Let There Be Oats! (round 2) This time, with oats

So in my ongoing search for a healthy breakfast muffin I've moved onto my second recipe. Although due to a lack of muffin tins (still packed away at my Mom's house) I decided to look for something that would work better baked in a pan. I naturally found a recipe for an oatmeal bar that was made to be baked into a 9x9 square pan (lo and behold my 9x9 pyrex is also packed away at my mothers). Once again I ended up using a circular cake pan (I really need to get my baking life in order, this is getting ridiculous!)

Alright, so to the recipe! I found this one on Kath Eats Real Food blog and from what I've seen I will be on there more often! She has an entire section for a 'tribute to oatmeal' (woman after my own heart).

Basically it is oats, walnuts, dried fruit (of your preference), seeds (of your preference) and cinammon. I added raisins, dates (my fave), as well as some from a mixed bag, it had things like cherries, blueberries, and cranberries. As for the seeds I threw in some flax, sunflower, and pumpkin. I also threw some coconut in but I would definitely add more next time cause I can't really taste it.

Mixin' the dry ingredients

Ready to go in the oven  

Ready to eat

I'm a pretty big fan of these. They are very hearty and natural, not a lot of added anything. I did add some brown sugar as there isn't really any sweetness in these except the dried fruit. I think if I made them again I would cut up some apples and add extra cinnamon only because if you don't have any dried fruit in your bite it is pretty tasteless. Also because I absolutely love oatmeal with apples and cinnamon. Now rest assured if you do have fruit in your bite it is very very tasty.

Damn that's domestic

Finally(!) I got my sewing machine fixed (at the small cost of $100 - ouch!) which means that I finally(!) got to finish the sewing project that I started weeks ago. So as you might remember I said that I went thrifting with my friend Mary I bought a dress (for just $3), a dress that needed some serious alterations. So that is just what I did, I shortened the dress and sleeves, removed the collar and made the neckline different. To be fair, the dress is quite a few sizes too big for me, which you can still tell in the top part.

Well I don't really know if I'll wear it a lot - I mean I do think it is quite cute now but I don't really know how I feel about it altogether. That said, I had fun altering it because if there was no real pattern so it was all about what I wanted to do and no real way to do it (that) wrong.

What do you think?!

     

Oh the English language

So back in say March I was sending my brothers some packages from the Netherlands back to Canada, mostly the packages included delicious stroopwafels. That is, however, beside the point.

I had to find a store that I could buy packing materials and pay for postage, etc to send the aforementioned  packages.

So I found a TNT shop, went in, picked out two large envelopes and proceeded to ask the attendant if I should pay for the package then pay for the shipping or if I could address the envelopes, pack them, and then pay for shipping altogether.

At this point the sale lady looked at me and said "We don't ship them, they will go by air"

I paused, thinking for a moment, nodded and rephrased my question.

Oh English, you are a silly thing.

Dream a dream...

Oh Amsterdam!

Let there be oats!

I'm not much of a breakfast person, my stomach has never been able to handle great deals of food early in the morning. So you'll never find me flipping eggs or frying bacon in the morning, well unless it is the weekend and I've sat around for a long lazy morning. I find those are brunch foods, but thats mostly because the thought of eating them first thing in the morning make me queasy. 

That said, I still need to eat something in the morning (at least something in my stomach to calm all the coffee I drink). The problem is, I like to eat either on the way to of when I first get to work. This can be tough and means that I have to think ahead of time what I'll be taking, and it needs to transport well and be easy to eat. Although I do enjoy a bowl of cereal with banana in it, it doesn't really work all that great in a car.

For this reason I am attempting to find a great muffin recipe. Now when I say great I mean it needs to simultaneously be healthy for me, filling enough to get me through to lunch, and delicious. Now I have no aversion to health food so I'm not afraid to bake with whole grains, oat, add nuts, raisins, dates, ground flax, wheat germ, and other hearty things. The only issue with these things is, when done wrong, they end up being dry, dense, and generally not that enjoyable. 

For round 1 I found a 'breakfast muffin' recipe online that I thought sounded good that included many of the above mentioned ingredients. I quickly discovered, however, that my muffin pans are still at my mother's house from my last move, or maybe the second last move, who really knows? 

So I decided to try and make it in a pie plate and just cut it up into bits. I'll say that the product is better looking that it is tasting and I am embarrassed to say I forgot to put in the egg and I think I had too little yogurt (it called for yogurt and orange juice as opposed to other liquids). So the muffin loaf tastes alright it is very dry and very dense. Even with the egg and some extra liquid I don't think I'll be trying this one again.

Do you have any great healthy/hearty breakfast muffin/loaf recipes? Willing to share? 

I'll keep you posted on the other recipes I try :)

Bloglovin

I'm tentatively on bloglovin because newsfire (the rss feed I was using before) now wants to charge me. Not really sure how I feel about it, but follow my blog with Bloglovin :)

Knitting Lately

Well friends I've been crazy busy, but I've tried to make time to knit this cute infinity scarf. It was beyond easy. I had to sew the two ends together and I'm not totally happy with the seam so I'm still working on it. I think it'll be a good addition to my unnecessarily huge scarf collection. Knit on friends! Knit on!