Tiramisu Oatcakes for One

You know my oatcakes always feature some sort of fruit or veggie, whether it's mashed banana, pureed peaches, apple butter, or pureed beets.

Can you guess the produce packed into this one?

It's zucchini! Now, I have experimented with using zucchini in the past, but it has often failed to serve the purpose I needed it for. I usually want it to be a "tasteless filler" in an otherwise "nutrition-less" recipe (see: any cookie recipe). However, it never worked as nicely as I would have liked. Just recently, I used it to make a brilliant recipe (you will just have to wait until I "nail it" to see what it is!), but I could taste the zucchini. As low in flavor as it is, it does leave some sort of flavor, particularly when paired with cinnamon, as it was in that recipe.

Ambrosia Overnight Oatmeal

Ambrosia reminds me of my high school days working in the deli of my hometown grocery store. Yes, your dear Lauren used to stand behind a counter and weigh super thin slices of smoked turkey, bread and fry chicken, and gobble down leftover chicken thighs at the end of her shift. I was basically a walking tub of grease for two years. To this day, I can't stand the smell of a deep-fryer...and most fried foods, actually.

However, our deli counter also offered a variety of salads. The standards were, of course, potato salad and macaroni salad, but there was also always a couple "sweet salads." The Midwest is infamous for its...erm...salads (Exhibit A and B). I think Ambrosia is actually "a thing" outside of the Midwest, but it was definitely one of the occasional offerings at my humble little deli.

Any excuse to take out my martini glass, yes?

The key ingredients for Ambrosia are mandarin oranges (blegh), pineapple, marshmallows (obviously), cherries (the faker, the better), and coconut, all mixed together in a creamy base. I have a strong disdain for mandarin oranges, so I used good ol' navel. I skipped the cherries because I'm too cheap to buy them. I omitted the marshmallows because...you know...breakfast. And finally, I subbed So Delicious yogurt <3 for the cream.

Mocha Almond Fudge Overnight Oatmeal

I need to confess my feelings. My strong, unwavering feelings.

I'm in love.

...with the So Delicious brand.

I've been eating their yogurt for a couple years now, but their pints of ice cream are a new world for me. I stopped buying prepared desserts and snacks several years ago--for a few different reasons. 1) Michael Pollan says to eat as much junk food as you want--as long as it's homemade (the result being you want eat that much junk food because it's hard work to make your own french fries, desserts, etc.). 2) I cut junk food from my budget to help me afford organic produce. 3) IBS, of course. Always.

Strawberry Pretzel Overnight Oatmeal

:D

Yes! Pretzels!

Strawberry pretzel bars are a bake sale, potluck, and picnic favorite. They are a lovely blend of sweet and salty. They begin with a bottom "crust" of crushed pretzels. Above that is a thick layer of cream cheese. Finally, the top layer is jello-fied strawberries.

Peach Banana Muesli

Week 6 of not having a stove.

It's becoming painful, yo. When so much of your happiness relies on your ability to cook and prepare food, not having a functioning stove is a terrible blow. We've been dealing with our electronic company for weeks trying to convince them to turn on our gas. Every time, it's "You need to do X." So then we do X. We wait. We call back. They say, "You did X, but you still need to do Y." We say, "You never told us that, but okay." We do Y. We wait. We call back. Etc.

FOR SIX WEEKS.

Melon Berry Overnight Oatmeal

So,, um....watermelon is not the most photogenic fruit. Forgive me.

Okay, so the idea behind this recipe is that you can endlessly combine various berries and melons together. Here you see blueberry + watermelon, but how about raspberry + cantaloupe? Blackberry + honeydew? Strawberry + cool exotic melon from the farmer's market (have you ever had a lemon drop melon?!).

Grape and Dark Chocolate Chunk Muesli

...Because chocolate chunks are just plain better than chocolate chips.

Although most of my favorite food blogs are vegan (or at least vegetarian), I take inspiration from all food lifestyles. I check FoodGawker at least twice every day and browse until I have viewed each new recipe, and I know the times of the day that the site is usually updated. It might be an addiction...

Ever since I "met" Haley from Cheap Recipe Blog, hers is one of the sites that I often find inspiration. Recently, she shared a cheap and easy entertaining idea of serving frozen grapes, dark chocolate, and wine for dessert. Um, I love all three of those things, so YES.

Root Beer Float Overnight Oatmeal

I have so many recipe ideas. Unfortunately, some of them require obscure ingredients that I couldn't imagine myself using regularly (or, in the case of macadamia nuts, I can't afford to use them regularly!). This was my problem with root beer extract. Wouldn't it be cool to have a root beer float oatmeal? But what else could I possibly do with it?

Thus, I was pretty freakin' pleased when I perused my mom's baking cupboard and discovered root beer concentrate. You see, my mom's quite special. She may appear to be your standard accountant, but when she comes home, she transforms into a cake decorator. She used to just do average sheet cakes and basic wedding tier cakes, but when the cupcake trend blossomed, so did her repertoire.

She now pumps out all sorts of "hip" cupcakes: Oreo, dreamsicle, red velvet (of course), lemon, salted caramel, etc. If you've seen it on Pinterest, she's probably tried it. Anyway, sometime during her experiments, she must have done a root beer cupcake, and thanks to her, I can give you this recipe today.

Elvis Oatmeal Smoothie + Getting Fit #8

Yesterday on Facebook, I shared the post for Peach Pie Oatmeal Smoothie. As of today, that recipe is exactly one year old. I have not posted a single oatmeal smoothie recipe since! I'm not a huge smoothie person--although I'm not sure why. I've just never been one to crave a smoothie.

However, someone commented on the Peach Pie recipe, "Ever thought of coming up with more oatmeal smoothie recipes? This one was delicious :)"

Reading that comment gave me the motivation to finally make this recipe!

This is the eighth segment of my Getting Fit series. This series features my friend Crystal, a rockstar figure skater and fellow oatmeal lover. You can her blog, Confessions of Crystal, and check out her Instagram,@crystalchilcott.

TOA: Hello! I hope you are fine and dandy and your training for the collegiate championships is going well!

Blueberry Breakfast Cobbler

This. This recipe is summer vacation to me.

Not summer, but summer vacation. As in, "I'm not working 80 hours a week, so I can experiment with recipes that I imagined a year ago but never had the energy to actually create."

This is actually just a super simple baked oatmeal atop a sea of blueberries. Don't be freaked out by the cast iron skillet; you could make this in any ramekin.

Double Berry Baked Oatmeal with Lemon Curd

As summer approaches (just a couple weeks away!), everyone is craving lighter and brighter recipes. One of my favorite parts of summer is all the produce, especially the berries.

I really do challenge myself to develop non-banana recipes, just to balance things out on here. This recipe uses mashed raspberries instead of my usual mashed banana, and the blueberries are delightful because they burst and bubble in the oven.

The lemon curd is optional, but it definitely adds to the summery brightness of the recipe and makes the serving a little larger.

Apricot Cherry Overnight Oatmeal

I achieved the impossible: I snapped an attractive photo of overnight oatmeal! What is it about overnight oats that make them so UN-photogenic? I think that's one of the reasons why I don't like posting overnight recipes. I always feel like I'm setting myself up for failure. I loathe putting up a post with sub-par photos (yet I do it all the time).

Confession time: this was the first fresh apricot I've ever eaten. Ha! I've had many a dried apricot, but never fresh. I bought one last year to make an oatmeal recipe with, but I waited a day too long and it turned rotten before I could cut into it. Dang...I hate wasting food!

I know many of you have requested for bigger helpings of overnight oatmeal, so I think you'll appreciate this one. It's massive! Having an entire fruit diced into it adds so much bulk.

Banana Mango Overnight Oatmeal

Readers, this one is for you. (I mean, I suppose all my recipes are for you...but this one is really, really for you.)

You guys are always ragging on me to post more overnight recipes. To be honest, I make overnight oatmeal pretty frequently, but only when I'm too lazy on the weekend to prepare enough oatmeal ahead of time for the week. In other words, when I'm making overnight oatmeal, it's at 10 pm, and when I'm eating it, it's 5 am. If you think I'm going to take pictures during these hours, you're crazy. :)

Black Forest Oatcakes...and my blog's 2nd birthday!

Two years. TWO YEARS! Considering I've been running this blog during the two most challenging years of my life (student teaching/senior year, my year of service in Newark, and my first year of teaching in NYC), it's a pretty big deal that I've managed to maintain this blog through it all. To celebrate, I made oatcakes:

But first, let me indulge in my nostalgia. Three fantastic things have happened since the Oatmeal Artist's first birthday.

1. I began my partnership with Country Choice Organic, which has completely changed my life. 
2. I began the Oatmeal Enthusiast series, which showed me that there are SO MANY PEOPLE that eat oatmeal every single morning, just like me.
3. The #oatmealartist hashtag began on Instagram, which always gives me a nice ego boost whenever I'm feeling down. As of right now, there's over 2,000 pictures on Instagram with the #oatmealartist tag. So cool!

Brownie Baked Oatmeal Parfait

I feel like I picked the right time to go herbivore. It's so exciting to watch new vegan products pop up on mainstream grocery shelves all the time. It seems like every time I go to the store, I find a new vegan product. Now, I try not to fill my diet with mock meats and fake dairy, but it is amusing to experiment with them from time to time.

My local produce market, which understandably has a tiny dairy section, just added Almond Dream yogurt to its selection. They only carry two flavors--coconut and strawberry--but I am completely fine with that. The coconut flavor is one of my favorites anyway.

To celebrate, I made this parfait. I typically eat one of my banana/peanut butter recipes on weekends, so I actually had to FORCE myself to make this. I think I pouted the entire time until I was finally spooning the results into my mouth. Then the sacrifice seemed worth it.

Tiramisu Overnight Oatmeal

The Thursday before my birthday, my friend and I were out and about in Manhattan enjoying some good eats. After some delightful vegan soul food at Red Bamboo, we moved on to Peacefood Cafe on 11th St. The dinner food is great there, but I particularly love their desserts. VEGAN. TIRAMISU. I didn't see it coming, but their vegan tiramisu was infinitely better than any tiramisu (vegan or not) I've ever had. The cream portion was unbelievable and I have no idea what it was made of.

PB and J Muesli

There is neither peanut butter nor jelly in this muesli (although I definitely contemplated both). Instead, it contains a delicious mix of fresh grapes, crushed peanuts, and (bonus!) sliced bananas, flax, and raisins. It's like PB&J, in a muesli-friendly form.

Grape Salad Overnight Oatmeal

I'm not positive about this one, but this is probably another crazy Midwestern thing. We just LOVE take fruit, stirring in cream cheese, and calling it a salad. Hey, at least this one doesn't have marshmallows!

Grape salad was first introduced to me by my godparents. They brought it to some celebration we were having at my house (perhaps my sister's confirmation or something??). Cripes, this stuff is good. It consists of red and green grapes coated in a mixture made of cream cheese, sour cream, and a little brown sugar. It sounds pretty terrible written out like that (especially to someone like me who hates sour cream), but it's truly divine.

Pomegranate Muesli

I am all about the muesli lately. It all happened when I discovered that pomegranate seeds make the best friggin' muesli ever. Why?! Because they can make the bulk of your muesli instead of nuts and dried fruit, which are wonderful and nutrient-dense, but they're also crazy filling and calorie-heavy. Of course I include them in my muesli, but it's not ideal to have an entire half cup of nuts and dried fruit in my morning cereal. That's a lot. I mean, one serving of nuts is only 1/4 cup, and 1/4 cup of dried fruit is a ton of sugar. So using pomegranates? Brilliant.

Pomegranates are crunchy like a nut or seed, but sweet like dried fruit. They have the added bonus of being absolutely beautiful to look at.

Autumn Muesli

I don't know what it is about muesli lately, but I am all about it. I think it's because I've been setting my electric blanket too high at night, and when I wake up in the morning, all I want is cold muesli.

This muesli essentially just celebrates autumn. Okay, so maybe pumpkin didn't make it in (don't worry, that's coming!), BUT there are pepitas, which are pumpkin seeds, so...I guess that counts! I also used dried apples, raisins, golden raisins, dried cranberries, and pecan pieces. DIVINE.

My first bites were certainly pleasant, but I felt that something was missing. It was almost too light and bright and sunshiny. It needed more autumn. I took a risk and added a dash of cinnamon, and wow, it made all the difference!