I’m hooked on Honest Ade’s beverages.  The plastic is eco friendly and made with non-leaching materials, plus it has plenty of Vitamin C (due to the lemons) and no calories (due to the stevia).  Perfect for someone who is looking to stay hydrated without consuming liquid calories all day long. 

 

I had a tempeh salad, hummus, and spinach filled wrap for lunch.  Followed by some perfect puddin’ for dessert.

 

For anyone looking for holistic home remedies for sore throats, check out the comments section on this post.  I wrote them all down to research further.  In the meantime, I went to Whole Foods and did some browsing. 

 

This is what I came away with: zinc lozenges by Quantum Health and Nature’s Way. 

 

The ones by Quantum Health are orange flavored and (in addition to the Vitamin A and Zinc) the ingredients include sucrose, vegetable stearine, natural orange flavor (with other natural flavors), citric acid, vegetable stearate, silica and lycopene.  They aren’t like the traditional sucker lozenges I’m used to…they are more like sweet tarts that you suck.  Not as tasty though.  Orange isn’t too bad. 

The Nature’s Way lozenges are berry flavored with the same consistency.  The ingredients aren’t as pure, but the flavor is a lot better.  They are still natural and free of yeast, milk, lactose, wheat, and soy.  Vitamin C and Zinc are the main ingredients, but they also contain sorbitol, fructose, mannitol, wildberry flavor, sodium bicarbonate, magnesium stearate, and french vanilla flavor.  Despite their preferable flavor, I don’t think these ones work as well.

Oh well.  At least they don’t have HFCS or partially hydrogenated mish mash.

For dinner I noticed broccoli hiding in the back of the vegetable drawer and thought I’d make some pasta dish with it.  Then I grabbed all the other veggies I could find and started chopping those up too.  This definitely ended up being a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants meal.

 

Broccoli, organic garofalo pasta, WF tempeh salad, FYH vegan cheese, spinach, bell peppers, carrots, & tomatoes.

 

I steamed the broccoli because it’s too rough on my GI tract when it’s uncooked, but the rest of the veggies were raw. 

After the broccoli and pasta were done cooking, I let them cool in a cold water bath, then I combined everything in a bowl.

Delicious!

I had several post dinner snacks that went unphotographed (roasted salted almonds, carob chips, and dried prunes).  Don’t make fun of me for eating dried prunes.  They are tasty! 

I did get a photo of my dessert though. 

Puffed crispy treats

One random note: Me & Goji, the company that perfected build-your-own cereal (with superfoods aplenty), is shutting down at the end of the month. :(  Until then, they are encouraging everyone to stock up. 

And as a thank you for the support, they are offering is a coupon code for 25% off.  You have until Aug 31st to get high-quality custom-made cereal mixes (mulberries & acai powder anyone?) at a discounted price by entering **BYEBYEGOJIGOJI** at checkout.  Enjoy!