It’s Paulie Bleeker‘s favorite, you guys. And I won’t say no to eggs for dinner most nights of the week. Since I make dinner for one, I’m not always up to cooking up something fancypants for myself (time and energy and all of that). So I recently started on a breakfast-for-dinner binge. Eggs are my main choice, but I’m so bad at making them that I’m not even going to give you a picture (dinner last night was a lumpy mess of cheese and eggs that was sort of an omelet but like a step away from scrambled eggs…tasty, though) because it’s so bad.

Anyway.

I came home from work today with equal urges to make soup and oatmeal for dinner. But then I thought about it and realized that soup takes the effort of chopping stuff and I didn’t feel like it. Because lazy. So oatmeal it was. I’ve jumped on the Kath Eats Real Food bandwagon way late in the game but that doesn’t make it any less of a resource for me. A lot of recipes I make these days I pull from blogs (I’ll share my favorites with you soon) which is fantastic because they’re online, taste great, and usually have some pretty great commentary to follow along.

The other afternoon I was perusing Kath’s blog and found a recipe for oatmeal cooked with banana and flavored with vanilla. VANILLA. My favorite of all of the flavors. I know, that’s so bland but I can’t help it. Sometimes I’m a simple gal. (Sometimes.) Anyway, the point is that I saw it and I couldn’t look away so I made it for dinner and it was DIVINE. Here’s a link to Kath Eats Real Food’s genius creation (you can find it under the title Whipped Banana Oatmeal).

And here’s my little twist! Which ended up being a big twist!

I used 1/2 cup of multi-grain hot cereal (ran out of oats, forgot to replace…)

1 c. unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 banana

1/2 tbs chia seeds 

and then…

and then…

I realized I ran out of vanilla. CHRISTMAS COOKIES. They depleated me of my resources and I completely forgot. Ugh. So I added about a tbsp of honey.

1 spoonful of peanut butter (for topping)

1 small palm full of sliced almonds and pine nuts (warmed for a minute in the microwave)

Sprinkle of cinnamon

 

Despite the lack of similar ingredients, I did follow the steps from Kath Eats Real Food. That is, I combined the oats and the milk and banana and chia seeds, heated it up for a few minutes then stirred it like crazy to combine before removing it from the heat and topping it with goodies. I also added the honey after I removed it from the heat because it was starting to get too hot and I didn’t want to overcook it. 

 

But the result was dreamy. Absolutely dreamy. Light and fluffy and sweet and a little crunchy…just the perfect combination of flavors. I wasn’t even all that hungry when I made it and I attacked it so hard. And with all of the protein and healthy fat additives, it would be such a great post-run staple.

 

Chomp chomp.

Now go make a bowl and dance to Robyn if you know what’s good for you. That’s what I’ll be doing all night!