My Favorite Mistake

Who would have thought that accidentally sprinkling pepper on my Thanksgiving oatmeal yesterday would be the tastiest decision of the day?

Lately I've been making what I call "Thanksgiving Oatmeal," for my morning snack.  It is so yummy and nutritious.  The recipe is a cinch:

40 grams of old fashioned oats
15 grams of raisins
15 grams of chopped walnuts
15 grams of chopped apple
15 grams of whole, unsweetened cranberries
Pumpkin pie spice
Hot water

Combine, fuel, move on. It's good and good for you!

Anyway, I also like a dash of salt in my oats. I know, weird.  But the salt and pepper shakers at my office are always mixed up and I can't rememember which is which, so I usually sprinkle a little in my hand to check.  Well yesterday I was in a hurry so I skipped that part, and ended up with PEPPER in my oatmeal.

And then I was all, "Well, that's just great. So that's just sooooo awesome."  But in a really sarcastic internal voice. 

But what do you do?  Toss it out?  No way!  That is some high-octane fuel right there!  So I ate it.  And it was really not bad!  In fact, I think I may do it again today!

Just a tiny tiny bit.  Try it!

Have a good, tasty, high-octane fuel kind of day!

My Crummy Ideas

You know when you get to the end of a box of cereal and all you have left are the crumbs?  What do you do with those crumbs?  Throw them out, right? Well, if you're me, you carefully sift them through a colandar and save them in a ziplock...because they are a great source of homemade breadcrumbs!

It all started back when my brother and I were trying to perfect my black bean and turkey burger recipe. They were way too mushy, and I knew I needed breadcrumbs but just could not bring myself to use commercial breadcrumbs made with inferior ingredients.  Then one day, as I was tossing out an empty box of flax flakes (to which I add pure raisins for my own version of raisin bran), I saw the crumbs. 

Eureka!

I sifted the larger cereal pieces and put the finer crumbs into a ziplock, stashing them in the pantry with a small flutter of excitement at my breakthrough.  The next time I made a batch of turkey black bean burgers, I stirred in a quarter cup of my crumbs.  Perfect!  I felt very smug and bragged to my brother about my discovery. 

He wasn't outwardly impressed.  He, a gourmet-foodie with far more culinary talent than I, thinks my cooking and eating ways are nutso.  But as a 6-foot tall twenty-something soccer player he also has the metabolism to justify that opinion.

Anyway, a couple days ago my darling little boy sweetly asked if it would be too much trouble for me to make him some oatmeal for breakfast.  Okay, it didn't go quite like that but regardless, I stirred in some of my magic flax breadcrumbs into his oatmeal, too.  He scarfed it down in minutes as I stood by, beaming. *cue the angels singing and bestowing me with "Miss Healthy Well-Balanced Meals" sash and tiara*

The next day, applesauce waffles....with a little crunch.

So the next time you start to toss out those crumbs, think again - they're a great way to add some healthy fiber to recipes that may (or may not) call for breadcrumbs.  Just don't tell my brother. :)