Banana-Berry Coconut Butter

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This has been the first morning in a while where I haven’t been hungry just after getting out of bed – or woken up from hunger pangs and gurgles.

Does anyone else experience this?

I always awake with a hefty appetite, for breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I love all the fruit, yogurt, orange juice, bagels, waffles, eggs, and even cottage cheese!

A little background story on the cottage cheese: cottage cheese has always been one of the few foods that I haven’t liked but I’ve finally come to enjoy. I tricked myself into it too. I started by mixing it with an equal amount of vanilla yogurt and dousing it with cinnamon and then gradually adding less and less yogurt until, poof – no need for yogurt! I’m too smart for my own taste buds, I really am.

But anyways, I’ve gotten pretty creative with cottage cheese: blending it up into a smoothie, savory cottage cheese muffins, cottage cheese pancakes, cottage cheese with berries and granola, and piled onto a toasted blueberry bagel with sliced bananas, honey, and cinnamon. I honestly do believe that anything can be healed with honey, cinnamon, and bananas – including a bland meal or facial scrub.

You know what’s delicious on a crispy, crunchy, soft, chewy blueberry bagel? Nope, not cream cheese; no way, not butter; not peanut butter; not Nutella, but nice idea, kiddo; pfff flavored cream cheese – oh no. No, no. This is what’s delicious on that pillowy just-toasted bagel: coconut butter whipped with berries. And cinnamon! {and a banana}

Carry on…

Smoothie secret ingredient

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It’s 3:30 in the afternoon. Lunch was three hours ago and dinner is in another three or so hours. As you think about those three more hours to go before munching, your stomach begins to speak. Can you hear it – that gurgling noise? You know what it’s saying, don’t you? Yes, exactly – it’s saying that it’s snack time.

{Trust me – I’m fluent in hungry-tummy gurgling.} 

But not just any-old snack time. Not a grab-a-Fiber-One-Bar-wolf-it-down-and-continue-on-your-way type of snack. Come now, be serious. This is a snack that can work double-duty as breakfast or a post-workout recovery and requires little more time and energy to put together than ripping that Fiber One Bar from its surprisingly difficult to open shiny plastic wrapper.

Grab a blender, some frozen bananas, spices, milk, and my newest smoothie secret ingredient – chai iced tea! Carry on…

Better than butter

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Ping - Perfectly golden brown, toasted-to-perfection bagel has been ejected from the toaster. Beep, beep, beep - the batter that you closed the waffle iron on has transformed into a light and crunchy, ridged square. Beepbeepbeep, beepbeepbeep, beepbeepbeep – the time is up on that densely sweet slab of honey-cinnamon cornbread. You take your seat at your favorite Italian restaurant, upon which the waiter brings that basket of warm, crusty bread.

All of these seem to require one thing before being ripped apart, bitten into, and eaten.

Can someone say butter?

But  let me just tell you about this coconut oil spread.

It has entirely changed my outlook on butter and coconut oil, cooking and baking, and buttered cinnamon toast and bagels. Carry on…

Hot days call for cold breakfast

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Oatmeal always reminds me of chilly fall mornings – completely soothing and soul-nourishing. The mere thought warms my heart.

That’s one thing that saddens me about summer – no more oatmeal. It’s just not the same satisfaction on a hot day as it is when it’s cold.

Revolutionary idea: overnight oats. Soaked in yogurt, milk, and spices.

{ahhem, cinnamon.}

Oatmeal is definitely one thing that I miss when the weather starts to get warm and sunny. But no longer. Now I we can enjoy oatmeal all year-round! Isn’t that just what you’ve been waiting for? Aren’t just so excited that you just can’t stand it?? Carry on…

Busy as a bee

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Spring time means three important things for me:

1) The weather is getting nicer.
2) I don’t want to be trapped indoors and behind a desk and projector screen listening to professors.
3) Finals week is just around the corner.

My remedy to the stresses of finals, the constant stress of classes, and my so-called bikini body has been yoga. Yoga and eating well. Practicing yoga keeps me relaxed and focus, while eating healthy foods provides the energy I need to get through the day.

Oh, and tea. I’ve been on an iced tea-making parade the last few days.

All hope is not lost! If you’ve managed to become just as busy as me, try this for breakfast:

Make your own instant oatmeal. Carry on…