Inspiration

Hi everyone! And if anyone from my graduate class happens to drop by, welcome! Tonight one of our discussion topics was blogging, so I revealed to everyone in class that I have a personal blog and gave them the address. I hope I have some new visitors soon!

I was very inspired yesterday by Meghann's blogger bake sale, and sadly, I did not win Whitney's Customizable Granola. So, I made my own, using ingredients I had on hand.

In the mix:

• 3 cups oats
• 3 T. ground flax
• 1/2 c. cashew butter
• 1/3 c. honey
• 1 T. vanilla
• 1/2 t. salt
• dried cranberries
  

To start, I toasted the oats for 10 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees, stirring halfway through. Then I mixed the remaining ingredients (except the cranberries) in a small saucepan over medium heat until warm and smooth. I poured the cashew butter mixture over the oats, stirred to coat, and spread it out evenly on the sheet pan. Then I baked at 200 degrees for approximately 40 minutes, stirring every 10. Finally, I mixed in the cranberries and let the granola cool before storing in an air-tight container.

I packed some up in bags to take to my classmates and a small container to take to work today for a snack. I wasn't sure how I wanted to eat it, but then I thought about the yogurt/granola combinations I always see around the blog world and put the granola on top of my honey flavored Chobani:


Delicious and very filling! I will probably have a repeat of this snack tomorrow afternoon.


Now it's time to do some packing (I'm moving into my new apartment Friday, and the wedding is in 53 days!). I'll leave you tonight with some springtime pictures, taken right outside of my apartment!

Sunday is now Bar Day

I've actually had these bars over the past few days, but I decided to wait until today to review all of them.

First, I bought some Larabars after reading about them on all of your blogs. I got three varieties of the Jocalat bars (Chocolate, Chocolate Orange, and Chocolate Coffee) because they were on sale.

I had the Chocolate first, and I really wasn't that impressed. It was dry and crumbly, but I did like the flavor. Next was the Chocolate Coffee, which was much better than the first. I liked the texture and could taste the coffee flavor, but it was subtle. I actually decided the first bar must have been stale - probably why it was on sale in the first place.

I haven't tried the chocolate orange, but I am hopeful because that is one of my all-time favorite flavor combinations!



And speaking of good flavor combinations, I had an Honest Foods Cran Lemon Zest country square for breakfast one morning (with coffee, of course). This is my favorite one out of all of them! I have also tried the Choco Peanut and the Apple Ginger (I think?) and the Cran Lemon is the only repeat purchase I have made.


In exciting news, my Clif Z Spooky S'mores came! I found them on drugstore.com, and I was rather impressed with their service. I got free standard shipping for a purchase over $25 and it came in three days.

I really enjoyed this bar. It tasted a lot like my favorite one, Honey Graham, with a marshmallow flavor. I didn't really taste any chocolate, but I was looking for the marshmallow flavor anyway.


I also got a box of Honey Graham.


So, my question is this - do you think it would be okay to freeze the Clif Z bars? Or just put them in the fridge? The expiration dates are far off, but I know it will take me awhile to get through 36 of them.

Also, if any of my faithful readers (all two or three of you) would like a sample of either Clif Z Bar, just shoot me an e-mail with your address and I will be glad to share!

PB&J Oatmeal

As predicted, I was pretty hungry when I got home from class. I was craving some peanut butter, but I wanted to stretch a small amount of it rather than eat a lot on a sandwich. Peanut butter is a total trigger food for me and I have to be careful with my intake.

Also, I haven't had time to make oatmeal in the morning lately, so I decided it was time for it! I made a small portion (1/4 c. oats, 1/2 c. water) and added vanilla extract, cinnamon, and 1 T. ground flax. Then I stirred in about 1 T. peanut butter and topped it off with around a teaspoon of blackberry preserves.

This was really good, and the small portion was very filling. I think I might have this again tomorrow morning with a piece of fruit. Too bad I'm out of bananas!

We're always out of something.

Last night I really wanted a glass of chocolate milk for a snack. It seems like I'm always out of either milk or chocolate mix and last night I was out of milk. So, I had a yogurt instead:





I liked the consistency of this yogurt, but overall it doesn't compare to Greek yogurt at all. I have also tried to cut out most products that contain high fructose corn syrup (which is hard because it's in almost everything). I swear I also tasted a chemical flavor, but maybe that was in my mind because I wanted Chobani yogurt. I have one container of this left, but after that I probably won't buy any more.