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

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.

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!

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

Health

Project Juice

May 6, 2014

If you follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram you will no doubt have noticed the various photo’s of juice that have been posted.

I was kindly invited by Brandon Waloff, Project Juice’s community wellness manager and certified holistic health coach who attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, to visit their location in Russian Hill and to sample a few of their juices. I met Brandon at Mint Studio’s spring open house and chatted with him about Project Juice as he was giving out samples of their juice. Before I go any further, let me tell you a bit more about more Project Juice and what I think makes them stand out from other juice companies.

Brandon Waloff, Project Juice’s community wellness manager at their Russian Hill location

Project Juice is a San Francisco based company that was founded a few years ago by Rachel Malsin and is co-founded with two others, Devon Briger and Greg Malsin. Rachel had various food allergies and began to modify her diet by implementing raw foods and juices which inspired her to live a new healthier lifestyle and to bring this lifestyle to the Bay Area. Fast forward a bit to Rachel moving from Long Island to San Francisco and starting Project Juice after noticing a gap in the market for high quality, cold pressed and organic juices!

Project Juice opened their first location in the financial district in the summer of 2013, then opened their Russian Hill location the week before Valentine’s Day and recently opened another location in Palo Alto. So there is an option if you want to avoid San Francisco traffic!! Project Juice are also planning on expanding to new locations and have a lot of exciting new ventures, such as implementing food into their programs and creating a smoothie bar. Part of their mission is to provide the best juice possible, and all of their ingredients are organic and are locally sourced whenever possible. What I found really incredible about this company is that they realize that diets do NOT work. There is not one size fits all and Brandon, who Project Juice’s certified holistic health coach, will work with people on developing cleansing programs that fit YOU and YOUR needs as opposed to forcing you to stick with a rigid plan that may not make you feel nourished or energetic.

So now that you know the deets on Project Juice, I can now continue! Their Russian Hill location was lovely; it had a great ambiance and they had various other healthy food products in stock if you wanted some nibbles with your juice.

After sampling a few of their juices and learning a bit more about the company, I was given 3 juices of my choice to take home and try out. I was so excitedddd haha, it was literally like getting an early birthday present (which is on May 22nd, so actually pretty soon)!! I absolutely love all things healthy and Project Juice seriously has so many amazing flavors with unique ingredients. It was extreeemely hard to pick just 3, but in the end I finally decided on D-Tox, Turmeric Mylk, and Swiss Beetz. I had tried D-Tox before at Mint Studio’s spring open house so I couldn’t resist getting a bottle of that, but the other 2 were completely new to me. I chose them because they contained some pretty rare ingredients that I had never seen in a juice before!

D-Tox

Mmm, this drink was really unexpected for me … but in a very, very good way. I don’t know why, but whenever I see a product that says ‘detox’ I think of something kinda nasty and bitter. D-Tox was far from that, and it was actually very sweet and refreshing. It contains pineapple, mint, apple, and chlorophyll .. I know right, you’re thinking ‘what the heck is chlorophyll’ … Chlorophyll has a number of interesting properties, such as increasing your red blood cell count, is packed full of protein and nutrients, and has been said to help slow down the aging process (you can read more about chlorophyll here)! Very, very interesting and something I have never ever seen in a juice before! You should definitely make this juice one to try if you have a sweet tooth and want a healthy drink 🙂

Turmeric Mylk

Oh man, this juice is awesome!! I was surprised at how creamy it was and how the turmeric blended in perfectly with the rest of the ingredients. Turmeric (a common ingredient in curries) is a spice which has been linked to its ability to help fight various types of cancer. This juice contains almonds, alkaline water, dates, turmeric, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla bean, and sea salt … mmm, delicious. I made my boyfriend try it (he does not like juices lol) and even he admitted that it tasted great, victory!

Swiss Beetz

As the name makes oh so clear, this juice contains beets! It also contains apples, carrots, cucumber, lemon, and ginger which makes for a really cleansing and refreshing juice. It had a lovely sweet and sour taste and the flavor of the beets did not at all overwhelm the other flavors. All of the ingredients complemented each other really well, very impressive. As much as I love beets, they do have a very strong and distinct flavor which is hard to mask! I let my housemate try some as she is a nurse and always interested in trying new healthy foods, and she agreed that it tasted great. I adored the addition of lemon and ginger, my favorite healthy combo of all time. I swear, lemon and ginger tea works everytime I get sick.

So there you have it! Project Juice have so many more flavors to offer and I hope you all try them! They have several locations within San Francisco and a new location in Palo Alto. They have plans to expand so I look forward to seeing where their new locations will be.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Have any of you ever tried Project Juice before? If not, what brand do you usually buy, or do you make your own?

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare

Raw ice cream cake

April 6, 2014

Firstly, apologies for being terrible with posts the past few weeks .. I may not be as regular as I was until this semester is over because the work is just piling up. Plus I had my friend over from England so I have wanted to spend as much time with her as I can before I leave! I hope my raw ice cream cake recipe makes up for my disappearance.

Raw ice cream cake

I have been wanting to share with recipe with all of you for a while now. The inspiration came from my desire to make a raw cake (although my version has peanut butter which is not 100% raw since it is heated, but it is considered raw when not heated) and my love for my healthified ice-cream recipe. Although this is not exactly a ‘guilt-free’ dessert it is much healthier and miles more nutritious than any store bought ice-cream cake. My ice-cream cake is packed full of healthy fats, and some protein and carbohydrates. It is also refined sugar free and vegan friendly 🙂 It can also be made gluten-free by subbing rolled oats with gluten free rolled oats.

Raw Ice Cream Cake

Alice Williams

This raw ice-cream cake is packed full of nutrients and none of the guilt!

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Ingredients

For the crust
3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup softened dates
1/2 cups raw cashews
1 cup coconut oil
4 tbsp honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinammon
2-4 tbsp peanut butter the peanut butter taste is quite strong so adjust it to your liking
For the cake
5-10 sliced and FROZEN bananas 10 bananas if you want to make an enormous cake
Optional
2-5 tbsp natural creamy peanut butter makes the consistency smoother
3-6 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder again, adjust it to your liking

Instructions

1. Alright, so first we want to prepare the crust. Put the oats, dates and cashews into the blender first and blend until you get a sand-like consistency.
2. Then put in the rest of the crust ingredients and blend until you get a dough like texture. Shape the dough into your cake pan, or another circular object and let it sit in the fridge for 2 hours.
3. After you have completed the crust, you can now make the ice-cream to put onto it! Blend your bananas with the cocoa powder and then scoop out on top of the crust. This stage takes quite a while because most blenders and food processors do not have room for this many bananas lol.

Notes

Does not freeze well and is best when served immediately after being made.

And there you have it!! A much healthier and nutritious way to make an easy no bake cake crust and healthy ice-cream 🙂 Unfortunately this lovely dessert does not freeze well, as the ice-cream gets a little icy 🙁 I will be experimenting with a way to make a more freezeable healthy ice-cream to try and combat this.