Popular Porridges
Tag Archives: hidden banana
Cranberry Almond Oatmeal
It’s been a little quiet this week, for which I will not apologize! I enjoyed the break. I came down with the flu last weekend, and it set me back quite a bit. I had recipes to post, but I felt pretty tired, busy, and lethargic the rest of my week. It took me heap-loads of ambition to drag myself out of my funk this morning, but I’m finally back.
I recently received an Amazon gift card for Christmas. Being a very strange person, I decided to buy groceries with it. Like anyone who eats freakishly strange but healthy food, some products (e.g. chia seeds!) can be expensive and/or hard to find, and Amazon is a beautiful place to find these things. What did I buy with my earnings? KIND bars.
Gingerbread Oat Muffins
I never used to enjoy baking things (even baked oatmeal took me awhile to get the hang of), but I am on a muffin spree lately. Once I learned my ways with baking soda and wet to dry ratios, making oatmeal muffins became a blast.
These were originally intended to be banana-gingerbread muffins. However, after preparing the batter, I realized the banana flavor was completely hidden. To be honest, I wasn’t at all upset about that! I actually preferred a straight-up gingerbread flavor, but I knew (or thought) using bananas as a sweetener would change the flavor, so I decided to be realistic and honest and include banana in the name.
(more…)
German Chocolate Baked Oatmeal
I did it! I did it! I’ve been pondering this recipe for months, and it’s finally a reality! Last week, I referenced my list of oatmeal recipes and how many of them were more ambitious, and I was too lazy to attempt them. This was one of those recipes.
Once I figured out the missing piece of the equation (the all-important coconut-pecan frosting), I couldn’t wait to try it out. The other day, I finally did it. (more…)
Dirty Chai Oatmeal
I wish coffee shops would stop bastardizing chai.
You know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean. The standard coffee shop version of chai tea comes in powdered form and is full of sugar. It gives me absolutely no control over ingredients. With other drink selections, I can request soy milk or only one pump of flavor. With chai tea, I’m stuck with the powdered sugarfest. (more…)
Mocha Oatmeal (with Variations)
Wednesday morning, I had great plans for a Peppermint Mocha Oatmeal. I planned it while falling asleep the night before, and I woke up eager to try it out.
My dreams came crashing down when I opened my mother’s bottle of mint extract, only to get an awful whiff of spearmint. SPEARMINT!! Ugh. It was a combination of spearmint and peppermint. Unacceptable!
I was not about to have spearmint mocha–gross. Instead, I just went with a simple mocha oatmeal, along with a little bit of vanilla extract to enhance the chocolate flavor. (more…)
Strawberry Mojito Oatmeal
Who thought of combining lime with mint?
They deserve an award.
Also, who discovered oatmeal? They deserve a BILLION awards.
Pumpkin Spice Latte Oatmeal
As I’ve said before, coffee was never a big part of my life. It wasn’t until I started ignorantly dieting several years ago that my interest in the drink really blossomed (What? No calories??). I would drink the stuff black during my brief stint as an office assistant the summer after my freshmen year of college. Brewing and drinking coffee (and cleaning up the machine afterward) gave me a break from my eight hours of scanning and shredding.
As a result, when I returned to school in the fall for my sophomore year, I was completely clueless about the nutrition of specialty coffee drinks. I had a few extra minutes before my Western Civilization class, so I stopped at Java City, the Starbucks-like company on our campus. I was in the mood for something sweeter (so not black coffee), but I had no idea what anything on the menu went (mocha? latte?? americano??!?). I did, however, see a large poster promoting the in-season Pumpkin Spice Javalanche (the equivalent of a frappuccino). Feeling adventurous, I ordered one of those.
(more…)
Gingerbread Latte Oatmeal
Who says gingerbread lattes are only for wintertime?
It hit me like a jar of coconut oil–latte oatmeals! Coffee oatmeals! Mocha oatmeals! This recipe for gingerbread latte oatmeal is actually just ONE of DOZENS of ideas I have using coffee as the liquid base. I am so excited to share with you all my ideas! I seriously cannot post fast enough.
Lemon Poppy Seed Oatmeal (2 ways)
If you can believe it, I didn’t try lemon poppy seed until I got to college. In my depression/identity crisis, I basically ate my feelings, so I made frequent trips to the on-campus eateries throughout the day. One of the treats I became addicted to was the lemon poppy seed bread. It was dense, chilled, and super sweet.
When I started eating oatmeal the following year, I initially set out to recreate dessert recipes. I tried banana bread, carrot cake, cheesecake, french toast, and chocolate chip. Basically, oatmeal was my attempt to make dieting suck less (before I discovered whole foods).
Gingerbread Oatmeal
As an about-to-graduate-from-college teacher candidate, I’ve been told trillions of times, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” In other words, don’t bother recreating something if someone else has already created it. Don’t waste your time. Borrow. Make something your own, but don’t spend hours duplicating materials that are already available to you.
Which is why I’m sharing this recipe for Gingerbread Oatmeal with you. I tinkered with my own recipe for a while, adjusting the spices and such. I tried with banana, and I tried without. I tried with more molasses, and I tried with less. I tried with mild, and I tried with blackstrap.
Alas, I gave up and did some Googling. I knew I had seen Gingerbread Oatmeal recipes before, so maybe comparing my recipe with someone else’s would help me figure out what was wrong.
Instead, I found a recipe on one of my favorite blogs that was extremely similar to my own, with minor adjustments. As I compared the two recipes, I realized, “Why post my own recipe? Don’t reinvent the wheel.”
So instead, I’ll send you over to Vegan Yack Attack for the recipe! Enjoy! 🙂
**You can also find hundreds of other oatmeal recipes (as well as tons of other meatless recipes) on my Pinterest account! You can also like The Oatmeal Artist on Facebook. Thanks!
