Happy St. Patrick's Day - Food Flashback

Hello everyone. Just wanted to drop in and wish a Happy St. Patrick's Day to all those who celebrate.

This is a St. Patrick's Day cake I did about two years ago ... during the beginning of my cake decorating phase (but before my photography phase, so sadly the pics aren't great). It's a simple white cake with some green gel food coloring to get the perfect shade of green without ruining the consistency of the cake. It is a wonderful surprise to those eating it when they cut through the white icing to see bright green cake!! The rainbow is simply M&Ms flipped so the M isn't visible. :)

If I could do this cake again I would grab enough M&Ms to line the entire side of the cake in rainbow. You could also do just about any flavor of cake. I'm not fond of it personally, but a small dollop of some kind of mint extract would be a nice surprise to those who are fond of it in food.

Read More

Apple Pie Oatmeal

In one of my previous Blogs to Love Friday posts I linked to a recipe by Nutritionist in the Kitch for Apple Pie Oatmeal. I am by no means a food blogger, but as my ongoing struggle with weight loss shows I love food! I especially love apple pie. I could seriously demolish an entire pie myself. I'm not one to take just a small slice and nibble at it; I take a huge slice, chop it up in a bowl, heat it up, and then add milk and sugar ... and sometimes repeat. So something that tastes like apple pie, but is a healthier option is something worth blogging about in my opinion.

If you're looking for professional food pictures I recommend seeing the links above to the post by Nutritionist in the Kitch. If you're here to see a real life, non-pro's attempt at it keep reading!

You'll need a slow cooker, apples, cinnamon, steel cut oats, apple juice, water. The crock-pot is so perfect for this recipe. It lets you slow cook this oatmeal overnight so you can have it warm and gooey first thing in the morning. If you forget to set it overnight, you can quick cook it in about 2 1/2 hours on high.

The recipe calls for 3 diced apples, but I used 4. I love apples and this made the finished product even more gooey! Chunk them up and layer them over 1 cup of the steel cut oats.

Sprinkle with a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Drown with 1 cup of apple juice and 3 cups of water.

Mix and turn on the crock-pot. I prefer the ultra-soft apples and the gooey-ness of the oatmeal when slow cooked so I turn it on low and cook up to 8 hours.

This was my breakfast first thing in the morning. This picture does not do this oatmeal justice. You really need sense of smell to link this to apple pie! I dished this up and put the leftovers in the fridge for later. This recipe makes a lot!! I was able to have multiple bowls and still have enough to give to family with my last batch.

And I had to add milk and sugar. This batch had very sweet apples so it didn't really need sugar, but I added a small sprinkle to appease my sweets loving tummy. The vanilla almond milk I used in place of my regular milk also added a special something. You can eat this my way, plain, with cinnamon and sugar, with maple syrup, or any other way you like your apple pie.

I hope you guys don't mind a food post, but something this tasty, sinfully delicious, and so very filling is something I think should be shared with the world!  :)

You can see and print the original Nutritionist in the Kitch recipe here.

Read More