Browsing Tag

fresh

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.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
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

Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary: Kayla Itsines Week 4

March 23, 2014

Hey everyone!

So, I have now officially been doing Kayla Itsine’s Bikini Body Guide for a month now. Woo-hoo!

Kayla Itsines Week 4

I feel really accomplished, the guide is not easy guys!!! The workout for weeks 2 and 4 were particularly hard for me because there were endless jumping lunges we had to do … jumping lunges are super hard for me. SUPER HARD. I am excited to see my progress at the end of the program, as it is a bit hard to tell at the moment .. although my legs seem slimmer 🙂

This week has been pretty all over the place this week. I literally went to Rubio’s (a ‘fresh Mex’ casual restaurant) about 4 times this week and while I think it is a pretty healthy option, the tortilla chips and delicious beer batter are not something to eat 4 times a week lol.

I also attended a crab feed for my boyfriend’s fraternity Theta Tau on Friday night and of course had loads of crab (which is actually not bad at all) and quite a few of the Portuguese pastries my boyfriend won in the silent auction (… not so good).

review of Kayla Itsines Week 4

Please excuse the lame crab bib!!! It was a necessity ..

The rest of the weekend was spent at my boyfriend’s parent’s house and it was lovely. We had a BBQ on Saturday (by the pool nonetheless, living the good life), and spent a good amount of time climbing one of the ropes attached to a tree. Needless to say my upper body strength has definitely gotten better as I actually managed to climb some of it! Three months ago, it probably would have been a different story. The rest was spent chilling by the pool and finally getting to read Cameron Diaz’s ‘The Body Book’ and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice.

cameron diaz The Body Book

My brother’s boyfriend has a husky!!! Isn’t he cuuute. I love him.

review of Kayla Itsines week 4 BBG

This morning we went to get brunch at the Vintage Press, which is a rather fancy restaurant in Visalia, California. I ordered a delicious shrimp florentine and had some orange juice and a cafe latte. They give you a pastry plate with your brunch and I am sad to say that I had a bit too many but eh, that’s okay. I am planning on trying out a bunch of new salad recipe’s this coming week to help me get back on track. Like I said, I didn’t eat particularly badly this weekend but my body is craving homemade food and more veggies again.

brunch in Visalia The VIntage Press

This next week is going to be a busy busy one, because one of my good friends, Siobhan (a.k.a. Shivvy) is coming to visit me all the way from England!!! This is going to be her first time in America and I am so excited to show her everything. She will also be my unofficial Honestly Fitness photographer as well so look forward to some fitness related video’s and photo’s! And just a lot of photo’s in general.

I am also working on making a special cake (try and guess what, I bet you will never guess!!), a savory lunch treat, and will be posting the recipe for the delicious sugar free muffins I talked about last week.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! What did you get up too? Let me know in the comments below <3

Honestly yours,
Alice

 

Friday Fare, Health

Friday Fare a collection of healthy recipes

January 17, 2014

Hey everyone! Welcome to the first edition of Friday Fare a collection of healthy recipes.

Friday Fare is going to be a regular weekly post (may become bi-weekly during the uni semester though unfortunately) where I will be posting healthy and filling breakfast, lunch, or dinner recipes. Why did I choose ‘Friday Fare’ as opposed to ‘Monday Meals’ or ‘Tasty Tuesday’? Well a) I wanted to be original and b) ….

Friday Fare a collection of healthy recipes

Which is exactly what I will be doing. Posting a range of foods, especially of a particular type – the healthy and nutritious type 🙂

The first edition of Friday Fare features one of my favorite simple meals that can be eaten for lunch or dinner. What I made for you all today is a simple stir-fry featuring a lean protein – shrimp, carbohydrate source – sweet potato, healthy fats – coconut oil, and plenty of fresh vegetables. It only took me about 30 – 40 minutes to make (chopping, cooking and everything) and is such a delicious and nutritious meal! The photo below shows you all the ingredients you need to make this delicious stir-fry.

healthy and easy shrimp stir fry

As you can see, you really do not need many ingredients at all! They are all relatively cheap as well, although I know shrimp is not that cheap but if you buy it frozen you can get some great deals. As you can see, I did not put a measurement on how much salt or cumin to use. This is because I think you should spice and salt the stir-fry according to how you like it. As a rule of thumb though, you can start off with a teaspoon of salt and cumin, and then add more if you like the flavors.

The secret to making my vegetables quickly and in a healthy way is my beautiful steamer … Ta da! I do not know what I would do without this baby. I literally chop up my veggies and throw it in my steamer and then put the steamer in my microwave for a few minutes. I know some of my old housemates will recognize the steamer, they loved using it 😉

Alright, now that you know what ingredients to use, and how to make the veggies, I will now tell you how to make it and nutritional value of this dish.

Healthy and filling shrimp stir-fry with sweet potato and steamed veggies

1. Make sure you have done your prep work – this includes chopping, getting all your spices out, and etc.

2. Throw the chopped broccoli and sweet potato in your steamer and microwave for 5 minutes. If you do not have a steamer, you can mimic the steaming action by placing the vegetables in a frying pan and adding about 2-3 tablespoons of water and then placing a lid on top of the pan. Check it every few minutes to see how soft the veggies are.

3. Whilst the veggies are being steamed, get a frying pan and heat the coconut oil in the pan until the coconut oil has melted (coconut oil is usually found cold-pressed so is in a solid state).

4. Then put your diced garlic and shrimp in the pan and fry until the shrimp is pink on each side. Lightly season the shrimp with some salt and cumin, and add half of your half tablespoon of chicken broth. Once the shrimp is cooked, place the shrimp on a separate plate for now (we will come back to it shortly).

5. Put your spinach into the frying pan with a splash of water. And no, not a Niagara Falls splash, just a tablespoon or so of water. This will create a nice steaming effect for the spinach. I typically just steam my spinach in the pan because since the sweet potato and broccoli take longer to steam and soften, if I add the spinach in with them, it will come out a pile of mush!

6. Now your sweet potato and broccoli should be steamed. Take them out of the steamer and add them to the spinach in the frying pan. After a minute or two, add the shrimp back into the pan so all the flavors mesh together.

Voila, and there you have it! A really simple, healthy and quite filling meal. If you do feel as if you want more food, feel free to add some more sweet potato, shrimp or veggies as you wish. Keep in mind that this will change the nutritional values of what I posted below. Adjust it to your own unique daily caloric needs 🙂 If you are weird like me, you can chop an ounce of Parmesan and nibble on that whilst enjoying the stir-fry (Parmesan has a surprisingly high protein content).

  healthy and easy shrimp stir fry               healthy and easy shrimp stir fry

Mmmmmmm. As you can see, I am a chili fiend so added some chili powder to it. I hope you all enjoy the meal! Let me know if you would like me to post meals with specific ingredients, anything you can think of!

Nutritional Info
Calories: 343
Protein: 30 grams
Carbohydrates: 54 grams (mostly all from the sweet potato which has 41 grams in one cup)
Fat: 6 grams
Fiber: 14 grams

Honestly yours,
Alice