Crockpot Oatmeal

I pretty much like anything that contains oatmeal, mostly baked goods.  I had been craving oatmeal for breakfast for some time now, but the instant oatmeal had been in the cabinet for so long it tasted like the plastic package it was in.  What a let down.

So from there I browsed the internet for an oatmeal recipe that I could throw in the crockpot at night before I went to bed and wake up to a yummy hot breakfast.  There were many recipes out there, most of which had dried fruit, lots of sugar and made with half-and-half or cream.  I am trying to watch what I eat so I didn't want to take the health benefits of oatmeal and cover them with cream and sugar.  

I finally came across the right one for me, thank goodness I wrote it down that night because I had been unable to find it again to give that person credit, sorry.

Recipe

1/2 cup steel cut oats

1 cup low fat milk

2 cups water

1 tea salt

1 Tbsp butter

Put all of the ingredients into a heat safe bowl.  You are going to place this bowl into the crockpot and set the crockpot on low.  Pour water into the crockpot around the heat safe bowl about half way up the bowl.  Cover and go to bed.  About 8 hours later, because you should get 8 hours of sleep a night, your oatmeal will be ready.

I get 4 servings out of this, and each serving is 3 Points Plus on Weight Watchers.  Whatever toppings I add are additional.

This made enough oatmeal for me for 4 days.  I just put the leftovers in the fridge, and heated up my portion every morning in the microwave.  It reheated really well.  I added a spoonful of toasted walnuts and some maple syrup to flavor mine just the way I like it.

Valentine Cupcake: Mexican Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcakes

I had to make a little chocolate Valentine treat, but I wanted it to be something different.  Once again I turned to the Cake Mix Doctor Chocolate Recipes.  One of the most important things I look for in a recipe, next to tasty sounding, is do I have the ingredients in the house when I want to make them now.

The final product was good but I felt like this cupcake needed some frosting next time, a chocolate frosting with a touch of cinnamon.  Needless to say they didn't complain at work about the lack of frosting.

Recipe
1 package plain devils food cake
1 package (3.9 oz) chocolate instant pudding
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
1 cup cinnamon chips

Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.  Mix all ingredients except the chips with a mixer for about 2 minutes.  Mix in chips.  Fill muffin cups 3/4 the way.  Bake 23-27 minutes.

Field Trip: King Arthur Flour Baker's Store

Every year we take a winter vacation to Vermont, and every year I look at the King Arthur Flour website to see how far it is from where we are staying.  You know all of these years it has never gotten closer.  So this was the year we finally bit the bullet and took the 100 plus mile ride to the The Baker's Shop.  

At first glance I felt I had landed in baker's heaven, any ingredient you could possibly imagine could be found here, cookbooks galore, baking pans!   The possibilities were endless.  I almost felt like I should have gone with a plan, being a normally compulsive planner and all.  I didn't want to buy "random" ingredients, or buy things that I can find in my local grocery store.  

I decided to go with some mixes, I had tried some last year that I bought in another specialty store in Vermont.  I got a couple of different scone mixes, cakes mixes, a bread mix and a pizza dough mix.  The one actual ingredient I purchased that day was espresso powder, I have looked at a few recipes in the past that had called for it but never had any.  Now I do.

Funny side note.  The day after we visited the store I saw job listings for King Arthur Flour on Facebook, and thought now if I only lived 250 miles closer I might have found my next career.  I can dream.

Get Your Craft On Valentine Style

Ever couple of months I get together with some girls from my mother's group to do a craft.  I get allot of ideas from other blogs and youtube.  I always knew there were allot of creative people out there, but I never realized how many of them were sharing their ideas complete with directions!

The scalloped box was made with my Cuttlebug and my new found favorite dies, Spellbinder Nestabilities.  The Spellbinder dies come in many different shapes, every shape comes with about six different sizes in the package.  Plus you can use a coupon in the craft store to buy, everyone loves a bargain!  Okay back to the project, I got the directions and measurements for all the paper cuts from Chic-N-Scratch and just put my spin on it for Valentines Day.  The decoration for the boxes were made with some punches I had at home and some dollar stamps from the craft store.

The nugget box is similar to the ones I had done on a previous post, but instead of the two nugget box I made a four nugget box.  The nugget box seemed to be allot of work for just two pieces of chocolate, I need more bang for my time.

Pecan Chicken

I had defrosted some chicken cutlets but I was really unsure about how I was going to prepare them.  I am a lover of plain old breaded cutlets but was looking for a little something different.  After a little cookbook browsing, and scanning the cabinets for the ingredients I had found a keeper.

The chicken started off being marinated in a Dijon mustard based marinade, which also acted as the binder for the nutty breading.  After they were all fried up  served them over a leafy green salad with a balsamic dressing.  They made for a great lunch at work that held up well during travelling.