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coconut

Friday Fare, Health

Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

June 6, 2014

Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

Hiiii. I am so sorry I missed last week’s Friday Fare 🙁 I swear, I have so many delicious and healthy recipes to share with you all but I have been travelling a lottt recently and two situations occur:

a) I make a delicious and healthy meal but have nowhere I can photograph it (good lighting and scenery is everythaaang people) or b) I have a perfect place to take photos but I am really busy and do not have time to make anything special. Oh blogger dilemmas, man.

Anyway, a few nights ago I was really craving oatmeal and somehow managed to be quite creative and come up with overnight kombucha chia oats with matcha green tea yogurt … AND photograph it!! I probably should have done something to make the photos a little nicer (’tis a bit plain) but alas, I did not.

The idea for soaking the oats in kombucha came to me because I actually had a bottle of Synergy’s cherry chia kombucha chilling in the fridge (pun .. hehe). I had nooo idea how the combo of cherry flavored kombucha, chia seeds and rolled oats would take, but I decided to take the risk and I am really glad I did. It was delicioussss. Now, the matcha green tea yogurt idea came about because I bought some matcha green tea powder at Safeway the other day despite it being kind of expensive.

But seriously, matcha green tea powder is so bloody hard to find and I really could not be bothered to drive to Japan Town (HATE driving in downtown San Francisco) and the good Asian supermarket nearest me is still kinda far … so yeah anyway, tangent. Since I had the powder I thought it would be fun to make a flavored yogurt which was also delicious, although I did have to lightly sweeten it with liquid stevia. And the toppings seemed self-evident because they are all awesome, delicious and healthy.

Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

Okay, so now that you have the full-blown history of how I thought of this recipe (hope I didn’t bore you all!!) let’s get to making it!

Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt Recipe

Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

Alice Williams
A perfectly invigorating blend of kombucha chia soaked oats with fat fighting green tea yogurt
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Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup rolled oats I used Bob's Red Mill brand
  • 1/2 a bottle of Synergy's Cherry Chia Kombucha
  • 1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder
  • 1 cup of full fat plain yogurt - don't fear fat ... or a fat-free version, but check to make sure it doesn't have any extra added sugar as most fat-free versions are really high in sugar
  • 1/2 cup of blueberries
  • 1 teaspoon or more if you wish honey
  • 1 teaspoon or more if you wish pumpkin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon or more if you wish shredded unsweetened coconut
  • 1 teaspoon or more if you wish slivered almonds

Instructions
 

  • 1. The night before you plan on eating this meal, put your rolled oats and the cherry chia kombucha into a mason jar (or anything that will be sealed) in the fridge overnight to soak.
  • 2. Now that your oats are ready and soaked, let the fun begin! To make the matcha green tea yogurt layer, simply get a bowl and put your yogurt, matcha green tea powder, and liquid stevia in a bowl and use an electric whisk to blend it all up (you can use a normal whisk too). Once the yogurt is ready, dollop it on top of your oats.
  • 3. Now layer the blueberries on top of the yogurt layer, followed by the honey, shredded coconut, pumpkin seeds, and slivered almonds.
  • 4. Voila! A really easy, delicious AND healthy breakfast which can be taken on the go or enjoyed at home. I like having mine with a cup of tea, green tea of course 😉
Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt
Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

How else can I enjoy Overnight Oats?

Overnight chia oats with kombucha are so versatile and can be altered in so many delicious and simple ways. Another variation involved using greek yogurt (I like Fage) instead of normal yogurt, strawberries and Dang coconut chips, mmm.

Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt
Overnight Kombucha Chia Oats with Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

I hope you all enjoyed this week’s edition of Friday Fare. If you make this, please share a photo with me and hashtag it #fridayfare if you upload your re-creation on Instagram or Twitter!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare

Slow Cooker Oatmeal

May 16, 2014

Okay so I just want to start off by apologizing in advance as the photo’s are not the prettiest But seriously, how pretty can oatmeal really be? Hehe, I tried my best but just be assured that this slow cooker oatmeal TASTES amazing!

So what is this week’s edition of Friday Fare? … Slow cooker oatmeal!

Slow Cooker Oatmeal

Slow Cooker Oatmeal

My boyfriend bought me a slow cooker a few weeks back and I am literally obsessed with it. It has made meal prep and meals in general so much easier. I mean seriously, all you do is add your ingredients (plus chopping stuff if you need too, which can take a while actually as slow Alice found out) into the slow cooker, set it to low or high, and then leave it for several hours. And voila! Delicious food in mass quantities, mmmmm.

Slow Cooker Oatmeal

Told you the photo’s wouldn’t be fantastic 🙁 SO delicious though

I discovered the idea of slow cooker oatmeal while just searching the web trying to look for alternatives to overnight oats. I really like overnight oats but it’s cold .. and I really like a warm and comforting breakfast. Slow cooker oatmeal presented a lovely way to have a warm and delicious breakfast with minimal effort involved! I like my oatmeal really creamy and rich so I used unsweetened almond and coconut milk as my liquid, but feel free to substitute half for water if you want a less rich oatmeal.

This meal is full of protein and complex carbohydrates and is extremely filling and should keep you feeling full for a good three to four hours.

 

Slow Cooker Oatmeal

Alice Williams
Creamy slow cooker oatmeal; all the taste with none of the effort.
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Servings 2

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup dry steel cut oats
  • 2 and 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk or sub for any milk you like
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • 1. Put all ingredients into your slow cooker
  • 2. Set slow cooker to 'LOW' setting and let the oats cook for 4 hours
  • 3. Eat! You can add anything to these oats (after they are cooked though, I added fruit into the slow cooker and each time it turned out nasty). Some idea's are fresh fruit, honey, natural peanut butter, unsweetened cocoa powder, nuts .. the world is your oyster!
Slow Cooker Oatmeal

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Friday Fare. Now there is no excuse to not eat breakfast since you can make it ahead of time and then just leave them in the slow cooker with the setting set to ‘WARM’ 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

May 2, 2014

As you may (or may not know, it’s cool if you don’t lol) I have been working on a yummy dark chocolate chip coconut cookies recipe for this week’s Friday Fare! The inspiration for this recipe honestly came about because I had all the ingredients in my cupboard and I reeeeally was craving cookies .. I love cookies, hehe. These cookies are kind of like a beginner’s guide to taking the healthy step forward – a few people have commented on how even though the recipe’s look great, there are several hard to get or expensive ingredients in them. And I totally understand, not everyone can live near a Whole Food’s with a bulk bin section!! So these cookies have ingredients that should be easy enough for you to get at your local supermarket 🙂

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Don’t they look awesome?

I used a combination of oat flour (which you can make your own by just putting some rolled oats in a food processor and whizzing it about for a few seconds) and whole wheat flour, coconut oil and dark chocolate to make a healthier chocolate chip cookie. I really like oat flour because it has quite a lot of fiber and protein in it, and I used whole wheat flour because a) it is super easy to find in supermarkets and b) as opposed to white wheat flour which usually is stripped of all its nutritional goodness, whole wheat flour contains all of the fiber and vitamins that are supposed to be there. Coconut oil makes everything taste better (in my opinion) and contains a lot of healthy fats, and the dark chocolate is there to balance out the sweetness that comes with the brown sugar. Although brown sugar really is not that much healthier than white sugar, it gives a richer flavor and more moistness to the cookie. Like I said, this is a beginner’s guide to healthier cookies!

They are also dairy free as I used Almond Breeze’s almond and coconut milk.

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Alice Williams
Melt in your mouth dark chocolate chip cookies with coconut.
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Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup oat flour
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 2 tbsp unsweetened almond milk I used Almond Breeze's almond and coconut milk blend mmm
  • 1/2 cup or 4 squares of 70% dark chocolate pieces I buy the Lindt kind and break it up into small chunks, you can use a knife to chop them too
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp high quality salt

Instructions
 

  • 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees farenheit
  • 2. First, mix all of your dry ingredients (MINUS the dark chocolate) and then mix all of your wet ingredients. Now you can fold in the dark chocolate chunks.
  • 3. Roll the batter into small balls (should make 12) and then use a spoon to flatten them out on your baking pan.
  • 4. Bake the cookies in the oven for 8 minutes and then take out.
  • 5. Leave to cool for 10-15 minutes and then enjoy!

Notes

The cookies are meant to be a bit more cake-like in taste 🙂
Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

I hope you all enjoyed this edition of Friday Fare. I had a lot of fun making these (and eating way too many in the process) and I hope you have just as much fun as I did. Next week I am thinking of featuring a sweet oatmeal dish but made using an interesting and different process from just boiling the oats or letting them soak overnight … 🙂 Either that or some sort of Thai curry.

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

If there is ever anything you would like me to make (a breakfast, dessert, salad or etc) then please let me know. I say this every week but I truly love hearing from you and appreciate your input and suggestions.
Have a great weekend everyone!!

Honestly yours,
Alice