Mushroom and Sweet Potato Tacos with Almond Sauce

In the Kitchen is a series created to inspire others to cook more for themselves. It’s an effort to make healthful eating attainable in a zero-plastic way. It’s an ode towards the one life hack that keeps us well on our financial track. Hoping to slow people down this fast-paced track, I suggest giving up the dine-out and to-go habit, even for just a day a week. Some recipes are meant to be shared with your community, lest it be two or twenty. Others, more decadent and perhaps meant entirely for yourself. In either case, these are some of our tried, true, and favorited.

This recipe, like most of our recent ones, is adapted from Kinfolk Table. At first, I thought maybe I would greatly dislike this recipe. Sweet potato and mushroom translates to, well, mush in my head, and I thought the combination between this and soft tacos topped with an almond paste would make me feel a bit like an old person trying to eat. Surprisingly, with a few changes that added texture and crunch to the taco, it became not so much the case. Also, the almond sauce and sweet potato makes the taco a bit sweet in my opinion, but by topping the tacos with home-made Siracha sauce, I was able to add another dimension that really elevated the taste.

I would admit that the prep work is not the quickest. I found myself focusing entirely on the recipe. I think that the best way to go about the prep work is to prep the potatoes and let them bake in the oven. As they are cooking, the mushrooms are best made next. And lastly, the almond sauce. Everything should finish around the time that the sweet potatoes are ready. A great thing to do would be to pre-prep the different parts of the taco prior, and then simply re-heat and assemble the tacos during dinner time. Despite the long prep-time, this isn’t a very difficult recipe to make. It would make a great tapa for any dinner party or happy hour gathering. Just have someone else make the cocktail.

Ingredients:

For the almond paste:

1 large head of roasted garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 shallot, minced
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 cup vegetable stock
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup of canola oil

For the tacos:

2 sweet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
Large pinch of ground cinnamon
Large pinch of ground cumin
Pinch of cayenne
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
10 ounces mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
3 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 cups flat leaf parsley, chopped
Twelve 6 inch corn tortillas
Cilantro leaves
Sliced Almonds or Chopped Pumpkin Seeds

The Process:

If you haven’t any roasted garlic, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, cut a garlic in half, drizzle with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and season the cut sides with salt. Press the garlic halves together and wrap in foil. Roast in the oven for one hour. Transfer the foil to a rack and reserve for the sauce. This should be done prior to prepping this meal.
Meanwhile, cut up the sweet potatoes and toss with cinnamon, cumin, and cayenne. Drizzle with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook in the oven for 40 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until tender. You can easily see why this is the rate-limiting step.
Next, place the almonds for the sauce in a medium sized bowl and add enough boiling water to cover them by an inch or so. Let soak for approximately ten minutes, then drain.
While they are soaking, melt butter in a large skillet over medium-heat. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook for about three minutes or until the mushrooms begin to release liquid. Add the three cloves of minced garlic and cook for five more minutes while stirring continuously so the garlic does not burn. The mushrooms should be a golden color. Stir in the parsley, remove from heat, and set aside.
Meanwhile, using the same skillet, heat one tablespoon of olive oil until shimmering. Cook the shallot, paprika, coriander, and a pinch of salt for five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the shallot becomes translucent and soft. Transfer the shallot to a food processor.
Drain the almonds and add to the food processor, along with the vegetable stock, lemon zest, and if ready, the roasted garlic squeezed from the skin. Pulse until creamy. With the mixer running on high, pour the remaining 3/4 cup of olive oil and the canola oil through the feed tube and continue processing until the oils are completely incorporated. Season with salt and pepper and reserve.
The sweet potatoes should be finishing up soon. Heat the tortillas directly on the stovetop flame for thirty seconds each side. This is Mr. Debtist’s favorite part. He has a particular preference for a bit of char along the edges. Me, I’m just happy if it’s warm.
When potatoes are ready, assemble the tacos by filling each tortilla with sweet potatoes and mushroom. Plop a decent serving of the almond sauce. Top with cilantro leaves and either sliced almonds or chopped pumpkin seeds. The seeds are what give it texture. Drizzle siracha generously or to your liking. Enjoy!

Note: This is one of those meals that don’t have to be piping hot to taste good, which is why it makes as a great thing to serve for tapas or appetizers at a friendly gathering.

If you’d like to receive new recipes notifications delivered straight to your inbox, get on the list!

Rye Pecan Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

When it comes to cooking, I find joy in creating complexity out of the most simple and base ingredients. Take carrots, for example. A boring carrot stick is something you pass by on your weekly grocery run in the produce aisle. Orange, stiff, sometimes with carrot top still intact (in which case, a no-waste carrot top recipe, here). A long ways from extraordinary. But when I think of a well-made carrot cake, my eyes can’t help but twinkle, my mouth salivates. The marriage between sweet, earthy, and spicy undertones signifies a TRUE carrot cake, not disguised by extreme amounts of sugar, as they usually are. The colors of the cake itself remind me of the beauty of fall – orange from the carrots, brown from cinnamon and brown sugar, purple and mossy green from the rye.

Too often, carrot cake is done a disservice. Fatty and sugary sweet isn’t the cake I dream of. If it comes out of the pan shiny, covered in grease and oil, then you know it’s not done right. The texture should be moist, but grainy too. It should be fluffy and crumbly. My favorite way to make it is to keep the carrot shreds long, so that they break up the cake and are featured in their own right, rather than disappear into the flour, overshadowed by bread. With this recipe modified from East of Kitchen, I was able to create such a cake for a Friendsgiving gathering, with plenty of left-overs to boot.

It’s time to do carrot cake justice.

For the cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups pecans, roughly chopped
5 cups carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
4 cups Bob’s Red Mill Stone Ground Rye flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp cinnamon
8 large free-range eggs
2.5 cups granulated sugar
2 cups coconut oil
3 tsp pure vanilla extract

The Process:

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease two 9-in cake pans and line the bottom with a circle of baking paper and grease that, too.
In a large bowl, combine the rye flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the eggs until frothy, about 3-4 minutes on medium speed. Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time and beat until the batter has thickened.
With the mixer running on medium speed, add the coconut oil in a slow and steady stream.
With the mixer set on low speed, add the flour mixture, and mix just until combined.
Dump the grated carrots and the pecans in the batter and incorporate with the aid of a spatula.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool on a wire rack completely before removing to a cooling rack. When it is completely cooled, cut lengthwise through the middle with the aid of a serrated knife.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
16 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 tsp lemon zest

The Process:

In the bowl of your stand mixer beat the butter and cream cheese on low speed until everything is blended.
Add the powdered sugar one tablespoon at a time, with mixer running on low, until everything is incorporated and smooth. Beat in the vanilla and zest.
Refrigerate at least one hour prior.

To assemble the cake:

Place the first cake layer on a serving plate.
Wrap wax paper around the circumference of the cake to create a tall wall to support the building of the cake.
Spoon 2 tsp of milk over the cake. This will keep the cake moist.
Spread a layer of the frosting evenly on top, then place the second layer over.
Spoon 2 tsp of milk, and them spread another layer of frosting.
Repeat with the third and fourth layers. Spread frosting evenly on top. There should be more than a fourth of the frosting reserved for the top layer. Reserve a small amount of frosting for the sides of the cake.
Place the cake into the freezer without removing the wax paper. Let sit in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour.
Remove the cake from the freezer and remove the wax paper. Ice the sides of the cake with a thin layer of frosting. Place in the fridge for at least one hour to allow the frosting to set.
The cake should be ready to eat afterwards. If you wish, decorate with sprigs of rosemary stems.

Vegetarian Coconut Curry

We’ve kind of took it upon ourselves to create a frugal challenge that requires us to become vegetarian for a week. The progress report: Grocery bills have been less than $40 for two, sufficiently providing three meals per day, seven days a week. Frugal challenges for the win! As if this wasn’t enough, the past few weeks, I’ve indulged myself in an even bigger challenge, one spurred by a visiting 24-year old cousin from Virginia. Her recent visit divulged the fact that she has been pescatarian for two years, in an effort to be non-contributory to the food industry’s ways. I did give up beef one year ago, along similar lines of reasoning, but could not fathom giving up anything more (this fear driven by a love of bacon). But her youth and drive to make a difference was very inspiring. I have a lot of friends who have gone pescatarian. Additionally, I know of two people who gave up meat at 8 years old. If I could be whole-heartedly against plastic, why can’t it be the same of food? I bade farewell to my far-off cousin with the promises of at least trying it. Off course, I decided to time my first week of trials with this month’s frugal challenge of vegetarian meals for one week.

The results are two-fold. Extreme sadness and ill-conceived hunger at all times. Giving up chocolate was easier than this. It’s not like I haven’t gone vegetarian for a week before. It’s just that I’ve never done it knowing there’s possibly of a week (or lifetime) or pescatarianism after. On the other side, experimental recipes galore unleashes an innate happiness that only creation can.

Related Posts

Before we grocery shop, we always write a list. Firstly, because I am type-A. Secondly, because I despise wasting time in uncertainty. And lastly, to avoid getting any unnecessary items. Especially junk food and snacks! So when we were brainstorming for a week of vegetarian dishes, it was Mike who suggested trying an Indian dish. Some may call us crazy for trying a curry in mid-summer heat, but I wasn’t mad about the results. Plus, any excuse to eat rice is welcomed in my culture.

We’ve made curry before, but usually in the fall and winter, filled with squashes and, well, meat. We decided to try something a little different, with more summery ingredients. This recipe contains a good blend of spices, including bold Cayenne pepper. There’s a kick with every spoonful, balanced by Jasmine rice. It does already contain potatoes though, so if you are bothered at all by endless starches, maybe skip the rice. It tastes just as well as a soup! The carrots was Mike’s addition, and the spinach was mine. As with everything, personalize it however way you wish with your own selection of greens. Our recipe, below:

Ingredients:

1/3 cup cooking oil
3 heirloom tomatoes, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon crushed cayenne pepper
1 cup water
1 pound potatoes, peeled, and cubed
1/2 pound green beans, trimmed and cut in 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 bunch of fresh spinach, washed and chopped

The Process:

In a medium pot over medium-high heat, combine the oil and tomatoes and simmer for four minutes. You don’t want to burn the tomatoes, but you do eventually want their juices to come out. The tomato paste will go a long way with this dish.
Stir in the spices and cook for another 4 minutes.
Add the water and potatoes and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for about 10 minutes. It may be that you’d need to add more water. Don’t let the dish dry out.
Add in the green beans, cover and cook 5-8 minutes more, or until potatoes are tender.
Stir in the coconut milk and increase heat to medium. Once the mixture comes to a boil, add the spinach and stir, allowing the spinach to wilt, about 15-30 seconds. I personally still like spinach looking vibrantly green. The color makes it taste better, or so I tell myself. Once the spinach is wilted, it is ready. Serve and enjoy!
Optional: Globs of Jasmine Rice on the side, stray rice included.

If you’d like to receive new recipes notifications delivered straight to your inbox, get on the list!

Frozen Sweet Latte Recipe

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

It’s summer in Southern California, and my frugal self can’t help but turn on the AC once the loft nears 90 degrees Fahrenheit. In a moment of weakness (I blame the heat), we went to our favorite local coffee shop in Santa Ana last Sunday, to reap the benefits of their AC in lieu of turning ours on. Which also is a confession for: we ordered coffee at a coffee shop, something we haven’t done in a while. Despite the regrets of spending $11 in exchange for two hours of AC time (we stayed until closing hour), we were introduced to a splendid drink, which they call the Frozen Sweet Latte.

The drink comes from a slushie machine, and while $5.50 a glass seems like a steep price, the joys of sipping one of these babies as icy crystals twinkle on your tongue is indescribable. It’s enough to evaporate any heat wave (well, the AC in the shop helped). Regardless, once we had a taste of their medicine, we just knew we had to replicate it, or at least try. Hence, the sharing of a similar, but slightly different, frozen sweet latte recipe. Without a slushie machine, we made up for their textured ice crystals with a more distinct taste of espresso. Here’s how you could avoid paying for coffee, and sit through another hot afternoon in a blazing room.

Makes 6 servings

Things you need:

- Blender – You’ll need a blender to mix all this goodness right before serving. Having worked at Jamba Juice for almost two years, a blender was one of the first things to go on our registry. No Annie Banks Mackenzie crying over a blender as a wedding gift here (Father of the Bride fans, anyone?). This is the one we own.
- Scale – I own this one, because it weighs heavy-enough things for bread-making as well. I also like this because I can toggle between grams and ounces. Mike has this one that he uses for coffee exclusively, which is what we mostly use when measuring coffee bean and water weight. It is especially useful since it has that timer, essential to latte pulls and drip-coffee!
- Grinder – The grinder plays a huge role in the quality of your brew (or espresso, or latte, or what-have-you). We used to just live with the results of a sub-par grinder, until last Christmas, when our gift to each other was a high quality grinder that has been spewing out delicious cups of Joe ever since.
- Espresso Machine – The La Marzocco Linea Mini is the machine we use for our espressos. It’s a high quality machine, and the price point reflects it. However, for my frugal readers who happen to buy an espresso drink every day, it will take approximately three years to come out even in terms of money spent on coffee. Just in case you care about the math.
- Freezer safe bowl – Honestly, we just use a glass Tupperware to store the coffee in the freezer. We have a Tupperware set similar to this one.

Ingredients:

1 cup of espresso
1 cup of milk
1/4 cup sugar
6 cups of crushed ice

The Process:

Pull 1 cup of espresso from the espresso machine. We had to pull approximately 4 espresso shots, at 20 grams of freshly ground coffee beans extracted at 25 seconds each shot.
Pour the espresso in a freezer safe bowl. Add the sugar and mix until the sugar has completely dissolved.
Add 1/2 a cup of milk.
Freeze in the freezer for at least 8 hours.
Thaw slightly in the fridge right before use. We placed it in the fridge for approximately one hour.
Transfer to a blender with 1/2 cup of milk. Add 6 cups of crushed ice (depending on the consistency you want).
Blend on high until thoroughly mixed. We still wanted some crushed ice pieces in there.
Pour into 6 glasses. Sprinkle with freshly ground coffee.
Enjoy with a metal straw.

The Verdict:

Our version is definitely not as light as theirs, but if you really like the taste of coffee, the flavor stands out more in this version. If you could budget out $5.50 a glass, it’s still worth trying out their slushie machine version at Hopper and Burr. Really, the texture is better than ours! The owner, Severson, is doing other pretty neat stuff worth checking out too.

Zero Waste Tumeric Red Lentil Fritters Tomato Bowl with Tahini Dill Sauce

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Rumor has it that my co-worker’s wife makes the best lentil soup, and vegan friends have sworn that lentils make for an amazing alternative to meat, whether in burgers or in meat-less meatloaves. So when Mike came across a recipe for Lentil Fritters and voiced a willingness to try a vegetarian alternative to meatballs, I decided to give it a go. This recipe in particular included tumeric, a spice that previous to this post, I have not tried for myself, despite seeing it on every shelf at Mother’s Market and Whole Foods in every edible form imaginable. The benefits of tumeric still escapes me, so anybody able to shed light on this is entirely welcome to! Either way, while curiosity killed the cat, in this case, it got two humans to try a vegan meal in a normally very-non-vegan house.

Happily, I was able to get all ingredients in zero-waste fashion from the bulk aisle of our local Whole Foods. Initially, there was no inkling amongst the both of us that lentil was a grain. For some reason, I always imagined a leafy green. But we finally found it after a quick Google search, and carted away red lentils, chia seeds, and unhulled sesame seeds in self-brought containers. Determined not to buy pre-packaged tahini sauce, I decided to be generous in the sesame seed purchase, so that I could make tahini from scratch at home. And in my efforts to continue with the zero waste, we used some day old bread to create the bread crumbs that we needed to add some texture to the fritters. Biased-ly enough, any recipe that allows me to curb landfill waste is a great one! So I hope you enjoy the nutty, seedy, earthy fritters atop a refreshing bed of salad as much as we did.

Ingredients:

Seedy Lentil Fritters

1 tsp oil
1/2 cup onion
5 cloves of garlic chopped
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1/3 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 tsp or more cayenne
1/2 cup red lentils, washed and drained
1.5 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 cup packed chopped spinach
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Tahini Dill Sauce

3/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
3 tbs olive oil
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne

Bowl

Lettuce
Chopped tomatoes & cucumbers

The Process:

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook until translucent, stirring occasionally.
Add all the spices and drained lentils. mix and cook for only a minute.
Add salt and water and cook for 11 minutes partially covered. Uncover, fold in spinach and parlsey and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the lentils are cooked and all the liquid is absorbed. The mixture will be soft. Taste and adjust salt and heat.
Add chia seeds and sesame seeds and mix in. Chill the lentil mixture for half an hour (in our case, we just placed it right in the fridge!)
Meanwhile, make croutons from day old bread using our Basic Crouton Recipe. Once croutons come out of the oven, crush them using either mortar and pestle, or a rolling pin.
Preheat the oven to 425 deg F / 220ºc. Mix in 1/4 cup breadcrumbs in the lentil mixture. The mixture will be soft but should get easily shaped into soft balls without too much sticking or squishing.
Once the lentil mixtures have been shaped into fritters, place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Use a pastry brush to rub olive oil over the surfaces, for an extra crisp texture. Bake for 20 minutes.
Blend everything under tahini sauce in a food processor, starting with toasted sesame seeds and olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients after the tahini sauce has reached the desired consistency. Taste and adjust, adding salt and lemon as needed. For a garlicky dressing mix in 1/4 tsp garlic powder.
Assemble the bowl with greens, juicy tomatoes or cucumbers, and as many Lentil fritters as you like. Drizzle dressing generously.

This makes way more fritters than necessary for a party of two. Good news is that they refrigerate quite well. Reheating in a toaster oven makes them good as new, so batch cooking these babies can really come in handy on a busy day. I would also venture to predict that future self will be substituting these for beef patties, on the regular.

Cherry Compote

With our recent bread baking habit, we have the privilege of having left-over starter around every single day. In case you are not familiar with baking bread using a live starter, a starter is pretty much a yeast culture in a mason jar that we feed on a daily basis on a set schedule so that the yeast continues to grow. We refer to our starter as our baby. And since feeding requires only a portion of the existing starter to continue growing, the rest is discarded in the trash. Or as is the case in our household, refashioned into a number of different baked goods, sourdough pancakes being one of them.

While the post regarding our entire bread baking experience will be saved for another day, this post is all about what we drizzle over that delicious pancake recipe. Cherry Compote! When I think of cherries, I think of warm summer days, with handfuls of this red, juicy fruit in a bowl, twined together by common, wispy limbs. I think of juice dribbling down chins, and fingers, and for some, shirts while we sit in basic tees and sneakers on the sidewalk or in the grass, picnic style. I envision a collection of pits, delicately eaten around, or more enjoyably, chewed and spit back out. I don’t associate the word cherry with the winter time, but winter time seems to be when I crave it the most.

This compote recipe is perfect for winter. Warm cherries should be as coveted as their cold summer counterpart, and the combination with something as earthy and aromatic as thyme really makes this recipe a simple yet special one. Even though we drizzle this mostly over our sourdough pancakes, it would also be a great addition to scoops of vanilla ice cream, a slice of cheesecake, or as a topping for a Thanksgiving pie. It’s officially Spring, but the weather is still cool enough that this recipe remains relevant, for another few months more.

Ingredients:

1 pound of cherries
2 tablespoons of fresh thyme leaves
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup honey
Pinch of Salt

Procedure:

The first part is the fun part. Remove the cherry pits from the cherries! I usually just use a pairing knife, although a cherry pitter would probably be quicker. But you know, minimalist household. The less tools the merrier in our book.
Slice the cherries into halves or quarters, depending on the size you want.
Add the cherries, water, and thyme in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat. Make sure to stir frequently, and continue to cook until they start to break down (approximately 3 minutes).
Stir in the honey and salt and remove from the heat. The compote is all done! Set aside until you are ready for use and rewarm as necessary. Sprinkle in some blueberries, and top with powdered sugar, more honey, or melted butter.

Coconut Flour Cookies with Chocolate Chips

After a day of perusing the bulk bins at our local grocery store, I decided to stock up on a mason jar of coconut flour. Prompted by mystical fairy dust, mingled with curiosity as to the gluten-free-craze sweeping the nation (and my friends), I decided to experiment with my new-found ingredient. I perused the web for a recipe that uses this ingredient, and found that chocolate chip cookies would be entirely useful, given that I also picked up a handful of chocolate chips from the bulk aisle. Additionally, I was able to find a combination of ingredients that were already at hand in our pantry, thus eliminating the need to purchase more goods. Hurrah for resourcefulness, with a little thank you to our roomie, who offered up a jar of her coconut oil for my experiments.

I first made this recipe about a week ago and found it to be quite satisfying. Having been the first time using coconut flour, I was pretty surprised at the cake-like consistency. What you get is a cookie-formed dessert, that tastes like chocolate chip cake. A combination of two wonderful worlds. Chewy cookie lovers unite! Gluten-free converts rejoice! Moms just trying to find a healthy(er) option for their kids, weep with joy.

(Coconut Flour) Chocolate Chip Cookie Cakes

Ingredients:

1/3 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup coconut oil , melted
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 whole eggs
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

The Process:

Preheat your oven to 350F.
Combine all ingredients except the chocolate chips in a bowl or a stand-mixer and then mix until you achieve a thicker, cookie dough consistency. Don’t worry if it looks runny at first, it’ll thicken up in a jiffy.
After the correct consistency has been achieved, add in the chocolate chips, and stir to distribute them evenly.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop a tablespoon of the cookie dough onto the baking sheet. It is important to note that you must use your hands to flatten the cookies. Keep in mind these cookies will NOT spread on their own, so you’ll want to shape them how you’d like them to turn out.
Bake at 350F for 13-15 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Allow to cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Serve with a glass of cold milk, or with a bowl of home-made vanilla ice cream.

Overnight Oats

A late night post about a quick and easy early morning breakfast, just in case you are still in need of ideas at this hour. Overnight oats are one of the staple breakfasts that frequently grace our refrigerator doors. First discovered in an effort to keep wellness in mind, we have been consistently making them ever since. As with most other recipes, it was not created by yours truly in avant-garde fashion by any means, and in order to give credit where credit is due, I will refer you to Minimal Wellness’s blog, where you can also find the nutritional benefits of said recipe.

I’d like to say I’m not partial to it because of the mason jars, but that wouldn’t exactly be the whole truth. Either way, aesthetics aside, the taste itself is fabulous, a mixture of oatmeal with milk, but sweeter. Typically, I am not a fan of oatmeal unless there’s a lot of sugar involved, but I love this recipe, and I daresay it’s a bit healthier since I’m not adding sugar by the spoonful.

Additionally, it is so easy to make and requires very little planning. You literally throw all ingredients in a jar, top with a lid, shake to mix, and toss it in the fridge to allow the oats to soak up the liquid overnight. This recipe even works when prepared two hours prior to eating. Once made, you can top it off with anything, such as blueberries (our favorite) or peanut butter and banana. Below, you will find the recipe, with some of our preferences substituted, differing slightly from the original.

Ingredients:

½ cup gluten free rolled oats
⅔ cup Strauss 2% Lowfat milk
⅓ cup Saint Benoit Creamery Organic Jersey Cow French Vanilla Yogurt
1 Tbl chia seeds
2 Tbl shredded unsweetened coconut
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp cinnamon
½ cup frozen berry of choice (Blueberries, typically. We try to only use these when we can buy them from a farmer’s market, without the plastic container. Otherwise, we opt for banana and peanut butter.)

The Process:

Place all ingredients until the cinnamon in the mason jar.
Put the lid on and shake to mix all ingredients thoroughly.
Once ingredients are mixed, pour the frozen blue berries (if using) on top and replace the lid.
Place jar into the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, stir the berries into the oat mixture and enjoy.
(If you are using Peanut Butter and banana, top with a healthy scoop (or two) of peanut butter and a sliced banana.)

If I’ve solved your late night meal planning problem, well, you’ve only got Minimal Wellness to thank! The recipe is too good not to share.

If you’d like to receive new recipes notifications delivered straight to your inbox, get on the list!