Quicker Steel Cut Oats

I’m still feeling pretty good after yesterday’s long run, barely sore and I felt fine hitting the gym this morning. Usually after long runs, I’m sore and tired the next day. So maybe there is something to Vega Health Optimizer being a good run recovery food and if so, it’ll be my new post-long run smoothie for the rest of my half marathon training … which is only a month away – eek! This morning I went a different direction with breakfast because I was craving oatmeal. But all I have are steel cut oats which take 30 minutes to cook stove top and I just wasn’t feeling that patient. I read awhile back that steel cut oats could be chopped down in a food processor for faster cooking and smoother texture. But again, using and cleaning my food processor first thing this morning wasn’t appealing either. However, the dry container for my Vita-Mix is much easier to clean and somehow in my pre-coffee state I got an idea.

I threw 1/4 cup of the steel oats and a couple of heaping tablespoons of Trader Joe’s Peanut Flour into the dry blade Vita-Mix container.

And ran it on high for about a minute ending up with a finer, fully blended oatmeal powder.

I brought 1 cup of water to a boil on the stove top and whisked the powder mixture in. The oats only took about 15 minutes to cook, it cut the time down to half. I topped the oatmeal with banana slices, berries and a packet of stevia.

The texture was much smoother than straight up cooking the oats and the peanut flour was blended into it nicely giving it a  mild peanut butter flavor, so I think I found a new favorite way to prepare steel cut oats.

For lunch today I dragged my mom to an Indian buffet because I was craving curry. She was nervous, this was out of her food comfort zone. And she’s the first to complain if something is too spicy, but she actually liked it and had no complaints! The chana masala was wonderfully spicy and the curried veggies and potato pea stew I got were also wonderful. Not raw, but I was impressed with the vegan options.

Hours of shopping and many loads of laundry later, time to figure something out for dinner. Since lunch was a splurge and I skipped my usual veggie-loaded smoothie for breakfast, I decided to make up for that with dinner. We sauteed brussel sprouts with olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper for a fast side. And I whipped up a huge salad for my main dish while hubby grilled ribs.

The salad was good with avocado ginger dressing, sauerkraut, massaged kale, sweet peppers, carrot ribbons and chopped tomato. But even better when I topped with hemp seeds and dulse.

And how did Sunday get here so fast? I swear I was just celebrating Friday! Ugh. But Valentine’s day will be fun tomorrow, hubby won’t tell me where we’re going for dinner – can’t wait! What are your Valentine’s plans?