Sunday, October 11, 2009

Weekend Highlights


My oh my, how can is possibly be Sunday already? Thank goodness we have another day to this weekend. I love government Holidays!

Yesterday, Toly and I attended a wedding of one of my long time friend. The wedding was beautiful and we had a wonderful time catching up with old and new friends.




For being a morning/afternoon wedding, it was actually a very long day. We traveled about an hour and after getting stuck in some traffic on the way home, it turned into an 8 hour event. Being pretty exhausted by the time we got home, much of the remainder of the night was spent laying on the couch watching Entourage.

This morning, I woke up to a brisk chill in the air. It was the perfect setting for my much anticipated Sunday Breakfast that I have had visions of creating for some time now.


Okay, before I reveal to you this, I need you to trust me here. You are about to see one of the very best oatmeal recipes to ever grace your computer screen. (Wow, those are some pretty big expectations!)

Without further ado, I give you....


Baked Carrot Cake Oatmeal



Baked oatmeal is and always will be my favorite food on this earth. Carrot Cake is probably a close second. So, what happens when I put these two things together? Well just a little bit of pure heaven, that's all.

To make my oatmeal, I started with the wet stuff...

1/4 Cup of Vanilla Almond Milk
2 TBL of Egg Beaters
2 TBL of Pumpkin
Dash of Vanilla

Beat these all together and then work on the dry stuff....

1/3 Cup Oats
Pinch of Baking Powder
Cinnamon
Flax

Next, you add the wet to the dry and lastly, put in about 1/4 Cup (or maybe a little less) of shredded carrots and diced pineapple.


I also sprinkled pecans on top and baked for about 40 min at 350.

It turned out sensational. I also used my Pineapple Chobani and a drizzle of syrup to make the icing. See, I told you I had great ideas for this Pineapple flavor!


This was incredible!




I spent the remained of the day doing the normal Sunday stuff...cleaning, shopping, even baking! (Gasp, more to come on that)


For lunch, I had been craving to make some for some time, as I always hear Kath RAVE about it.

I whipped up some of Kelsey's Pimento Spread to make Grilled Cheese for lunch. I tried to go by memory from her recipe, and made just a few tiny subs.


This grilled cheese was perfect! I really don't like much cheese in general unless its extremely sharp or flavorful (like goat, feta or blue cheese) so this sammie was just right for me.


Who eats a grilled cheese without tomato soup? Not I!


Well to get back to the baking thing, yes I did it. I baked something today. This usually doesn't happen, but I was in the mood and I said "what the heck!"


I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars that were adapted from Megan's Munchies.



These were good. Not outstanding because NOTHING I bake ever turns out outstanding due to my curse, but definitely pretty tasty. They came out nice and gooey, just they way I prefer my baked goods. I feel that they will be even better with some Pumpkin Ice Cream later on.



As much as I enjoy having an entire Sunday devoted to the necessary chores, I must say, it takes a lot of me. Luckily, I had about an hour to spare where I found an ideal opportunity to squeeze in a small cat nap. That NEVER happens! It was quite enjoyable.



Sunday evenings are also an appropriate time to place a little more effort into dinner. I decided to make tonight a "romantic" supper (which really only means candles and wine, but hey, any reason to open a bottle and set the ambiance is reason enough).

For dinner, I made a delectable fish dish that sounds and tastes quite gourmet but, actually, is very simple to prepare.




Pistachio Crusted Tilapia with Goat Cheese and Dried Cranberries

Roasted Butternut Squash and Maple Fig Spinach, and Lemon Sauteed Green Beans.




Served alongside a fresh bottle of vino and of course, candlelight.


Delicious. Romantic. Enough said.

Tomorrow is a free day for us. We have some errands to run and some house projects to tackle, but other than that, just a freebie Monday.


So now that you saw what happened in our lives this weekend, how about you? What exciting things have you been up to???

15 comments:

  1. Your eats this weekend look so tasty and delicious! Glad your weekend seemed fairly relaxing, enjoy your Monday off!

    ReplyDelete
  2. omg! wow-wee those pumpkin oats look super yummy!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hooray for carrot cake flavored things!!!! It looks amazing and so do the pumpkin chocolate bars! I'm drooling over here!

    In response to your email:

    1) yes they were the butternut squash pecan muffins but I added 1 cup of shredded carrots to make them carroty!

    2) I'm so lucky that they have the Seasonal Clif Bars on campus so I can use food points to get them! YUM!

    3) Almond butter and ANYTHING is fabulous...hence the BSI ingredient :)

    4) I got chocolate covered dried apricots when I was in London and have been dreaming of them ever since....such a great combo!

    Have a great week m'dear! Thanks for the sweet email. Isn't it great when you read someone's post and you're like yeah yeah yeaaaah yeah yeah! Haha

    ReplyDelete
  4. So jealous of your day off tomorrow!!! Enjoy it. That baked oatmeal and the pumpkin bars both look fantastic. Glad you guys had a nice relaxing day. Cute pic of you two from the wedding!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ohhh my gosh girl. So much has happened this weekend. I get into details kind of in my last post.. and even more in my next! It's all good stuff though ;)

    As for your eats, missy - you never fail. I love how you called your baking skills are curse lol. I bet it was delicious! Your romantic dinner looks like a recipe I'll be passing along to my parents. I think they need more ideas for what to do with fish because that's really the only meat they eat.

    I hope you enjoy your freebie Monday! Maybe you'll make some more baked pumpkin oatmeal? ;)

    p.s. I had mashed butternut squash and I thought of you!! And soon I will be reunited with a holy jar of McCutcheon's pumpkin butter.

    ReplyDelete
  6. yumadoo, all of it. i love the carrot cake oatmeal! how did you have the patience to wait for it to bake? chomp.

    ReplyDelete
  7. i love the baked oats idea... never would have thought of that?! looks sooo good :) hope you had a lovely romantic dinner/evening! i totally agree that sunday evenings are the perfect time to devote a lil' extra to din - i made a buffalo chicken pot pie tonight and it turned out soooo good, buffalo chick is always the way to my man's heart - he's obsessed haha.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm loving the sound of those baked oats ... yum!!

    I hope you enjoy your wonderful day off ... I am jealous!! ; )

    ReplyDelete
  9. Enjoy your day off! :) Everything looks delish!
    Such a cute picture!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. candlelight dinner?! so cute. and looked so yummy. agreed, tomato soup and GC go hand in hand! i love the baked oats, they look like a dessert for breakfast which is fine by me!! everything is better with ice cream, especially PUMPKIN ice cream ;) xoxox

    ReplyDelete
  11. Look at you!! Going all fancy with dinner and baking your oats!! That looks really good, except I’m strange and enjoy my oatmeal runny…which my boyfriend describes as snot-like. Hahaha Hardly appetizing sounding.
    Those pumpkin bars look right up my alley!! I baked some pumpkin vegan bread a few days ago and ate half a loaf in a day! Yikes! Hehehe I think I’ll have to not bake your recipe just yet.

    ReplyDelete
  12. That baked oatmeal looks FANTASTIC! I love carrot cake too--even more than chocolate--yum! I will have to try this version for sure :) xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  13. my mouth is legit watering at the sound of those oats! must. recreate. immediately!
    yumm!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. WA-HO!! Pineapple Chobani on carrot cake baked oatmeal!
    You are one smart cookie!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. That oatmeal is a great idea!

    ReplyDelete