Knitting Zeal

OATrageous recipes and OXO goodies

Kathy Hester’s new book, OATrageous, and OXO make a very tasty partnership! Be sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post to enter to win your own set of OXO goodies.

This has been a year of learning to eat healthy and making lifestyle changes.  As a result of eating better coupled with exercising, I've lost over 40 pounds!  One of the changes I've made is incorporating oatmeal more into my diet, as well as many other things!  (Lots of plant based foods, more greens and fruit, less sugar and white flour.)  While I don't eat a strictly vegetarian or vegan diet, I've been using many more vegatarian recipes.  When learnig about Kathy Hester's new book of vegan recipes, OATrageous, I was really excited at having the chance to preview it and share info about it.

Kathy Hester has recipes to show you oats in a whole new light.  Think Italian Veggie and Oat Sausage, Veggie Oat Tacos and Oat Pizza Crust Topped with vegan sausage crumbles made from Steel-cut oats. But don’t worry she includes new takes on traditional favorites like Banana Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes and Strawberries and Cream Overnight Refrigerator Oats too. From now on it’s Exciting Oats for Every Meal!

I have to say I wasn't keen on the idea of refrigerator oats at first, but now I'm hooked!  I do modify Kathy's recipes in that I do use a dairy based yogurt, usually a fat free greek plain yogurt, but other than that I stick to her recipe. I love her recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Overnight Oats! So yummy! Pictured below, this non-yogurt based recipe, Blackberry Mojito Over-Night Refrigerator Oats is amazing!  (I leave out the rum!)  The picture alone is beautiful!

Pre-Order Book Bonus!

OATrageous Oatmeals will be available September 2014, but if you pre-order Kathy Hester’s new book, OATrageous, for $15.06 and have the chance to get over $25’s worth of goodies.  Just be one of the first 100 people to email your OATrageous purchase receipt to [email protected] with your full name, mailing address and phone number (for delivery purposes only).  Kathy has some other surprises for everyone who pre-orders including an OATragous newsletter with not-in-the-book oat recipes and special coupons.

 

OXO and OATrageous Giveaway!

OXO has partnered with Kathy's new book release to offer a great gadget giveaway!  Enter the giveaway below to win all of the pictured goodies and a copy of OATrageous when it is released! Do you have a favorite OXO kitchen gadget?  Mine is my smooth edge can opener.  It is so easy to use, especially when I have a carpal tunnel flare up.  This giveaway will be open from Monday, July 28th through Monday, August 4th, 2014.  One winner will be selected by Kathy and OXO will send the winner their prize.  US mailing addresses only. Good Luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Menu plan Monday, July 21, 2014

I've gotten away from menu planning with interrupted weeks of travel.  This week I'm trying to get back into menu planning!

Soccer practice has started.  We have yet to make it to one, between rain and travel, but since we will be going to at least one this week I need to have meals pre-made ahead of time since practice is at 6pm.  Crock pot to the rescue?!  

I know it's summer too, but I really want to make pasta fagioli soup.  I want to use CSA veggies that we have, including celery, carrots and summer squash.  The benefit will be at least a day or two of good lunches with leftovers!

Salads for dinner...that's been my kick here for a while.  It will continue this week too!  One of the easiest meals to plan is salad with chicken as the protein.  I can cook the chicken in the slow cooker and use it for a couple of days worth of entrees.  

Some of my menu planning will change depending on todays CSA pickup.  I will incorporate whatever veggies we get this week in the menu.  

Menu Plan:

Monday:  Pasta e Fagioli soup with lots of veggies

Tuesday: Slow cooker Balsamic Chicken, salads

Wednesday:  Zucchini parm crisps, salmon burgers, green salads

Thursday:  We'll hopefully be at the Phillies game if the weather is favorable!

Friday:   Crock pot chicken for BBQ chicken salads.  

Saturday: TBD

Sunday: BBQ?  TBD

What's on your menu this week?  Check out Organizing Junkie for many more menu plans!

 

Menu plan Monday, June 16, 2014

It's an exciting week this week here, as the last day of school is tomorrow and summer schedules will start!  We'll still be going to the CSA every Monday for pickup, so that will affect menu planning a bit.  I may end up changing the day I do menu planning to Tuesdays for the summer so that I can include our CSA produce.

Last week at the CSA I picked up a bag of garlic scapes.  I've never used them before and saw another CSA member mention that she made pesto with them.  After researching recipes for garlic scapes pesto, I found one (posted below in my menu plan) that I only altered slightly by replacing the pine nuts with walnuts.  Garlic scapes are very strong!  There will be no vampires in our home for a while! I froze most of the pesto I made in an ice cube tray so that it's in nice sized portions for later use.  Another CSA member told me today that she freezes her scapes in pieces and uses them in place of garlic in recipes.  I love traditional basil based pesto.  This pesto was very strong in garlic flavor and I needed to use much less than I traditionally would use.  

It's kale season too, apparently, because I now have two bunches of the stuff.  I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of kale, yet.  I am blaming it on not yet finding a recipe that makes it tasty to me.  I have been searching for one to make a nice kale based salad.  I've found this Strawberry Kale Salad recipe that sounds promising and this kale chopped salad with maple-almond vinaigrette. This week I also picked up some more swiss chard, that was really tasty last week!  The salad greens are a mix of many different greens.  Some are more peppery than others.  It makes a nice green salad.  The strawberries this week were amazing.  My son requested that I freeze them to use later on in smoothies or popsicles.  I like to add some to my salads too!

 

Monday: Grilled chicken, garlic scape pesto pasta salad, green salad

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday!  Soft shells this week! Salads on the side

Wednesday: Coconut Chicken Salad with warm honey mustard dressing 

Thursday: salmon, swiss chard, kale salad

Friday: Buffalo Turkey Burgers, salad, zucchini fries

Weekend: TBD

 

Check out Organizing Junkie for more menu planning ideas!

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With June here and CSA veggies available again, I'll be adding lots of entre salads into my menu plan.  I like to use my outdoor grill in the warm weather too, so when I can, I grill chicken to use in salads.  Mondays are a busy day here, so it's helpful to make a crock pot meal.  This Monday I'm trying a recipe that I don't think I've made before and hoping its good so I can take the leftovers to my friends' for lunch on Tuesday!  

Monday: Slow cooker Honey Garlic Chicken, brown rice, salads

Tuesday: Taco salad Tuesday!

Wednesday: grilled chicken, California quinoa salad

Thursday: BBQ chicken salad

Friday: Leftovers?  Not sure yet!!

Weekend: TBD.  I may try another quinoa salad recipe I found: Black Bean Quinao salad  I want to have a few of these types of recipes to keep on hand all summer for quick side dishes or easy lunches.

Check out Organizing Junkie for lots of other menu plan ideas! 

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This Monday was our first CSA pickup of the season!  We got to pick two pints of ripe organic strawberries that were amazing.  We also brought home a big head of green leaf lettuce, bok choy, swiss chard and salad radishes.  I used some of the radishes in our salads Monday night and they were a great addition...not too spicy. I've found some recipes this week to incorporate our CSA veggies into our meals.  

 

Monday: Sticky chicken in slow cooker to make buffalo chicken salad

Tuesday: Chicken fajitas, salad, black beans

Wednesday: Salmon, asparagus, and orzo salad  

Thursday: Chicken with bok choy and garlic, brown rice and swiss chard.

Friday: Pizza night, salad

Weekend: TBD

I used the strawberries as a topping for angel food cake that I purchased.  I sliced up about a cup and a half of strawberries, added the juice of half a lime and about half a teaspoon of sugar, to create a bit of strawberry juice.  It was a great light dessert, perfect for a hot summery day!

What's on your menu this week? Check out Organizing Junkie for more ideas!

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Happy Memorial Day!

We spent a fun weekend filled with lots of family activities and topped it off with a barbeque to kick of the unofficial start of summer.  It was fun to eat outside while the temperatures were mild and the bugs not biting yet!

Here is my menu plan for this week:

Monday: BBQ: grilled chicken, corn on the cob, asian coleslaw, watermelon, s'mores.

Tuesday: leftover grilled chicken to top green salads with veggies, watermelon, yummy summer salad.

Wednesday: Burrito bowls

Thursday: salmon, cous cous, salads, veggies.

Friday: grilled turkey burgers, salads, baked fries

Weekend: TBD 

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for many more menu plan ideas.

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Fresh Spring Salad Ideas

This spring we have been eating more salads as main entrees and I've been trying to be creative to keep it interesting.  I've been focusing on keeping to low-fat and low sodium meals.  My absolute favorite salad at a certain bread company cafe is so loaded with fat and sodium that I've had to give it up!  Instead I switched to their seasonal strawberry poppyseed salad with chicken, which is not only low calorie it is also low fat and full of lots of fruit.  I was able to recreate that salad at home too, using a balsamic viniagrette dressing.  

The ingredient that seems to ruin the healthiness of most salads is the dressing.  It's often loaded with too much fat, sugars and sodium.  I've discovered Bolthouse Farms yogurt based dressings and found that not only do they taste great, they are healthy too, compared to many bottled light dressing options.  It's not the same as making from scratch, but there are times when I like the convenience of bottled dressing. My favorite flavors so far are their version of Ranch dressing and their Honey Mustard dressing.

The other salad I've made a few times this spring is a shrimp, rice noodle and spinach salad.  In a bed of spinach, I've added a scoop of cooked rice noodles, some shredded carrots, baby cucumbers and a portion of steamed medium shrimp.  Trader Joe's even sells a bag of frozen cooked shrimp that makes this salad really easy to make when in a rush.  I used a lemon viniagrette dressing over the spinach and shrimp and just a teaspoon or so of a sesame ginger dressing to flavor the rice noodles.  A sprinkle of sesame seeds on top finishes it off for a great light taste.   I like to keep leftovers of the ingredients separate so that I can make a smaller portion for lunch the next day.

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Fun and easy snack: Fruit Salsa

 

Last week it was my turn to bring the snack and drink for our monthly book club get together.  After some searching on Pinterest, I discovered that there was such as thing as fruit salsa, and there were lots of variations on the recipe.  After reading many recipes, I decided to go with my own mixture of fruit.  Here is my version of a simple recipe....

Fruit Salsa (or as my son prefers, Fruit Chopped Salad)

1 quart of ripe strawberries
1 ripe champagne mango
2 ripe kiwi
1 ripe peach
Juice from half a lime
1 tsp organic sugar

Directions:  finely chop all fruit into very small diced pieces.  I peeled the kiwis, mango, and peach first.  Toss all the chopped fruit with the lime juice and sugar.  Store in the refrigerator for at least two hours to allow the fruit to macerate in the juices.  Serve with cinnamon pita chips.  Or in a bowl with a spoon, as my son prefers!  This was a hit at book club and I will be making this again and again this summer.  I think adding pineapple or apples would be tasty too.

For the drink, I brought Strawberry-basil Margarita's.  This was the easiest drink too, and perfect for a party.  I found the recipe on the site The Kitchn, along with many other great drink recipes.  I ended up using a bottle of Pomegranate Limeade from Trader Joe's in place of frozen limeade in the recipe.  It was even pinker and very tasty!

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Happy Cinco de Maio!  

 

Here are my dinner plans for this week:

Monday: chicken tortilla soup from the DASH cookbook

Tuesday: Taco salads

Wednesday: grilled chicken with Mediterranean quinoa salad 

Thursday: chicken cacciatore in the slow cookier

Friday: homemade pizza night, salads

Weekend: TBD

 

I'm linking to Organizing Junkie's menu plan Monday.  

Menu plan Monday, April 28, 2014

Last week I made a fritatta for the first time!  It turned out great and was surprisingly easy.  I don't know why I hestitated to try making one before.
 I used a recipe that called for egg whites only, making it a lower calorie and lower fat dish.  I was able to use some of the leftover Easter ham in it too.  Even my husband who hates eggs ate it.  April's food of the month was "eggs" tying in to the spring reborn theme.  The kiddo picked the food, but so far hasn't tried the two egg dishes offered to him: the fritatta or a hard boiled egg.  Oh well!  I'm thinking next month may be a Mexican theme...inspired by cinco de Mayo.  I also love Mexican food, so I'll be working up some healthier recipes of favorites.  

On this week's dinner menu:

Sunday: Chris' favorite chili, cilantro lime brown rice, tortilla chips and salsa

Monday: Mini muffin (ground turkey) meatloaves, baked potatoes, peas, green salads

Tuesday: Salmon, asparagus and orzo salad with lemon dill viniagrette  (This is one of my favorite spring recipes!)

Wednesday:  Chicken fajitas, brown rice, green salads

Thursday: Mexican Twist (I will used ground turkey, whole wheat pasta and half the taco seasoning listed in the recipe to make it a bit healthier and lower in calories!), green salads

Friday: Turkey and black bean burgers, sweet potato fries, salads

Weekend: TBD 

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for many more meal planning ideas! 

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