Hiya, love boats! What’s new in your world? I’m writing these here words at 9:38pm on Tuesday evening and I’m hoping to squeeze in two episodes of The Crown before bed so let’s hop to it!
Breakfast:
I’ve been loving big oatmeal bowls. Sometimes I’ll make old-fashioned oats and other times we’ll make steel-cut. I usually stir in chia seeds and top it with banana, warmed frozen blueberries, peanut butter, and mulberries.
I’m back into working out regularly so an hour after this bowl I was hangry for a banana and peanut butter. And then crackers and hummus. My hunger SKYROCKETS when I’m working out regularly. Anyone else? Gotta feed the beast!
I made these yummy banana pancakes topped with banana, berries, peanut butter, and maple syrup. They’re a little denser/heartier since they’re made with oats but super yummy! I cooked mine in coconut oil.
P.S. I get asked a lot which oils I cook with and when. I keep three oils in the pantry: extra virgin olive oil (I get a huge one at Costco), avocado oil (also from Costco), and coconut oil. I use olive oil for flavor in things like salad dressings or at the end of a soup and for lower heat cooking since it has a low smoke point of 320 degrees. When oils smoke, the fats go rancid and they oxidize. No bueno!
For sautéing at higher heat, roasting, and in baking when it calls for liquid oil, I use avocado oil because it has a very high smoke point of 520 degrees and is neutral in flavor (similar to canola or grapeseed oil). It also has a stellar nutrition profile. I go through more avocado oil than any other oil.
I use coconut oil the least out of all three. I usually get the organic unrefined kind that retains the coconut flavor, which I like. It has a mid level smoke point of 350 degrees, which is 100 degrees lower than the smoke point of refined coconut oil (which doesn’t have the coconut flavor). I bake with it and use it in recipes where I want to impart the coconut flavor. I also blend it into things like hot chocolate, turmeric lattes, and coffee for added creaminess.
Back to the eats! Sprouted wheat bagel with Sunbutter, banana, cinnamon, and sea salt on one half and chive cream cheese, everything bagel seasoning, and arugula on the other.
Smoothie bowl with blueberries, banana, spirulina, spinach, vanilla protein, ginger, and hemp seeds topped with Kashi cinnamon cereal, cacao nibs, and the last bit of almond butter I had left.
Lunch/Dinner:
The yummiest vegetable soup with crusty bread! I’ll be posting the recipe next week.
Cream of Broccoli Soup with nooch added (and avocado toast on the side!).
The most stellar loaded veggie curry with lentils (thank God for Kroger who now sells canned lentils). Check out this Instagram post for the “recipe!”
A kale salad with beets, carrots walnuts, and a lemon parsley vin topped with a bunch of tuna kraut from Alchemy.
Pesto pizza + mushroom pizza from Harvest.
Random mix of scrambled eggs cooked in coconut oil, roasted sweet potatoes, toast with chive cream cheese (times two), avocado with lemon, and sautéed broccoli.
The best thing I made last week was an arugula pesto I threw together with a ton of arugula, a handful of walnuts, two cloves of garlic, plenty of olive oil, water, lemon juice, and salt. I mixed it with Banza’s yummy new cavatappi pasta and stirred in sautéed mushrooms and spinach from our local CSA. It was insanely good! I’ve been on this kick of not measuring a damn thing so I’ll have to measure next time so you can make it at home. I froze the leftover pesto in an ice cube tray and then transferred the cubes to a baggie so I can have pesto in a flash next time!
Snacks/Dessert:
My Salted Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bites straight out of the freezer with chilly almond milk. Insanely good.
A matcha strawberry donut that I plucked off the plater post-photograph. One of my favorite Alchemy donut flavors yet!
Natalie got me this Divine raspberry dark chocolate bar and I legit ate half the bar on my way home from work.
Double Chocolate Pretzel Brownie Bites that I microwaved and had with Nada Moo vanilla ice cream.
Homemade hot chocolate that I’m obsessed with. Click here for the recipe!
The black smoothie bowl – how interesting! Or is it just a very dark green? 🙂
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
Hahah the spirulina makes it look like a swamp!!
None of your meals this week look like anything I’d regularly eat, but I think I’d go out of my comfort zone to try them – everything looks so good!
Girl go for it!! Experimenting with new recipes makes me so excited about food and actually makes it even more satisfying. Let me know what you try!
I didn’t know that about oils changing into trans fat from improper/over heating. 🧐 Thanks for the info! Because of you, I bought avo oil & have loved using it! All of your eats, girl. They look ah-mazing! I recently bought a 90-second lentil pouch from Target. Game changer! I, too get an increased appetite from my exercise! I don’t know if it was because of my intense (& incredible) yoga class on Sunday, but Monday & Tuesday my appetite had sky-rocketed. I had to keep, as you say, feeding the beast. 😉 I try not to overthink it these days, & instead, I just go with what my body tells me. Hope you got to enjoy your show & are off to a great start today! XO
Give the bod all the food it needs!! Some days we’re hungrier than others, which means we get to eat even more delish food! Glad you were able to listen to your body. 🙂
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Hey is there anyway you can post one of your yummy donut recipes we see pictures of pretty please 🙂
I look forward to your posts and have tried so many of your recipes…never disappointed! You are an inspiration 🙂
Thanks dear! Hope you’ve had a week of happy eats!!
I’m happy to see that you got some really good pizza instead of that Jet’s stuff you eat all the time 🙂
As usual, your “what I ate” posts give me lots of ideas of things to make. I’m in the middle of a Whole 30 so i’m saving them for later. So glad I found your little place on the interweb…thank you for turning me on to the concept of intuitve eating.
Glad it got your wheels turning! Jett’s is totally really good pizza in my book, but that means different things to everyone. There’s times I want Harvest and there’s times I want Jet’s! Kinda like sometimes wanting a house-made chocolate chip cookie and sometimes wanting Tollhouse.
Yum! I seriously want to take a trip to Columbus just to try one of those donuts! Thanks for sharing 🙂
They’re worth the drive!! Come eat with me!
New to your site. I knew about the oils but it’s helpful as a reminder. I also use flaxseed oil for the nutritional value. It has a low (225 degrees) heat range so I use it primarily in smoothies. I’m sure your meals will find there way onto my table. Great post.
Yay! Love that you know the smoke point of flax oil 🙂
those matcha donuts are giving me maaaaaajor heart eye emoji vibes!!! and i need to hop on this avocado oil train – don’t know how it’s taken me so long, but i never seem to see it when i’m grocery shopping so it slips my mind! i’ll have to keep an eye out next time!
Seriously how cute are they?!
Delish as always! Where do you get your sprouted wheat bagels? Also it would be awesome to see a post on your current fitness routine/how it has evolved over the years!
Love these posts 🙂 Talk to me about that tuna kraut – I would LOVE to whip some of that up!
That veggie soup looks amazing! Can’t wait for recipe;)
You’re going to love it!!
I had no idea about the oils! I’m SO glad I read this. Do you have any advice for best high heat oils other than avocado? It’s just so expensive and doesn’t fit in our budget. We did find a giant jar of safflower oil at Sprouts that was more in our range and we’re going to try that this week. Love these posts, and thank you!!
Totally get it! You can also try grapeseed oil or non-GMO canola oil.
I had never thought about using mulberries for my breakfast oatmeal. Thank you for a great idea!