Thursday, March 12, 2015

Good Morning!

Neither one of us are super motivated breakfast makers, unfortunately. 
Usually one of us excels at something that the other person really can't be bothered with and it will even everything out. For example, I am the smoothie maker and Pat is the cocktail maker. There are certain ways to keep the balance of the universe intact....
For breakfast though, besides smoothies, we are both exceedingly lacking (this possibly translates to lazy).

So enter in overnight oats. This has become a staple in our house recently and with good reason. I can pretty much make breakfast for every day of the week at once. I was doing this every couple of days but I quickly realized that even almost a week later the oats were still really yummy. This is basically a cold oatmeal replacement except that it's not disgusting like cold oatmeal. There are also endless variations with this recipe.

I have been making about 4 jars at a time and that really does tend to last us the whole week since it's so filling.

Here is the recipe I have been working on:

Overnight Oats

-1 1/4 Cup Quick Oats 
-1/3 Cup Shredded Coconut
-1 1/2- 1 3/4 Cup Milk Product (we use a mixture of about 2/3 soy or almond milk and 1/3 coconut milk but you can use whatever you like)
-1/2-1 Cup Dried Fruit (you could use fresh fruit as well but that may not keep as long if you are making a weeks worth of this) we use figs and dates since they are also naturally sweet so you don't need to add sweeteners.
-1/3 Nuts (we have been mostly using almonds but I think any nut will do)
- 1 t Maple Syrup or Honey
*a few variations are:
hemp seeds or chia seeds 

This makes about 2 cups.
 
*occasionally, if the mixture seems to dense, I add a bit more milk to it and it's good as new.
Mix it all together and put into mason jars or some other vessel and pop into the fridge.

I feel like this is a pretty forgiving recipe so you can really experiment with it. See how your first batch goes and then mix it up for the second batch-add more milk or more fruit or different nuts, etc.

Before
After