Early Morning Oats

Peanut Butter Walnut Pear Oatmeal

Recipe!

Here’s my oatmeal recipe. Sometimes I switch the walnuts to slivered almonds and I change out the pear to banana, apple, or frozen fruit sometimes, but this is the general gist of it:

• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 4-5 oz chopped bosc pear
• 1 tsp vanilla
• LOTS of cinnamon
• 10 grams walnuts (used a food scale to weigh these, it’s about 1 tbsp)
• 10 grams of PB (about 2/3 a tbsp)

I put the oats, milk, water, pear, cinnamon and vanilla together in a pot and set the heat to medium high. Meanwhile, I put the walnuts in another skillet to toast and weigh out the PB. I continue to stir the oatmeal with a small spoonula until the liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes or so. Take the walnuts off the heat when you start to smell them. Put oatmeal in bowl, top with walnuts and scoop PB onto a spoon.It’s all about 450 calories, depending on the fruit.

NOTE: Kath’s Instructions for Eating Peanut Butter in Oatmeal:

You have to keep the peanut butter on the spoon instead of stirring it in. That way you get a little lick in every bite. If you stir it in it gets too diluted and you can’t really taste it. It’s just all “PB flavored” then. You can also get by with much LESS PB if you keep it on the spoon. I just put a little pile of oats on the spoon and am careful not to bite off too much PB per bite. This is ALSO good because you eat more SLOWLY!!

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4:26 a.m.
I usually go to bed at 9:00 every night – in order to get 8 hours of sleep – but of course the one night I NEED to be asleep by 8:30, I toss and turn for an hour!!! Needless to say, I slept horribly last night. I’ll be going on adrenaline until about 9 or 10 a.m. and then I’ll need a nap. Hopefully I can leave work around 2 or so.

Hot pumpkin tea with splenda:

Total Breakfast Calories: 435

Since I missed my workout, I feel a little funny eating this HUGE bowl of oatmeal in the middle of the night, but I need it to carry me through the morning, so I’m chomping it down. I guess I’ll have to have a 10:00 a.m. snack today since that will technically be my “lunchtime!”

See you all later!!