Healthy Eats

After gorging on sweets and snacks at Veganstock and downing many a Diablo Dog for dinner last week, I needed a little healthy food to balance my diet. So I started most mornings last week with a comforting bowl of Carrot Cake Oats:

I got the idea from Shelby at La Belle Vegan, but my recipe varied a bit from hers since I didn't have all the same ingredients on hand that her version called for. Here' s what I did:

1/4 cup steel cut oats
1 carrot, shredded
1 cup water
splash of Oat Dream maple brown sugar milk
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 Tbsp. agave nectar
1 Tbsp. Mighty Maple peanut butter (by PB & Co.)

I always soak my dried steel cut oats the night before, so they're practically instant the next morning. I place 1/4 cup oats and the cup of water in a pot (and in this recipe, I also put my shredded carrot in the night before), bring it to a boil, and then remove from heat and cover overnight. The next day, all you have to do is add a splash of soymilk (or in this case, oat milk) and re-heat for a few minutes.

While at Veganstock, I'd planned to make this Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango from the Veganomicon:

I brought my dad's little campstove and I thought it could be my contribution to group dinner on Sunday night. But everyone ended up going into town for dinner that night, rather than cook at camp. So I brought the ingredients back home to Memphis with me and ate the salad for dinner several nights.

It was the first time I'd tried this recipe, and though I'd read mixed reviews on various blogs, I really, really liked this! The mango really adds something special to a plain ole' black bean quionoa salad.