Healthy in a Hurry: Oatmeal-on-the-go Bars

How many of you can’t be bothered to wake up a little earlier to have breakfast? How many of you shun the idea of food in the morning?

I’ve heard way too many times of friends and family who skip breakfast simply because they find it too tedious to prepare something to eat, or have no food readily on hand.

I cannot emphasize the importance of eating breakfast. It helps to kickstart your metabolism, and also helps you to focus better throughout the day. Don’t think of it as extra or unnecessary calories, some studies have shown that people who eat breakfast are actually slimmer than those who skip breakfast!

For all you breakfast-skippers and sleepyheads, this recipe is dedicated to you guys. All you have to do is grab it and eat it, since the recipe can make several portions at once!

Here’s a recipe for deliciously healthy oatmeal bars which can be made in advanced and frozen for up to 4 months. These oatmeal bars can be tweaked to your flavour preferences, and are perfect for a grab-n-go breakfast if you pack them into little ziploc bags. These bars are so simple to make, and you can literally add in anything that you have on hand, even chocolate chips if you need some to get you going in the morning!

Oatmeal-on-the-go Bars (inspired by Weelicious)

Ingredients

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups milk (any kind of milk, not flavoured milk though) 
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup raisins + dried cranberries (any dried fruit you like)
• 1/2 cup almonds (any nuts of your choice)
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 3 tbsp honey or agave (sweetener of choice)

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius/375 F
2. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, stirring the dried fruits and nuts in at the end
3. Pour the oatmeal mixture into a 7×11 baking dish lined with baking paper (no mess!)
4.  Bake for 30 minutes or until thickened and golden.
5.  Cool, cut into squares and serve or store in ziploc bags.
6. After the bars have been fully cooled, you can pack them into individual servings in small ziploc bags to pack in the freezer. About 3-4 bars in each individual bag. These will keep for up to 4 months!
   Before consuming them, allow to defrost in fridge for 24 hours.
7. Refrigerating the bars will make them last up to 5 days.

I even did a Tropical version of these bars previously, if you are interested in that sort of stuff. (Cue mangoes and goji berries –  little bursts of sunshine and happiness). What’s more, all the ingredients are easily available, something I took into consideration when I was experimenting with this recipe. So really, you have no excuses. 😛

These bars are also great as a portable snack and I personally enjoy them served with some yogurt as well (You should try this if you have more time for a sit-down breakfast)

Bon Appetit!

HEALTHY IN A HURRY: Pesto Pasta and Garlic Roasted Carrots

Starving? Now, wait just a minute before you reach out for that pack of crisps or that bar of chocolate. This delicious recipe comes together in mere minutes, and the only cooking you’ll be doing is boiling the pasta. So put all that processed junk food down, and whip up something that your body will thank you for.

Pesto Pasta and Garlic Roasted Carrots

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the pesto pasta

1 serving of cooked pasta

1 tbsp of pesto (more or less to your liking)

Garlic powder

Parmesan Cheese

For the garlic roasted carrots

Garlic powder

1 carrot (sliced into carrot coins)

Ground basil

Olive oil

 

Instructions:

For the pesto pasta

1) Put the cooked pasta and pesto in a heated pan and give it a good ol’ stir

2) Sprinkle some garlic powder and parmesan cheese for extra flavor.

3) Plate it, and dig in 🙂

For the garlic roasted carrots

1) Steam the carrot ‘coins’ for about 10 minutes

2) Pat dry the carrots, and coat in olive oil, basil and garlic powder

3) Roast the carrots in a small toaster oven for about 5-10 minutes

-Serve the carrots along with the pesto pasta, and top with more parmesan cheese (if you like).

 

Switch things up!

-Feel free to add other toppings like cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach etc.

NOW DIG IN TO YOUR HEALTHY AND SCRUMPDILLYUMPTIOUS MEAL.

What’s best about this recipe is that you can just tweak it to suit your tastes (notice how I didn’t give specific measurements?) That’s what cooking is about! Experimenting with flavors that you love.

The sharpness of the cheese and garlic pairs perfectly with the crunchy carrots and al dente pasta, is a sure fire way to get your taste buds tingling.

Hope you enjoy this meal as much as I did.

Healthy Peanut Butter Banana Bread Recipe

Is it a bread? Is it a cake? A healthy banana bread recipe? Is that even possible?

So many questions, so little time. Let’s skip the mundane questioning and jump straight in.

Brace yourselves for an amazing recipe that I’ve tweaked from Yammie’s brilliant recipe.

I wasn’t intending to make any changes apart from the type of flour used, but my brother ate one of the bananas I set aside for baking, so I ended up adding more applesauce to make up for it. Luckily, the end result was super moist and yummy. As I always do for baking, I omitted the salt.. you can’t even taste the difference honestly, so you might as well go without!

We were too eager to dig in that the bread was attacked from all directions, resulting in the oddly shaped leftover blocks.

But looks don’t matter of course, its what’s inside that counts.

And do you know what’s inside these not-so-aesthetically pleasing brown blocks?

PEANUT BUTTER CHIPS!!

See those light brown chunks that look like hunks of peanut? Those are the nomworthy peanut butter chips.

I was so pleased when I stumbled upon them in Walmart when I was in the United States. I used them once in Reeses’ Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies (sounds decadent eh?), but that’s another story.

This banana bread was so moist and flavorful, I couldn’t stop at a piece. (They are healthy, so I guess I can eat more right? :P) In fact, it tasted so good, you wouldn’t know that they were made without butter or oil! These taste best when they are fresh out of the oven, but they are still tasty when eaten at room temperature when you are on the go.

As everyone knows, peanut butter and banana were match made in heaven. So its actually no surprise that this pairing turned out so perfectly. Maybe someone should try a PBJ banana bread… now that would be an interesting threesome. (Keep those thoughts clean, there are children around)

I bet you aren’t even reading what I’m saying.. you’re probably just waiting for me to end this long story and share the recipe with you. Well, the time has come… *drumroll*

PB CUBE RECIPE (Peanut Butter Banana Bread)

 {See what I did there? B cube cause there are three Bs and I spelled cube out cause I cut them into cubes!  *Crickets chirping*  You better get that funny bone checked, my friend… You seem to be suffering from a severe lack of humor.}

Jokes aside, here’s the recipe, for real this time.

Made in a 9×9 baking tin. (Should fill a 10 inch loaf pan)

You’ll need:

2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup wholewheat flour
1 cup peanut butter chips
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (tweaked to your liking)
1 cup mashed ripe bananas

Switch things up with: chocolate chips, dried fruits, chopped nuts etc.

Steps:

1) Grease your loaf pan or baking tin. (I suggest you lay a baking sheet for easy removal)

2) Preheat the oven to 350º F.

3) Mix together the eggs, honey, applesauce, and vanilla.

4) Mix together the flour, salt, soda, powder, and cinnamon and add to the wet ingredients. Stir in the mashed bananas and mix well.

5) Add in any mix-ins. (I added PB chips!)

6) Pour into the loaf pan/baking tin and bake for 45 minutes.

Now enjoy the delicious smells that will come wafting from your oven in a couple of minutes. Ahh, the sweet smell of success.

Hope you like the recipe!

Breakfast blues. (in a good way)

Just a short post, here’s one of my recent breakfasts, wholegrain flaxseed waffles topped with blueberries and crunchy peanut butter.

Waffles 😀

 

I just toasted the waffles, and then added the blueberries and peanut butter halfway through. Look at the blueberries! They are indigo blobs of goodness, on the brink of exploding like pretty purple paintballs.

Simple and healthy, this is a breakfast idea for you to try 🙂

Here’s a nicer shot,

Who says healthy eating doesn’t taste good?

 

Healthy, wealthy and wise

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With so many foodies on the rise, and with Singapore’s great love for anything tasty, I felt it was important to address the issue on health.

I’m not here to tell you what to eat, or to tell you to go on a healthy diet. I’m advocating a healthy lifestyle. Something to adopt for life, not like fad diets. Everyone is different, so do what suits you, 3 meals and 2 snacks, 6 small meals, just 3 big meals.. just so long its healthy, keep it up!

Today’s post was made to encourage you to add healthy changes to your lifestyle, one of which is cutting down on eating out, which I myself, and many foodies, are guilty of doing in our quests to find the best food in Singapore.

Usually, to make food taste good, restaurants add loads of sugar, salt, cream, oil and the like to give our meals that oomph! In our quests for delicious food, it is important to strike a balance between health and indulging in gastronomical delights. 

In fact, I’ve just thought of something! “Just because you don’t count calories, doesn’t mean that your calories don’t count.” -MoodieFoodie 

Calorie counting is troublesome, especially with our local food since it is hard to find nutrition facts for food cooked by different hawkers, or in restaurants. But making sure your calories come from nutritious choices would be helpful in maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle. And so, we ought to enjoy our minimum of five servings of fruits and vegetables even if we are eating out. This may prove to be a challenge, but your body will thank you for it. In fact, if you are someone who likes to eat a lot, healthy eating may be even better for you, since you can eat more for the same amount of calories, and loads more nutrition.

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Its great to enjoy ourselves, eating rich chomp worthy food with our family and friends, but we should eat at least one home cooked meal a day. Eating at home is healthier, and it also provides time for family bonding. Contrariwise, eating out is not only expensive, but its also not great for our waistlines since the food is often made of empty calories. Furthermore, we tend to eat more when we eat out since portion sizes are completely out of whack in restaurants. This isn’t their fault, after all, they want to make the consumers happy, and more is often deemed as better. This is, of course, a generalization since there have been a growing number of restaurants that promote healthy, natural cooking. For some, cooking a meal is too much work, well, even putting together a nutritious sandwich would be a healthy choice. 

(Please don’t eat processed food at home either, if you think its better than eating out, all that preservatives, and chemicals that you can’t pronounce aren’t good for your body!)

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I am no different from all you food lovers out there. I love my desserts, hawker delights, high class restaurant food.. everything! But moderation is key. 

By striking a balance, we can live longer, and enjoy our food for an even longer period of time. After all, when we eat healthy, it isn’t as if we are skimping on the taste, since healthy food does taste good too!

Of course, adding some exercise to the equation doesn’t hurt either. Just a short walk after a meal would improve digestion, and would help you to shed some weight in the long run. 

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It isn’t that hard, right?

So go ahead, make some changes and start living a healthier lifestyle, before its too late. Its cheaper to live healthier, than to pay for your medical bills!

Here’s a quote to motivate you,

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” -George Bernard Shaw

Seize the day, my friends! Make a change today. Any change, even if its small, is better than no change at all.

Stay healthy, wealthy and wise 🙂

Blueberry bread

Its time for a recipe!

Look at the burst blobs of blueberries! (alliteration)

I came across this recipe on Dawn’s blog a while back, and I decided to give it a go.

Homemade Blueberry Bread

 Recipe (makes 12 slices)

Dry

1 cup bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

Wet

1 cup milk

1/4 yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract (or more if you’re a vanilla fan)

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients EXCEPT the blueberries with a whisk in a large bowl.
3. In another large bowl, mix together the wet ingredients.
4. In the ‘dry ingredients’ bowl, make a well in the center and pour in the wet ingredients. Combine all the ingredients by mixing. Note: DO NOT OVERMIX. About 25 seconds of mixing should do the job. There may seem to be some lumps here and there but it’s totally fine – it’s meant to be like that! 
5. Fold in the blueberries.
6. Grease a baking tin with oil or butter and pour in your batter.
7. Gently tap the baking tin to remove any air bubbles within the batter.
8. Bake for about 40 – 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

This is definitely a healthier bread recipe since yogurt substitutes the butter/oil. Of course, that comes at a cost since this bread is denser than most. However, it still tastes good, and is even better eaten when its toasted and topped with peanut butter.

Another suggestion is that you could spread honey on the top of the bread after baking to add some sweetness. 

Do give it a try and let me know how it went! 😀

Have a great day.

Recipe: Steamed Salmon and Veg

Salmon, steamed veg and egg topped with mushrooms

This is my ultimate favorite meal. Plus, its so easy to make! Just marinate the salmon with some salt, pepper and paprika, and steam it along with the vegetables. The salmon releases all its good-for-you omega 3 oils as you steam it, so you can enjoy a juicy salmon when its done! Steaming also helps to retain all the natural flavors of the fish and vegetables. 

For this meal, I included an egg, topped with some sauteed mushrooms. A delicious, but optional addition.

Stay healthy, wealthy and wise! 🙂