Strawberry-Banana Oatmeal Squares

Here's a quick and easy recipe for those of you looking for something you can make in bulk for a week's worth of breakfast. These vegan oatmeal squares are chock-full of the delicious nutrients you need, and come in at about only 80 calories per serving! Get creative with the recipe - substitute raspberries, blueberries, cherries, or even peaches for diced strawberries, or add your favorite chopped nuts into the mix.

This is definitely a new favorite for me! I'm already planning an Autumn version of this recipe in my head, full of yummy spiced pumpkin puree, toasted pumpkin seeds, and golden flax... Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 small banana, mashed
• 1/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 1/4 cup oats
• 2 large strawberries, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 dash cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions

• In a medium-sized bowl, blend banana, applesauce, and vanilla extract.
• In another larger bowl, mix oatmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
• Slowly add the banana mixture into the oatmeal mixture. Add the diced strawberries.
• Grease 6 by 9 inch baking pan, and spread the mixture evenly.
• Sprinkle brown sugar on top of the mixture.
• Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees until golden brown.
• Cool for 20 minutes, cut into squares, and serve!

Taste The Rainbow Cupcakes

Lets talk about cupcakes, because guys, I love cupcakes. I could eat cupcakes all day long if I could, they are that tasty! And my sister, well, she makes some pretty good red velvets, but I have been itching to make some vegan cupcakes so I recruited her for the job.

We started making a yellow cake mix and adding in the water and oil, but when it came to the eggs (of which we needed three) we opted to sub in with applesauce. I looked up the amount of applesauce per egg on the great wide Google, answerer of all questions in the universe. Basically everything I found said that 1/4 cup applesauce equals one egg. So we put in 3/4 cups applesauce. I found in a few places that people mixed their applesauce with baking powder, and well, why not try it out?

So that's what we did. 3/4 cup applesauce mixed with 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder all mixed together and then added to our boxed mix with the water and oil. And then we beat it up so there was no lumps. A few black eyes maybe, some broken ribs for good measure but there were no lumps!

And then we got crafty up in here, folks. I mean, we got really into our cupcake making and separated out the batter into six different bowls. One for each color of the rainbow.

Yes, I know. You're impressed. And but who wouldn't be? I mean, those colors are fantastic! Once they were all bright enough for our liking, we started to fill up the cupcake liners with multitudes of different amounts of the myriad of colors.

And then we baked them. For what seemed like an eternity. We set the oven to 350 and once it was nice and hot we stuck our multicolored magic in for whatever the all-knowing cardboard box told us to. But they weren't done when the timer beeped. So we put them in for two more minutes, only that wasn't long enough either. More time. The toothpick finally came out clean, but the tops didn't bounce back when you pressed on them. We waited longer.

I think we must have put them back in the over a total of four times. Three times we just added two more minutes and the fourth time we put them in for five minutes. By that time we were afraid of burning them, so we pulled them out and left them in the tin for a little while to see if that helped.

They were completely cooked, just a little spongier than we were used to, which we attributed to the fact that we used applesauce instead of eggs, so just be aware. But they taste super delicious and they're pretty to boot!

So cupcakes out of a box don't have to be ordinary. With a little effort (and I mean little! we be lazy up in here, yo!) you can turn them into vegan rainbow cupcakes of mass deliciousness!

Next time though, I'm going to leave out the baking powder from the applesauce because it doesn't really need it. And I'm only going to use 1/2 cup of applesauce and one banana, because actually you can sub in bananas for eggs too! One banana equals one egg! Who knew!

What's for Breakfast?

This year, 2012, I resolve to spend more time in nature with my friends. This is a resolution I can keep.

Our first venture was Zuma Beach to Paradise Cove, a 6 mile round trip hike along the beach.  Marybeth (fellow blogger, the juicer you have read on this blog), her husband and the Iron Woman Samantha Pruitt,  (seriously, she can swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and then run 26 miles) met at my house on a Monday morning and set out together. The day was beautiful and we all felt pretty special skipping work, taking a hike on a Monday. A guilty pleasure.

                                      

Samantha had the farthest to drive, so she came on Sunday night. She knows all about our vegan blog, my food allergies (she has some too) and is on board the healthy lifestyle train. Monday morning we decided to drink our breakfast. Inspired by MaryBeth's juicing but not ready to go all in, I made a shake with green tea, chia seeds, lime juice, black kale,  banana, apple, and cucumber. 

Samantha took this picture.

Sunday night I brewed 2 cups of green tea, let it cool, added 2 tablespoons of chia seeds to the tea, shook it up and put it into the refrigerator overnight. On Monday morning, the chia seeds had expanded in the tea and were ready for the blender. To the chia seed tea I added 4 tablespoons of lime juice, 4 Kale leaves, chopped, a little at a time. That is the trick. Kale leaves blend easily if added to the liquid first, before other fruits and vegetables thicken the mix. Next I added, a little at a time: one banana, one seeded and chopped but not peeled apple, one chopped English cucumber, peel and all.

A breakfast shake can be anything. The more often you make one, the braver you will get. I love adding kale or spinach. Just looking at it makes me feel stronger. That dark green goodness, coursing through my body has me flexing my muscles like Popeye. The addition of all the fruit mutes the bitter of raw greens.

A heavy breakfast before a hike would not be a good thing. We were fortified, energized. As Samantha would say, "Whooo Hooo". It was a good start to a good day.