Strawberries and Cream Oatmeal

July 10, 2014 by Christine Skari

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

After the most stressful year I’ve ever had, I’m living in a beachside house with a great group of girls and even though I’m taking summer classes, my earliest lecture doesn’t start till 11 in the morning and I have three day weekends. Every week, you guys 😯 .

So now that I have an entire morning to catch up on blog reading over a filling and tasty breakfast, you better bet that I’m taking full advantage of it!

One of the perks of living with so many friends is that there’s always someone who is willing to be a taste tester. After finishing up shooting pictures of my newest creation, two of the girls wandered into our kitchen and snuck a bite. Their verdict?

“THIS TASTES LIKE DESSERT!!”

And yup yup yup, it’s that good my friends. Tangy, fresh, sweet, creamy, and healthy. What more could you want? My game plan is to double the recipe and store some of the easy strawberry compote in the fridge to quickly top my oats in the morning and save time and gain yummyness.

Also, can we all give a big hurrah over all the summer fruit that’s in season? My mindset right now is eat all the berries and I’ve been devouring cartons on cartons of blueberries and strawberries like nobody’s business. Berries beware. I’m on the loose.

I’m linking up today with the lovely Jenn from WIAW to share these delicious oats!

Looking for more tasty oatmeal recipes? Here are some of my favorites!

Blueberry Pie Oats

Baked Honey Berry Oatmeal

No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites

June 18, 2014 by Christine Skari

You know those nights where you just want to eat cookie dough for dinner? Yup, me… every single night. I have no shame in admitting that there were multiple times during the year where I would whip up a batch of my Healthier Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies and not even bother to turn the oven on. Oops… how’d that happen?!

There’s just something so comforting about eating batter straight out of the mixing bowl. It doesn’t matter if it’s brownie batter, cheesecake filling, or lemon bars. I can’t wait to get most of it into a pan so I can plop down in front of the tv or my laptop (good habits here, I know) with a spoon and scrape down the sides. I always end up making myself so gloriously sick off of the dough that when the final product is actually done, I’m completely sugared out. No complaints from this girl 😉 .

Mañana just happens to be my birthday and I plan on making a biiiiggg batch of cookie dough to celebrate. And, as birthdays go, I’m going to be indulging in lots of other delicious eats this entire week including an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ dinner on Friday, a fun night out with a big group of friends tomorrow, and most likely a family dinner when the pops gets back from a business trip. With all that good food around, I wouldn’t say no to lightening up a dish or two without compromising flavor.

Hence, these No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites were born!

They’re everything I could want in cute mini ball form and are loaded up with morsels of walnuts and mini chocolate chips in every bite. Not only that, but the base is completely made of oats and wheat bran, making these little energy bites super filling and full of fiber. And almond butter! My newfound love that happens to cost $10+ dollars at other grocery stores, but I found for cheap at good ol’ Trader Joe’s. Sending that store big hugs right now <3.

Feel free to eat these babies straight out of the bowl or roll them into portable little bites to give you that extra boost you need to fuel you through your day!

Skinny Yogurt Muffins with Sunshine Glaze

June 2, 2014 by Christine Skari

Let me just start by saying BEST MUFFINS EVER. Glad I got that off my chest, whew.

I’m a chocolate-girl down to my bones. Take me to a bakery and I’ll always pick a chocolate croissant or fudgy brownie over anything else. Fruity flavors have always been the side show. Kinda like the previews before the movie actually starts. You eat them and are like okay… this is tasty, but where’s the real stuff? Bring me the real stuff!

That’s why I’m completely shocked myself that this recipe is perhaps one of my favorites ever. Bold claim, no?

Oh, and funny story about this next picture. It turns out getting the perfect action shot of drizzle is a lot harder than it looks. Initially I had Kyle on spoon duty, but the boy just cannot drizzle for the life of him. The first round of pictures came out looking like a bird had decided to take a huge dump on my fluffy muffins… yeah, not too appetizing. After a few more unsuccessful poo- photos, I handed my DLSR camera to Kyle and took matters into my own hands. It turns out that he can handle a fancy camera on manual settings, but can’t put glaze on a muffin. But you know what? Everyone has flaws and I guess I can maybe still like him. Maybe. After all, isn’t that what love is? Accepting each other regardless of their baked-good topping prowess?

I’m a cheater. A lot of people think that having a food blog translates to me being a food snob, but the exact opposite is true. Feed me all the packaged Kraft mac and cheese and you know what? Turkey and stuffing microwavable dinners might actually be one of my favorite things ever. When recipes tell me to sift in the flour (ain’t nobody got time for that) or let butter comes to room temp over night (nahh, it’s going in the microwave 3 seconds before I use it), I scoff.

While I love Ina Garten, the idea of having to make my own chicken broth by scratch to use for gravy is just a romanticized idea of cooking for me 😯 . That’s why, I’m a cheater. These muffins are the product of a cooking lie. They’re made with *gasp* the help of a baking mix.

But YOU GUYS. They’re SO GOOD!!!!

Big, fat berries in every bite and the most delicious glaze you’ve ever tasted. You can even throw in a handful of nuts for some extra goodness. The glaze tastes like sunshine and is bright and lemon-y and perfect. Along with being my shmookie pookie poo, Kyle is my guinea pig when it comes to my recipes. After these came out of the oven, I asked him if he wanted to try some sunshine. Luckily, the boy doesn’t question me anymore and just opens his mouth. In goes the sunshine and out comes the oohhs and ahhs. His response? “Sunshine is the perfect name for this!”

Also, let’s pretend I didn’t just refer to him as my schmookie pookie poo. Let’s also disregard that I googled “the most disgustingly cute names to call boyfriend” to find it. Go big or go home.

Also! No butter! No oil! Just greek yogurt and eggs to help bind everything together into one amazing batter that is mixed together in just one bowl. My apartment has the smallest kitchen the world has ever seen and dishes add up reeeaal fast in our sink. Things get out of hand and it seems like the minute I start cooking or baking my kitchen turns into a place of chaos and dish-anarchy. One bowl recipes are my saving grace. Especially when one bowl leads to this.

Be still, my heart.

Healthy Crockpot Breakfast Casserole

May 22, 2014 by Christine Skari

I love breakfast food. Whether is be in the form of my sweet Blueberry Pie Oatmeal or a few pieces of toast with peanut butter, the simplicity and ease of breakfast recipes make my heart sing. On weekends, though, I like to do a bit more to make my morning even more special by sitting down at the table with a hearty breakfast and cup of coffee. And this, my friends, is the heartiest!

This Healthy Crockpot Breakfast Casserole is perfect for a weekend brunch and makes plenty of leftovers that can be heated up for up to five days so you can enjoy it all week long! Fix it and forget it at its finest.

Last weekend, Kyle and I drove to the library for some early morning studying and productivity. I threw all the ingredients into the crockpot before we left, said a quick prayer to the food gods, and then returned a few hours later to an apartment bursting with delicious smells and a hot meal! Well, to be honest, not so hot since I promptly whipped out my camera and let the dish go cold as I tried to capture pictures to match how good it tasted. The lighting was bent on making that difficult and poor Kyle was left waiting hungrily for over an hour… rough life for that guy.

This recipe can serve a big crowd or, like I mentioned before, can be refrigerated and reheated. The beauty of this recipes comes in how much breakfast it packs into one bite. It tastes like a full restaurant meal of hash browns, scrambled eggs, omelets, and bacon all packed into one delicious slice! Did I mention it’s filled with a whooooleeee lotta veggies? They meld together with all the other ingredients to make a tasty and filling breakfast that even your picky eaters will love! One serving is 1/8th of the total recipe (a whopping big slice- hooray!) and has 320 calories, over 5g of fiber, and over 22g of protein. It’s a hearty way to start your day off right and keep you full throughout the morning!

Baked Honey Berry Oatmeal

May 2, 2014 by Christine Skari

The other day, I mentioned that I’ve been having to inhale my breakfasts while I run around the house. And 90% of the time, I’m eating hot hot hot brown sugar banana oats that, while delicious, feel like a volcano is pouring lava down my throat. Pleasant, right?

So what’s a girl to do when she doesn’t want to give up her beloved oats, but isn’t a fan of lava? Enter: Baked Berry Oatmeal.

This recipe is perfectly sweet, chock full of berries and pecans, and delicious served cold. I know that a lot of people are fans of overnight oats, but I’ve just never been able to get into them. I have a confession to make. There’s something about the runny and semi-slimy texture that I just can’t get myself to enjoy. Eeep. Please still be my friend! I wish I could get myself to like them, but alas.

Before trying these after a few hours in the fridge, I would have sworn that they would taste better hot. After trying them the morning after I baked them, though, I quickly changed my mind! They’re sweet and creamy, but without that weird texture that overnight oats bring. And berries! Big ol’ fat ones distributed evenly in each bite. It reached 90 degrees yesterday, so cool and yummy breakfasts are high up on my list of things to stuff in my face.

Along with that, my slice of Baked Berry Oatmeal this morning kept me full for a straight 5 hours, so I’m counting that as a huge breakfast success! If you get to know me, you’ll quickly learn that I get a pretty bad case of hangry-ness (aka I’m just the most unpleasant person ever to be around when my tum is rumbling), so me eating a big piece of baked dessert-like oatmeal is really doing a favor to everyone around me. You guys are welcome 😉 .