“Did something in the refrigerator explode?” my roommate asked me as she stood in front of the open fridge door.

“Oh, no, that’s just my yogurt experiment,” I told her.

About a month ago MelPo left this comment on my Voskos yogurt entry:

Did you know you can make any yogurt thick–like the so-called greek yogurts that are so popular now? It’s just strained yogurt.

I do it by putting a couple of coffee filters in a colander over a bowl–dump the contents of a big yogurt (my fave is seven stars, but any kind, any flavor will work) into the filters. Then fold the tops of the filters over the top of the yogurt and put the whole bowl into the fridge overnight. The next day, take it out and dump the watery stuff from the bowl and open up the coffee filters and enjoy your thick yummy yogurt.

If you want it even thicker you can weight the top with something fairly light–like a can of soup or something and the resulting yogurt will be a cream-cheese consistency. [...]

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Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have wondered why I was conducting top secret oatmeal experiments last month. Wonder no more! As a part of the Quaker Oats Living Proof weekend I attended, Quaker challenged the attendees to come up with a new oatmeal recipe that met certain nutritional guidelines. The prize was an all-expense paid trip to Lafayette, Colorado for the 12th Annual Quaker Oatmeal Festival. That was great, but the part about free ski passes sounded more enticing. I love me some oatmeal, but the idea of the world’s largest topping bar isn’t quite enough motivation for me to conduct oatmeal experiments in my kitchen top secret lab. I decided 1 in 16 odds were pretty damn good for winning anything, so I started doing unholy things to instant oats.

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 [...]

• Continue reading "Recipe: Oatmeal Expresso"

I live alone, so I like recipes that create a single serving without leftovers to binge on. This week I experimented with a recipe Kathy left in the comments on my oatmeal visit entry last week.

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 [...]

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The good thing about posting a recipe every weekend is that it forces me to cook. I’ve gotten rather lax about making my own meals lately. I use a lot of energy fighting my chronic headache, which hasn’t left me much strength to do normal things like cook or do the dishes or floss every night. Instead, I’ve been eating pricier instant dinners or buying wraps and salads from Whole Paycheck. But here’s a recipe that wasn’t too taxing, didn’t take too long to cook and mixed up my protein and veggies into one tasty, filling meal.

Southwest Chicken Stir-Fry

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch strips

1 small zucchini

1 small yellow summer squash

2 Tablespoons canola oil

1/3 cup salsa

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Mix lemon juice and chili powder in bowl. Stir in chicken. Cover and refrigerate 15 minutes. Cut zucchini and yellow squash into thin slices.

Coat 12-inch skillet with 1 Tablespoon of oil and put on high heat. Add chicken and marinade. Stir-fry until chicken is no [...]

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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 [...]

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