Easiest Overnight Oats & Blueberry Nice-Cream

This is my easiest overnight oats recipe and the boys love it! Just 4 ingredients pack in fiber, whole grains, protein, and calcium. Layer with fruit and/or 5 minute blueberry nice-cream and you have a beautiful breakfast to-go! The twins love to help "design" their own jars in the mornings. 

Ingredients

Oatmeal: 

1 banana

1 cups old-fashioned oats

1 cup milk of choice

2 Tbs almond butter

Nice-Cream:

1 banana

1 cup blueberries

1-4 Tbs milk of choice

1/2 cup spinach leaves (optional)
                                                                                                         

Before Bed

1. Peel and freeze 1 banana and 1 cup of blueberries.

2. In a medium bowl, mash another banana with almond (or another nut) butter. 

3. Add 1 cup oats and 1 cup milk. Stir, cover, and refrigerate.

In the Morning

1. Remove oatmeal from fridge and stir.

2. Slice frozen banana and place in blender with frozen blueberries.

NOTE: You can also add in 1/2 cup of torn spinach leaves to add a veggie!

3. Begin blending and add 1-4 Tbs milk as needed. Mixture will be grainy at first. Keep blending as it will eventually turn creamy and smooth!

4. Layer oatmeal, nice cream, and fresh fruit as desired. Breakfast in minutes!

Apple Pizzas

Apple pizzas are a fun hands-on snack for little chefs and they are totally toddler-approved. As a retired early education teacher, I also love the fine motor skills involved here for all the busy little fingers!

This is an extremely simple "recipe", but it is versatile and easy to whip up on a busy day. A deeply ingrained love of clean-eating starts in childhood; so tactile exploration of whole foods is very important for the toddler years.

Apple Pizzas

1. Have an adult slice an apple through the midsection to create circular disks. This is a great time to point out the star in the center of the apple, the seeds, and even to discuss plant life cycles if you're feel ambitious.

2. Supply almond (or another nut) butter, plastic knives, and a variety of "pizza toppings" for decorating. 

3. Show child(ren) how to spread the nut butter "sauce" on their apple crust and then either (a) discuss and model patterns (raisin, banana, raisin, banana, etc) and have them create their own, or (b) let them go free-for-all decorating on their own.

Ingredients:

Large organic* apple

Natural nut butter of choice

Topping Ideas:

raisins
craisins

dark chocolate chips

chia seeds

cheerios

diced banana

sunflower seeds
pepitas
cinnamon

*We can't always afford organic produce, but apples are a great fruit to buy organic when you can as they are on the "Dirty Dozen" list of produce with the highest levels of chemicals. See the entire Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen 2016 list here.

Baked Oatmeal: "Polynesian Wedding Cake" Style

Baked oatmeal is a lovely dish because it is a blank canvas that can support so many different flavor combinations! It also makes a wonderful brunch dish, in my opinion, because of its heartiness and ability to be completely prepped the night before.

Baked Oatmeal: "Polynesian Wedding Cake" Style

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbs chia seeds

2 cups coconut (or other plant-based) milk

1/2 cup orange juice

1 Tbs maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup shredded carrots

1 cup diced pineapple

1/2 cup diced mango

1/2 mashed banana (about 1/4 cup)

2 Tbs chopped nuts

2 Tbs raisins

Coconut flakes for topping

Steam carrots with a little water in a medium saucepan until soft. (The bake time later will not be long enough to cook them otherwise.) Drain.

Back in the saucepan, combine carrots with chia, oats, and spices and stir. Add liquid ingredients and stir well to combine. Measure in fruit and nuts and then cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until thickened. (About 10 minutes).

Pour into a standard pie dish and either
1. Cover and refrigerate to bake in the morning, or
2. Preheat oven to 350 degree and bake for 20 minutes. 

If you refrigerate, you will need to set oatmeal out in the morning to come to room temperature or bake it an extra 10 minutes.

Top oatmeal with coconut flakes and broil, if desired, on low for 2 minutes to toast.
My toddlers do NOT like the coconut. It has the utter audacity to be cwunchy.

Peaches 'n' Cream Blackberry Cobbler Oats

Ever since we discovered that you can blend spinach into milk for overnight oats and not taste the difference, we have been all about "Emerald Oats" (as my husband coined them) around the DeMarco house! The magic ratio is:

1/2 cup packed spinach per 1 cup plant milk

So that said, even though the color of this insta-breakfast is green the flavor is that of a pleasantly toned-down cobbler. I grew up a Georgia girl so peaches were always ripe and succulent in the summer, tempting us in little farmer's stands along the back country roads. And then blackberries. Well, blackberries grew wild everywhere. Safe to say, I enjoyed my fair share of peach-blackberry pie with a brown sugar and oat streusel on top. It seemed the natural route to go with oatmeal as well!

3 packed cups spinach

3 cups old fashioned oats

2 cups walnut (or other) milk

2 cups peach juice (or water but up the syrup)

6 Tbs chia seeds

3 Tbs (or to taste) maple syrup

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 peaches, diced

1 cup black berries, halved

serves 5-6

1. Blend spinach in milk for 3 minutes on high.
2. combine all ingredients, cover, and set in fridge overnight.
3. For toppings you can go healthy and add buckwheat crips for texture ... or you can lean towards sweeter and top with a granola "streusel". A dollop of coconut whip cream wouldn't be a bad idea either!

Superhero Fuel

Today E tried his hand at naming a smoothie! I asked him what he thought our almond butter and jelly smoothie tasted like. He leaned back his head and closed his eyes for another gulp. He thoughtfully licked his lips. He cocked his head slowly to the side and said: "A superhero". And that's how Superhero Fuel got its moniker!

This is our classic nut-butter and jelly smoothie with a few modifications to boost the protein up to about 9 grams per serving. Little boys superheroes are constantly busy running around the yard when duty calls - today they "rescued" an earthworm in distress - and so the extra protein boost does their growing muscles good!

Unfortunately, this smoothie requires a little prep-ahead, but it's not too bad. Prep can be done the night before or, at a minimum, 1 hour before serving.

Superhero Fuel

1/4 cup old fashioned oats

2 Tbs buckwheat seeds

1 Tbs chia seeds

1 1/2 cups almond or walnut milk

1 frozen banana

2 Tbs almond butter

1 Tbs almond flour

1 cup frozen berries (or cherries work well too!)

1. At least one hour before serving, Pour oats, buckwheat, chia seeds, and milk into the blender and place in the fridge. Break the banana into chunks and put it in the freezer.

2. Add frozen (or cold) banana to the blender along with the rest of the ingredients. Blend on high about 3 minutes or until smooth.

Key Lime Easy Oats (with shh! spinach)

Today is the much anticipated LIBRAY DAY at our little house. The boys are eagerly gathering up our pile of books as I type, so this post will be short and sweet. We eat overnight oats at least four breakfasts a week, so I've been looking for a way to sneak in vegetables without ruining the flavor (or  the toddler enthusiasm). I finally found it! And - just because I hardly believe it myself - here they are. Eating spinach for breakfast.

After weeks of brainstorming, I finally got smart and took a hint from smoothie successes. The key to this recipe resides in these three little tips that I've shared before.

• Color Match - if the oatmeal is going to be green, I'd better have a darn good excuse. Flavoring the oats with lime juice and zest gives a plausible (if you're three-years-old) reasons for them to be green.
• Add Acid - again, the lime comes in handy. Citrus is adept at masking any subtle earthy flavor from greens. 
• Blend, Baby, Blend - hell hath no fury like a toddler who just detected a noticeable piece of spinach in their "sweet" breakfast (or smoothie). Run the blender on high for at least three minutes.

Without further ado - the recipe:

Key Lime Easy Oats (with shhh! spinach)

4 cups spinach

3 1/2 cups almond milk

3 cups old fashioned oats

1/4 cup vanilla protein powder (optional)*

Zest of 1 lime
3 Tbs lime juice (optional)**

3 Tbs chia seeds
3 Tbs maple syrup (or other sweetener)

Fruit for topping (pineapple, strawberries, and mango all go well)

Toasted coconut (optional)
Extra maple syrup for drizzling

1. In a blender, combine milk and spinach on high until spinach is not visible to the discerning child's eye.

2. Combine with all the other ingredients except toppings. Cover and refridergate overnight.

3. In the morning, portion oats out and layer or top with fruit of choice. Add a sprinkle of unsweetened coconut and drizzle of maple syrup if desired. Enjoy!

Serves 6

*If the idea of tart oats bothers you, I tasted the oatmeal after adding just the lime zest alone and was pleased. My kids have always like sour things though and enjoyed the added lime juice.
**We use a protein powder sweetened with stevia. If omitting, decrease liquid by 1/4 cup and add 1 tsp vanilla and 1-2 Tbs sweetener of choice. 

The "Naughty Monkey" Smoothie

Around our house, smoothies are part of the daily routine. Around 3 o'clock every afternoon, the kids come wandering into the kitchen passionately declaring how hungry they are and looking to see what's going into the blender this time.

Seriously, my kids eat like hobbits. So after serving breakfast, baby breakfast, mid-morning snack, brunch, lunch for the baby, lunch part II, and  with dinner looming just around the corner, I've had it up to my ears with making people plates and wiping the table after them. Enter the:

Here-Kid-Drink-This-Concotion-In-A-Cup-And-It-Better-Fill-You-Up-Smoothie

But seriously, the smoothie is the perfect vehicle for cramming extra nutrients and calories into perpetually "starving" toddlers with little to no mess and in little to no time. They're even portable for those ambitious days I try to accomplish All-The-Errands in the meager two hours between baby's nap and dinner.

Normally, I give our smoothies cool names like "Green Monster Truck" or "Carrot Crusher" to try to get our three-year-olds to drink them with gusto. But it didn't dawn on me until today that I should try letting them name the drinks. I guess sometimes I get a little caught up in "running the house" and slip into "running the show" instead. It's my loss. It turns out, toddlers are pretty awesome at naming things.

Today I was dreaming of chocolate covered cherries while dumping frozen fruit and cocoa in the blender and admiring the pretty fuchsia color it was making. Of course the minions came running as soon as they heard the tell-tale "whir" start up. "What you makin', Mommy. I'm darrrrrving." E even fell on the floor in mock weakness to emphasize the point. "Well, I've got bananas, cherries, chocolate..." (Eruption of little boy giggles.) "I want to call dat a Naughty Monkey!"O announced.

And so the Naught Monkey (Cherry Garcia) Smoothie was born! And, my, is it good! O kind of has a point with the "naughty" part because there are no veggies in this sweet treat. But (and that's a big but), it IS worlds healthier than the doughnuts I actually was craving this afternoon. Here are the ingredients! Simply blend until smooth. Maybe one day I will update this with a little beet juice or a purple carrot to nutrient-it-up a little. Maybe. Probably not :)

Naughty Monkey Smoothie

1 frozen banana

1 1/2 cups frozen cherries

1 cup almond milk

3 Tbs vanilla protein powder*

1 1/2 Tbs cocoa powder

1 Tbs plain almond butter

*Our protein powder is sweetened a little with stevia so -if omitting- you may want to add a dash of your own sweetener to get the full dessert-like effect.

AB&J Overnight Oats

  I just discovered my favorite to-go breakfast - AB&J Overnight Oats! With three children 3 and under, if I don't make my breakfast ahead of time I invariably end up skipping it altogether. I have been experimenting with several combinations of "cold oatmeal" (as my toddler calls it) and stumbled upon this idea. I love it because it keeps me full until lunch -even when breastfeeding! And with 14 grams of protein per serving, tons of Omega 3's, fiber, a gajillion antioxidants, and a shelf life of 5 days what's not to love?? 

4 cups almond milk

1/4 cup plain almond butter (no sweetener, oil, etc.)

2 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup vanilla protein powder

1/4 cup + 2 Tbs chia seeds

2 Tbs maple syrup

1/4 cup orange juice

a good pinch of salt

3 cups berries

     In a blender, combine the wet ingredients (including almond butter) until smooth. Meanwhile, mix all the dry ingredients except berries in a large bowl. Pour milk-mixture over dry ingredients and stir well. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour but preferably overnight. After oats have set, stir in berries and divide into 5 pint jars. Monday - Friday breakfast done!

(Makes 5 approx. 1 1/2 cup servings.)

**Many substitutions could be made here! Peanut butter for almond butter, another sweetener for the maple syrup, coconut for almond milk.… The only substitution I would NOT make is regular milk for plant-based milk because the combination of dairy + citrus may not keep well in the fridge for several days.**