Boo

First off I just want to say thank you so much for all the congratulations wishes that I received by email, in the comments on my last post, and via twitter. As you all probably know I am super stoked about the festival and I can’t wait to share this experience with you all as well!

In other food news, I’ve been loving fall themed meals and snacks lately. Here’s a brief highlight:

Pumpkin Chia Seed Oatmeal

• 1/4 oat bran
• 1/4 cup oatmeal
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1/4 cup canned pumpkin (or pureed pumpkin)
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• cinnamon to taste

Cook the oatbran, oatmeal, and sliced banana in the water and milk on medium heat by stove top. After about 5 minutes, or when the oats get thick enough for your tastes turn off the stove and mix in the pumpkin and chia seeds. Let the oats sit for a couple minutes, transfer into a bowl and add the toppings of your choice. I love to use nut butters, pumpkin seeds, nuts, or coconut. Enjoy.

Spooky S’mores Z BAR

I remember last year when they were first released everyone in blogworld, myself included, was on a hunt for these little bars. Although I have a stash of bars filling up a whole section of my cabinet space I couldn’t resist these so I bought three.

I know they are marketed for kids, however I like them because they’re just the right amount of calories (130) to have as a snack, unlike the traditional CLIF bars, which are meal replacing bars . I’ve been bringing them to work for a sweet mid-afternoon snack. The Spooky S’mores flavor tastes a lot like the Chocolate Chip and it’s definitely not like eating a real s’mores, but it does the perfect job of satisfying my sweet tooth with natural sweeteners such as organic fig paste and brown rice syrup to boot. I found these bars at Kroger (a chain grocery store in my area) but I’m pretty sure many grocery stores carry them.

Thai Red Curry (This one doesn’t really fit with the theme, but I wanted to include it)

I used one of the Thai Kitchen coupons I won from HealthyYum to buy a red curry sauce. I have to admit it took me a while to pick a Thai Kitchen product worth trying. Not to say that many of the products didn’t look and sound delicious but when I turned the package over and took a look at the nutrition label I couldn’t justify buying something (even if it was free) with that much sodium. I ended up settling on the red curry sauce 10 minute simmer sauce.

I threw some plain tofu, frozen stir-fry veggies, and fresh Thai hot chili peppers in the sauce and cooked everything for about 10 minutes. I heated up some whole wheat couscous while the curry was simmering. Don’t you love how quickly couscous cooks? Before serving I tossed some fresh chopped basil into the sauce and served it up for Isaac and I. It ended up tasting pretty good but the sauce wasn’t anything to write home about. I had tasted it before adding the peppers and it wasn’t all that flavorful or spicy to me- I was expecting a little kick, but nope. For the record, I probably won’t buy this sauce again.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. It’s rainy here and we don’t have any big plans so we’ll probably clean the house a bit, hang out and just relax. Do you have anything fun planned?

- Brittany

PS. If you are planning on attending the Foodbuzz Festival and would like to meet up please let me know!! I think I am going to take Friday off work and try to get an early flight out so that I have some time to explore the city before the festivities begin on Friday evening.

Tagged as: CLIF ZBAR, Foodbuzz Blogger Festival, Oatmeal, pumpkin oatmeal, Red Curry, Thai Kitchen, whole wheat couscous