Oatless Oatmeal

Hi friends! One of the lifestyle changes that I made during my quest to slim down for the wedding included a diet high in protein, fruits, and veggies and low in flour and grains. I was very reluctant to give up oatmeal, but I found a recipe on Carrots 'n' Cake (still my favorite blog this many years later) for "oatmeal minus the oats". Tina (the blog's author) said it was good, so I decided to give it a go. 

Here are all of the ingredients that I needed:

I play around with recipes from time to time, but I already had all of the ingredients from Tina's recipe. I followed it exactly. I used:

• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1-2 tablespoons flaxseed
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (or as much as you want)
• 1 mashed banana
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
• some time to clean up your kitchen, because you will make a mess!

I used our newest measuring cups (I have some of my own in the basement that I can use as soon as I get my own apartment!) from The Pampered Chef. My mom's friend hosted a party recently, and we stocked up on some cool new kitchen gadgets. 

The rims are flared so that it won't drip when you pour liquids into the cup, and you can read the measurements from above instead of having to squat down, pour and watch from the side like we have to do with all other liquid measuring cups. What will they think of next?

I don't have ground flaxseed, so I ground it up along with the walnuts in the food processor until it resembled a paste-like consistency. It still had big pieces of flaxseed in there, but it didn't matter to me. 

I put all of the remaining ingredients (not including the raspberries that are in the ingredients picture...or the wine) in the blender for about 20 seconds (just until liquid-like) and then poured everything into a pot. 

I heated it on low and made sure to stir frequently. 

After a few minutes, the mixture began to thicken up and started to resemble oatmeal! It was ready to eat once it was the consistency that I wanted. 

I sprinkled more cinnamon on top, a few fresh raspberries, and a spoonful of natural peanut butter. 

It was surprisingly delicious! The only downside was cleaning up afterwards. It's a great breakfast to make on weekends when you have more time to do that. If you need some low-carb breakfast ideas, I highly recommend this one!