I’ve contacted all four winners of the Quaker oatmeal giveaway and three of them have confirmed their addresses. However, if your name is Niki and you wrote the following haiku (Heart healthy flavor/Quaker oats’ gooey goodness/Warms me to my soul), email me girl! You’ve got oats waiting for you! The other winners were Fred, Cindy, and Jennifer H. Congrats!

• Continue reading "Oatmeal winners"

In all the excitement of this weekend, I forgot that I have four Quaker Oats prize packs to give away! Then I promise I will stop talking about oats and groats and marsey-doats and doesey-dotes. Each prize is a 1 month supply of Quaker’s heart healthy breakfast products – including Old Fashioned Quaker Oats, Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Quaker Oatmeal To Go and Quaker Oatmeal Squares.

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 [...]

• Continue reading "Quaker Oats giveaway"

I ditched my 10 year high school reunion this weekend to hang out with my new boyfriend Larry.

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 [...]

• Continue reading "Living proof of my Quaker Oats weekend"

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 [...]

• Continue reading "Sweet Potato Muffins"