Didja miss me?!

My work life absconded with my blog life for the past few weeks, but I wrestled it back today. Since I was working until 9:00 p.m. most nights last week, I didn't cook at all, so I thought there was no reason to blog. But one reader actually snapped me out of it by asking why she wasn't getting her posts via email anymore, so I guess I'm baaaaack.

I haven't exactly been eating Superfoods-good the past week either – not super bad, still eating at least one a day (thank goodness pepper is a Superfood!), but definitely missing my veggies.

To remedy my laziness, I just put on a pot full of steel cut oats so that hubby and I will have breakfast for the next several days. This time just plain oats. I'm trying it in the slow cooker, which is a dream. Once again I bought the oats at Superstore (PC Blue Label Brand, which is their health brand) and I made double the recipe on the can.

Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oatmeal
1 cup steel cut oats
4-1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
Because I am compelled to fiddle, I added: 
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp vanilla
(I really have no idea if I should have waited to add these, but I'll let you know).

You can spray the inside of the slow cooker with spray oil so the oatmeal doesn't stick if you wish, but I learned this after I'd already put it in. Turn the slow cooker onto low and let cook overnight. The oatmeal will be ready when you get up. I expect that the quantity above would probably make 4 servings.

We'll each add our own flavours as we eat them. I will add walnuts, frozen blueberries and brown sugar to mine. As I think I've mentioned before I don't really care for mushy oatmeal, so I'll just skip the milk.

After we've eaten breakfast, I'll put the rest in single-serving plastic containers and stick them in the freezer. Since I've become very squeamish about microwaving plastic, I have a small handy-dandy glass casserole dish with a lid that is perfect for oatmeal. When I used to work outside the home I'd have one of these dishes at work, and bring the oatmeal ingredients to work in plastic, then transfer over. Such is my mania about plastic.

How did I get that way you may wonder? I used to work at a government department of environment and one day struck up a conversation with a contaminants specialist. It was a conversation that changed my life and I've been on an anti-plastic kick ever since. I haven't even unpacked my plastic containers from when we moved. They're all downstairs waiting to be used. Now I use my glass bowls for everything. Of course, not having to carry my lunch to work has made it a lot easier to stick to my principals. I googled the topic and here's an article you can read if you like: How Bad Are Plastic Water Bottles For Your Health, Really?

I still prefer the taste of filtered water, but ever since that conversation I've been drinking it from a stainless steel container. I bought my mother-in-law a glass bottle that looked just like a plastic water bottle for Christmas. She loves it! I think one of those neoprene beer bottle sleeves would be a perfect way to not only keep your water cool longer, but also to protect the glass from shattering if you're clumsy like me.

Anyway, I think this growing awareness about things like heating plastics feeds my ever-strengthening belief that my body is affected by whatever I put in it  – be it healthy Superfoods or the scary stuff like the hormones from milk and meat products. And since my body is nearing 50, it won't have the ability to sustain the abuse for much longer without serious repercussions. So, this is one way of giving back to the body that has done so much for me, despite the abuse I've put it through.

Okay, so now that I've gone on and on and on, do me a favour, buy a stainless steel bottle will ya?

Tomorrow, I plan to make a new dinner dish that's chock full of wonderful vegetables and show you an amazing plan I found for going hard core healthy, plus a few other sites that I think are pretty good as well.

Until tomorrow then, happy healthy eating everyone.

Kathy