My recipe for Capp-oat-ccino Delight aka Oatmeal Espresso was recently published in Dave Grotto’s new book, 101 Optimal Life Foods. Some of you may remember that I entered a recipe contest after the Quaker Oats Living Proof Blogger Weekend in Chicago. My win included the prize of an ill-fated unvacation to the Colorado Oatmeal festival as well as the publication of my recipe in Dave’s book.

Dave was kind enough to send me a copy of the book which I’ve flipped through. It’s a guide to what foods will help you manage or prevent various illnesses. I took special note of the chapters on headaches and chronic pain. It’s a handy little guide, and Dave Grotto is a registered dietician dietitian, so he knows what he’s talking about. Roni from Green Lite Bites has some recipes featured in the book too, so you can double the blogger love even if we don’t get any royalties :)

It’s also been reported that candy sales are up, particularly for nostalgic candies like Necco Wafers and Mallo Cups. Candy is a cheap way for people to feel better about the crap economy. Even if you don’t have a paycheck, you can get a Payday.

The word “economy” feels vague and formless. I can’t seen an economy, I can’t feel it, and I definitely can’t eat it. Yet, when the economy shifts, it affects everything, down to what we have for breakfast. I’m lucky for now that I don’t have to live much differently than I did before the economy crashed. I’ve always been thrifty and I’m fortunate to still have a consistent paycheck. I’m still eating oatmeal for breakfast every morning, but it’s because I like to and not just because it’s cheap.

Yesterday I received a gift basket in the mail that I was supposed to pick up at the annual Lafayette Oatmeal Festival. This reminded me that I’m the twit who ditched the oatmeal festival (though for very understandable reasons). As I took the gift basket out of the box, it fell, making me the twit who also broke a Quaker oatmeal bowl she received for not attending the Oatmeal Festival. Whoops-si-doodles!

Then I took a picture of all these things and was reminded that my photos are crap and I cannot even be bothered to move the PediPaws I bought at Walgreens out of the background of my photos. (Nope, haven’t bought a Snuggie yet, but my friend Jenny knows how to make one!) Someday I’ll buy a D-SLR camera and become a real blogger!

Anyway, to feel less twit-like, I interviewed Ellen Kanazawa, the organizer of the Oatmeal Festival. Only, I interviewed her over a month ago, so again – I’m such a twit! Be grateful I manage to put on pants in the morning. So, hear you go, all your burning oatmeal questions answered, including an explanation as to why Colorado holds an oatmeal festival in winter!

I read that Lafayette started out as a coal mining town, but you’ve held an oatmeal festival for over 10 years now. What inspired your community to start an oatmeal festival, and not, for instance, a coal festival?

Because downtown Lafayette was faced with the newly constructed Hwy 287 bypass (that would re-route traffic away from downtown), retail and business owners looked for a way to peak interest and bring visitors to the heart of downtown during the slowest month of the year. Someone read that January was oatmeal month, thus, the idea was born.

Is there a particular reason the festival is held in January, besides the fact it is nice to eat a warm bowl of oatmeal on a cold day?

January is oatmeal month. To the best of our knowledge, the Lafayette Quaker Oatmeal Festival is the only one of its kind in the country.

Planning a festival like this must be a lot of work. Does anything go on behind the scenes that people might be surprised by? What kind of cooking pot do you use to make that much oatmeal?

Most people do not realize this Festival is actually three events in one: the 5K, the oatmeal breakfast and the health fair! And we pull it off with a staff of 3 part-time people. We are so fortunate to have so many in our community come together to help with this event. For instance, the Blue Parrot Restaurant in Louisville, CO, has been cooking pancakes from the very beginning (a huge undertaking!) Read more in this article.

The recipient of the Colorado Governor’s Award for Excellence, the Lafayette Quaker Oatmeal Festival includes an Oatmeal Breakfast with the world’s largest toppings bar, the Quicker Quaker 5K Walk /Run, a certified qualifier for the Bolder Boulder, and an interactive Health Fair. Boulder Community Hospital and Community Medical Center sponsor the Heath Fair which includes health screenings, health and science related programs and demonstrations. Attracting thousands from Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and Washington, this one day event will be held on January 10, 2009, in Lafayette, Colorado. Produced by Lafayette Community Events, more information on the Lafayette Quaker Oatmeal Festival can be obtained by visiting www.discoverlafayette.com

What’s your favorite oatmeal topping?

I enjoy walnuts, brown sugar and fresh fruit….and Colorado peach jam!

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Thanks to Ellen for putting up with me and for the gift basket, which I will try not to destroy when I move it off of my living room floor. You can view photos of the festival here. If you are in Lafayette, Colorado next January 9, 2010, stop by for a bowl!

I remembered that Quaker Oats is owned by the same company that makes Diet Pepsi as well as other products like Tropicana and Lays Potato Chips, as illustrated in this photo of the lobby above. (This photo also makes me think “I need to lose 10 pounds” which is why I didn’t post it before. Oh, body image, how you toy with me!) I decided to suck up real good by cooking a bowl of quick oats in Diet Pepsi.

Please don’t try this at home. (No, really, don’t. You have been warned.)

After spitting out that hideous concoction into the trash, I remembered a commenter who told me mangoes and hot sauce tasted good together. Entries were going to be judged on creativity as well as convenience and taste. Intrigued, I bought some mangoes with the idea of naming my creation Tropical Spicy Delight. Then I actually ate mangoes and hot sauce together and decided that was a worse idea than Lays Potato Chip Oatmeal.

Out of inspiration, I looked in my cupboards and saw that I stored my oatmeal right next to the instant coffee. (Uh, yes, that’s Kroger brand oatmeal. Don’t tell the Quaker Oats people!)

Having recently become a coffee addict, I said, “What the hell! Let’s just mix a cup of coffee in with the oatmeal! It’ll save me time in the morning.” So I did and it didn’t taste half bad, at least after I added the sweetener and milk. It didn’t have many ingredients, though we could add up to 10, but I decided it was convenient and fairly tasty. My brother, who just graduated from business school, said coffee flavorings were hot. Thus, I named it Oatmeal Expresso and sent it in.

The deadline passed and I hadn’t heard anything, so I thought one of the food bloggers had kicked my ass by using real ingredients like fruit.

Then I got a voice mail saying Quaker had very exciting news for me and to call them back please. Unfortunately I got the message after office hours and had to wait a day to find out what they wanted. The optimistic part of me hoped I had won, but the pessimistic part made me think I was one of two finalists who would have to fly to New York for a sudden death round of oatmeal wrestling. The really pessimistic part of me imagined the other finalist would be Miz Fit, whose eyeballs are more in shape than my entire body.

I finally called them back the next day and guess what? Oh no, you already guessed? Well, you’re right! I won! And I didn’t have to force another blogger into a hammer lock to do so. It made me so happy I got off my ass and ran for 30 minutes, which is something I have not been doing enough of lately.

In many ways this has been both the best and worst year of my life. It’s been like eating an ice cream cake covered in fecal flavored frosting. There’s been a lot of creamy, vanilla, chocolate goodness, but there’s been a lot of shit too. It’s nice to know that good things can still happen.

So, I shall go to the oatmeal festival and I shall visit the world’s largest topping bar and I shall report back to you, assuming I do not go splat into a tree on the bunny slopes.

Here is my winning recipe, Oatmeal Expresso, which I also considered naming these titles, many of them inspired by Mo’s oat puns:

Capp-oat-ccino Delight

Morning Moch-oat Delight

Mocha Cup-of-oats Delight

Mocha Oats in the morning

Morning Moch-oat Surprise

Morning Mocha Express-oats

Cappuccino Express-oats

Cappuccin-oat Delight

Oatmeal Expresso

3/4 cup Quaker Quick Oats

2 teaspoons instant coffee

3 teaspoons Splenda

1/4 cup skim milk

1/2 cup water

Save time in the morning by combining your cup of coffee with a heart healthy breakfast. Quick and easy, this recipe will give you a shot of energy in the morning that also keeps you full until lunch time.

Combine the Quaker Quick Oats, instant coffee and Splenda. Mix in the skim milk and water. Microwave the mixture for one minute and 45 seconds. Enjoy!

Single-serving oatmeal pancake

1/2 cup of quick oats

2 teaspoons of Splenda

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 egg

1/4 cup milk or soy milk

Mix together the oats, Splenda and cinnamon in a small microwave-safe bowl.

Then mix in the egg and soymilk.

Microwave the bowl for three and a half minutes.

Lift out pancake onto serving plate and enjoy! Or you can eat it straight out of the bowl. Just a note: I guesstimated the ingredient measurements. I’ve just been eye-balling the amounts until the mixture looks good. At first I tried it without any milk, but it was too dry, so adjust that measurement depending on how gooey you want the pancake.

If you’d prefer to make this as a muffin, you could probably microwave it in a small mug and scrape out the end result using a spatula. Either way, it’s a quick and easy way to eat some carbs and protein in the morning without creating a batch of muffins, which I always end up binging on. Thanks, Kathy!

To enter, leave a haiku about oatmeal in the comments below by 11:59pm on Saturday, November 15th. A haiku is a three line poem in which the first and third lines contain 5 syllables and the second line contains 7 syllables. Four winners will be drawn randomly, not by the quality of their haikus. However, if it is not a true haiku, you will be disqualified. Count your syllables, people!

To inspire you, here’s a pic of Roni, Mo and me in the taxi on our way to the Quaker Oats headquarters, are faces beaming with thoughts of oatmeal. Let us be your muses!

Win or lose, you can also click this link to get a coupon for $1.00 off any two packages of Quaker Oatmeal. You must be using Internet Exploder for it to work though.

We sowed some oats together this weekend in Chicago. Is it weird that he never took off his hat? (Oat-kay, I might be exaggerating, but he is actually nicknamed Larry by the Quaker Oats staff.)

This weekend I had a fantastic time meeting many lovely and lively health and fitness bloggers at the Quaker Oats Living Proof weekend. But let’s speak the truth here: ultimately this weekend came about because Quaker Oats wants to see what the blogosphere and social media can do for them. It’s about commerce. I know it, you know it, Quaker knows it, and now it’s officially out there. I did not go away for the weekend just because Quaker Oats is nice, though they were definitely nice. I got some free swag, free meals, and a free trip and Quaker got people talking about their products and started some relationships that will be to their advantage in the future.

That being said, just because there’s something in it for both of us doesn’t mean we can’t all have fun fooling around together. Ogilvy (the public relations company for Quaker) did a stand out job arranging the event, keeping it low-pressure and genuinely listening to our suggestions for the weekend. I think they genuinely care about having a good relationship with their customers and I’m glad companies like Quaker are trying to engage us in real conversations. More companies should do that.

So, with the motivations of all those involved kept in mind, let me fill you in on all the silly stuff I did this weekend. I was the first blogger to arrive, which left me plenty of time to do stupid stuff like leap in front of the mirrored wardrobe in my hotel room and snap a picture of myself in mid-air.

Please note the $7.00 bottle of Fiji water in the bottom right corner. I let it sit on my nightstand in favor of using a new invention called “the faucet.” David Bowie was lurking in the bathroom, but he was a gentleman and kept his eyes closed as I did my business.

Even when I turned on all the lights, the room was very dimly lit, but it let me better appreciate the gorgeous view.

The bed was amazingly soft and the wi-fi was free, so by the second night I wanted to move into my hotel room, even if it had a weird imitation snakeskin chair.

There was a meet and greet in the bar that night and then a dinner which included chocolate sushi. The next day we had breakfast at the Quaker Oats headquarters, where they serve free oatmeal to their employees every morning. (I would save dozens of dollars on groceries if I worked for the Quaker Oats corporation.) I truly wish I woke up to a spread like this in my kitchen every morning.

Then we went through a day of, with few exceptions, boring seminars. It was like being in college again, but when I went to college we didn’t have the technology to instant message our friends to make bad oat puns or speaker-related drinking games. Basically, oatmeal is good for your heart. Oat-kay?

I am frightened to even discuss the contr-oat-versy that erupted over whether steel cut oats are better for you than quick oats or rolled oats. And Oat My God, please don’t even talk about it in the comments because I honestly do not give a damn. I eat instant oatmeal in the mornings because I’m a lazy-ass mutha’ and I like a warm, tasty meal I can cook in 99 seconds. No, I’m not going to make a batch of steel cut oats on the weekend and eat it during the week. No, I’m not going to do the other weird thing you’re going to suggest either. Seriously, don’t even start! Stop it! STOP IT!!

Um, I have obviously been blogging too long. I am now getting into flame wars with myself.

We also saw a cooking demonstration by the winner of season four of Top Chef, which would have impressed me more if I had cable. Instead, she seemed as famous to me as we must have seemed to her. Then we were off to another dinner I would never have been able to afford otherwise, a bar meetup, and then a brunch meetup the next day where I got to meet a lot of lovely readers. Thank you for coming out, especially to the one reader who tasked her spouse to brave the Chicago cold to buy a copy of my book.

I ate more oats this weekend than I have ever eaten before in my life. I am going to be really regular this week and my heart will never be healthier. I also stuffed as much oatmeal into my bag as possible, but stopped short of stuffing my panties with packets of sweet roasted pecan because I didn’t want nuts in my butt crack. I do not apologize. There is a recession on and I need all the free food I can get if I don’t survive the company layoffs next month.

But far better than the free swag was meeting everyone who attended, from those bloggers I’ve read for ages to those I just met. Sweet, sappy, but true. It truly was a great group of people. Thank you to Quaker Oats for hosting the event. Thank you also for giving me a packet of the limited edition pumpkin spice oatmeal that is available only at Wal-Mart. It was truly tasty, but I find Wal-Mart far too depressing to shop at, so I doubt I will be enjoying anymore. (Unless I find an extra pack in my panties.)

When I opened the cupboard to see roots growing out of my sweet potato, I knew it was time to make some muffins.

Sweet Potato Muffins

1 medium sweet potato (8 oz)

2 cups dry oatmeal

1/4 cup Splenda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

5 egg whites and 1 egg

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Puncture the sweet potato several times and microwave it for about 8 minutes. Scoop out the orange part and mash it in a bowl. Mix it with the rest of the ingredients.

Grease a muffin pan and spoon the mixture into the cups. Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

This is a quick and easy recipe which is high in carbs and protein. I used to mix it up before I did weights and they’d be warm and ready at the end of my routine, ready to refuel my muscles. I usually halve the recipe because I’m prone to eat the whole batch. Note: I’m avoiding artificial sweeteners right now, so for this instance I subbed the Splenda with real sugar.

First I cut off all the roots growing out of the sweet potato, apologizing to the young sweet potatoes that would never be born as a result. Then I punctured it a few times and nuked it in the microwave for about 8 minutes. After slicing it in half, a sweet potato is a yummy treat in itself, particularly if you sprinkle a bit of brown sugar on top.

While that was cooking, I had more than enough time to measure and mix together the other ingredients. Then I scooped out parts of the sweet potato and mixed it into the batter.

I tend to get impatient and sneak little bites of the batter, which is why I should probably chew gum while I cook to impede such urges. Then I scooped out the batter into my silicone muffin pans, filling it basically to the top. These muffins don’t really rise, so they’ll be about as big as you fill the pan. BTW, if you’ve never used silicone muffin pans, they’re very cool. They’re bendy, easy to wash, and don’t conduct heat.

About 25-30 minutes later, I pulled them out of the oven and arranged them nicely on a plate like this.

Normally, however, I skip the pretty stuff and just devour them straight from the pan while they’re still hot. The word “muffin” is a bit of a misnomer here because I don’t use any flour. They’re more like a cross between a muffin and an oatmeal cookie, sort of tough but still tasty. These are fairly calorie dense, so go easy on it!