I went to bed last night in Charlotte, and woke up in…Ohio??

Nope – still Charlotte, but covered in SNOW and ICE!!  When I woke up I could hear the  ice raining down, which prompted me to stay in bed an extra 30 minutes.  I love weekends!  The snow brought out the little kids (or puppies) in all of us…

I thought this cold, snowy morning was the perfect time to finally show you how I make my perfect bowl of morning OATMEAL! 

How To: Rice Cooker Oatmeal & PB2 Topping!

It all starts the night before.  I have this amazing Zojirushi rice cooker that my mother-in-law gave us last year (thank you, Tina!!).  While it is a bit on the expensive side, we use it at least once every day, so to me – it is priceless!

Every night I scoop 3/4 cup steel cut oats into the rice cooker bowl, and top it with 2.75 cups water (or sometimes a mix of water and coffee – yum!).  One portion of the steel cut oats is actually 1/4 cup, but I don’t think it fills me up enough, so Casey and I split the extra serving.  Then I close the top, put it on the porridge setting, and set the timer for 5am (on weekdays).

When I wake up, the rice cooker sings to me (seriously), and inside I have this…

Which looks like this, when it’s all stirred up and gooey.  (Please excuse the early morning shadows in the pictures!)

Depending on the morning, time, what sounds good, etc. – I will make different variations of oatmeal.  Today, banana sounded good.  I slice mine down the middle first, so that the chunks aren’t so big.  Then I chop it up into bite sized pieces.

Next is the most important part – the creation of the hot gooey PB2 topping.  It starts with the food scale, one of my most frequently used kitchen products.  So much that it sits out on our counter permanently!

I weigh out the PB2, or Chocolate PB2 in this case (still waiting for UPS to bring me more!), to exactly 24 grams – two servings.  Using a food scale is so much more accurate than using measuring cups, and it’s a great way to be sure that I’m not over-portioning, which is so easy to do.

Next I add the water, and I purposely make it runny and soupy.  Stir, stir, stir!

Then I pop it into the microwave for 30 seconds, take it out and stir, pop it in for 30 more seconds, stir again, and a final 30 seconds (90 seconds total, but make sure you stir in between or it will BURN!), and give it a final stir.  It comes out piping hot and thick, like hot peanut butter icing!

Once our oatmeal has been portioned out (again using the food scale to make sure we are even!), I drizzle the PB2 topping over the top.

My very favorite part of making breakfast is eating the extra PB2 topping with my finger at the end!  :)

The last thing I added was a giant blob of Crofter’s Superfruit Spread – this stuff is seriously delicious!!  We already polished off the first jar, so today we moved on to Black Currants and Pomegranate spread, mmmmm.  My only complaint about these jellies is that I wish the jars were BIGGER!  Between PB&J oatmeal every day, and PB&J sandwiches for lunch, we are blowing through these…

So there you have it.  My perfect bowl of oatmeal.  With my magical rice cooker, I wake up to perfectly cooked and piping hot steel cut oats every morning.  All I have to do is decide which toppings to use!

And speaking of Superfruit, check back later today for an exciting GIVEAWAY post!  For now, I’m going to enjoy being snowed in and see if there’s any room for me in this blanket ball…

Today was my first full day working my new Catering Manager gig.  It’s weird to be back in an office job and sitting at a desk all day, although the day definitely flew by much faster than I had anticipated.  I looked out the window around 4:45 and saw GIGANTIC flakes of snow falling from the sky!!  I hurried up to get out of there, knowing the roads would be bad and that Charlotte drivers would be wimps.

I drove as carefully and quickly as one can possibly do simultaneously, because I had a yoga date planned with Kath and Tanner!!  We did the Hot Vinyasa class – my favorite – and I was drenched in sweat as usual by the time I left.  I drove home in more gigantic snowflake flurries – I thought I moved to get away from the snow!

After a scalding hot shower to warm up, I got to work on dinner.  I threw some rice and chopped fresh rosemary into the rice cooker and some broccoli on a sheet pan to roast.  Next up was up was my go-to “it’s getting late and I’m hungry” ingredient – sautéed tofu. 

The final product was absolutely delicious as usual!  It’s my standard way of making crispy tofu – no recipe tonight because I have a TOFU TUTORIAL coming atcha this weekend…

These fabulous little cubes were served with…

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Roasted Broccoli and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 1 head broccoli
• 1 pint baby bella mushrooms
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste
• red pepper flakes to taste

To Prepare:  This is so easy you can barely even call it a recipe.  Chop up the broccoli and the broccoli stalks (why throw away perfectly useable parts of the plant?), and toss in a baby bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.  Roast in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes.  Add mushrooms (also tossed and seasoned) and roast an additional 10 minutes. 

And last but certainly not least…

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Brown Rice & Pinto Beans with Lemon & Rosemary

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice

1.75 cups water (or veg stock)

1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp chopped rosemary

To Prepare:  I made mine in a rice cooker, which you literally just dump into, but if you don’t have one you can also simply prepare the rice on the stovetop.  Bring the water to a boil, add the rice, lemon juice, and rosemary, and lower to a simmer and cover until the water is absorbed.  When the rice has only a few minutes left to go, sauté the pinto beans in lemon juice just to heat through. 

When the rice is done, toss it all together and combine for serving!

A delicious and filling dinner after a great yoga workout – sounds like a fun Friday night to me!!

I have tentative oatmeal breakfast plans with Kath, but I am scared that we might have to cancel because of this SNOW!!  Hopefully it all melts by Sunday before my scheduled 12 long run…

Make sure to check back tomorrow for an exciting GIVEAWAY!!  G’night.