Your Questions, My Answers
I scrolled through the comments, looking for questions I've missed answering while I've been at work.
And here's the whole collection!
Kristen, I have a question about the blueberries in your pancakes- is it that you always have fresh blueberries on hand? Or do you use frozen blueberries on occasion as well?
I would make blueberry pancakes more often if using frozen regular or wild is actually an option.
-Tamara
I do prefer to use fresh blueberries, and as long as the price isn't crazy at Aldi, I usually pick up a container when I go shopping.
But occasionally, fresh blueberries are way more expensive than at other times. In those cases, I begrudgingly use frozen berries.
My method is to put the pancake batter in the pan, and then sprinkle some berries onto each pancake. This way, they don't turn the batter blue (which is what they do if you mix them in with the batter).
You do have to cook the pancakes a little longer, since the frozen berries are obviously...cold. So, it's not as easy as using fresh berries, but it does work.
(This is the 100% whole wheat recipe I use for my pancake base.)
Just curious, do you grate the orange peel yourself, or buy it dried? If you grate it, do you have any tips? I've never liked grating fruit skins.
-Price Chopper Shopper
I do grate it myself; I think the dried variety loses a lot of its flavor, compared to fresh.
I actually find it super easy to grate citrus peels by using the fine grater side of my box grater. A few swipes and poof! I have a nice little pile of grated peel.
To me, this is way, way easier than using a little zester or microplane grater, and since I'm already grating carrots, my box grater is out on the counter. 🙂
Do you have a julienne veg grater? It makes all the difference in the beetroot and carrots you add to your salads -
-JNL
I don't! I do have a food processor, which I get out when I want to slice or shred large quantities of vegetables.
But for my small batches of overnight oats, I just use my box grater and a little bit of muscle. 😉
Do you eat the overnight oats cold or hot?
-several readers
I always eat mine cold. I am not too sure what would happen to the protein powder when heated (would it congeal oddly?)
And I am positive that the yogurt would do something weird when heated. I don't think yogurt is supposed to be hot!
If there were no protein powder and especially no yogurt, then heating would be a perfectly fine option!
Is the hospital dog a permanent employee?
-WilliamB
Haha, well, he is really more of a volunteer than an employee. 😉 There is a rotating group of human volunteers, mostly retirees, who come to the hospital with various dogs, and I assume the dogs are volunteering too. Hehe.
I'm not too good with dog breeds, but I know several poodle-ish varieties come and visit too. The golden retriever is the best therapy dog, though (in my humble opinion as a non-dog-lover). 😉
My green onion confusion: I’ve looked at a whole bunch of different posts, and what it seems like is people don’t use the white part. I use the white part and the green and just cut off the little bit of roots. Can I still plant that little bit? Because if I have to cut off the whole white part to regrow it, it is not accomplishing anything for me!
-Carol
Oh, no, as long as you have a tiny part at the bottom plus the roots, they will grow. Maybe...⅛ inch? ¼ inch?
I'm not a huge fan of the white part of the onion, so I typically use the green parts and then plant the white parts.
Do chia seeds add any flavor to what you add them to? Just curious. I've never tried them.
-Liz
Nope! To me, they are quite flavorless. They mostly add some interesting texture.
And of course, they add dietary benefits, such as fiber. 🙂
Alrighty! I think I got caught up on questions now. If I missed yours, though, add it in the comments.
(Also: have you tried heating up oats with yogurt or protein powder? What happens?)
I love the therapy dog! Can he come visit me?!
I heat my oats with some milk and protein powder on the stove and it doesn't seem have any negative effect on the powder. I add cold yoghurt with some berries and seeds on top.
I eat overnight oats with protein powder and yogurt heated up and it’s fine. I put mini chocolate chips in and I like how they get melty with heating. Sometimes I add milk to the heated oats and sometimes I don’t.
Speaking of chocolate: I want to make a chocolate variety of this with cocoa powder, but I haven't experimented yet.
I really like adding frozen cherries and cocoa powder to oats. Just to start off your experimenting. Yum!
That’s sounds delicious!
About that yogurt: how yogurt acts when heated depends on how much fat it has. Full-fat yogurt does well; non-fat yogurt will break down.
Goldens may be the best people dogs we have. They are gentle, friendly, low-reactivity pooches. Not so smart and still prone to medical problems (especially hips) even after a few decades of breeding for more brains and sturdier bodies.
Ah, well, mine might be ok then because I make my yogurt with whole milk.
WilliamB,
My hubby and I adopted his sister's Golden after she passed away unexpectedly. (This was about 10 years ago). Hubby had grown up with dogs throughout his childhood; I had not, so Sunny was my first dog. He was a wonderful "gateway" dog; gentle, loving, loved his walks and ball fetching. I 100% agree with everything you said. He did develop hip dysplasia, and we had to put him down at age 14. He turned me from a cats-only person to a cat and dog lover. Rest in peace, Bestest Dog.
I eat overnight oats several times a week -- made with protein powder and yogurt. I always heat them in the microwave because I prefer them hot and they are fine. No texture problems here. I think the protein powder pretty much dissolves overnight. I do use half yogurt and half water, so that may help.
Good to know! I was imagine the yogurt curdling and that would be so gross.
This past winter I started making myself 'hot chocolate' by adding chocolate protein powder to milk that had been heated to scalding on the stove and that seemed to work fine. Definitely not as sweet as regular hot chocolate but good enough to add some much needed protein to my diet and satisfy the desire for something warm and creamy to drink.
Oh MY! what a good idea!.
The chia seeds also help to thicken the overnight oats, especially if you use milk as well as yogurt 🙂
I use frozen blueberries almost exclusively! When making pancakes, it goes much better if you defrost them. Put frozen blueberries in a bowl and cover with hot water from the kettle while you mix up the batter, then drain and rinse. Sprinkle them on, instead of mixing into the batter, and cook as usual.
I find if you put them in frozen, the batter around them can stay uncooked, which is gross.
We always have wild frozen blueberries on hand, which thaw very quickly, so thank you for this suggestion!
Citrus zest adds so much flavor to food -- yum! I like to make blueberry lemon bran muffins for breakfast, with a recipe that requires the zest and juice of half a lemon. To make things easier on my future self, I zest and juice several lemons at once and freeze the correct portions in some tiny containers from Dollar Tree.
I make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that also use orange zest. So good.
When a recipe calls for fresh citrus juice I make sure to zest the peel and throw the zest in a the freezer to pull out as needed. Dried zest just doesn't have the punch that fresh/frozen does and it adds so much to homemade salad dressings and baked goods.
Yes, agreed about the dried variety! I even tried drying some of my own, and it really lacked the appropriate kick of fresh zest.
Don't toss the whites! You can stirfry them, they are related to leeks after all (except with leek, the white stalks are more popular than the fibrous green leaves).
I see how you use your box grater a lot, handy! I do not have one but have a julienne grater and a zesteur, as well as a "mill" that finely grates nuts, hard cheese and chocolate as well as slices vegetables or grates them more coursely. Great for large amounts, and prepping, but no good for the zest of my organic oranges and lemons (that I keep frozen in shallow glasses with lid).
Make stock from leek greens, or save to add to chix stock. Every bit of taste helps.
That should have been "*I* make stock..." sorry to sound bossy.
I use frozen blueberries all the time in my blueberry pancakes (fresh ones don’t last long enough around here to make it into pancakes). I put the frozen ones into a colander and run cold water over them to thaw them a bit before adding them to the pancakes and then dry them on paper towels while I mix the rest of the batter which mostly keeps them from turning the batter blue.
If you toss them in some of the flour from the recipe, that has the same effect and also keeps the berries from falling to the bottom of the batter.
I'm glad others answered the hot overnight oats question. I just cannot imagine eating oats cold. I will be trying this for sure.
I currently use a bone broth protein powder and have used collagen peptide powder in my oatmeal and they are fine cooked, though they definitely need to be mixed in. I put mine in after the oats are cooked, but before I add anything else in and it needs to be stirred quite a bit to dissolve.
...I think the white part of the green onion is where the flavor and substance is. I mostly whack off the top couple inches of green, and use the rest.
I use the Promix protein powder like you do, and I can confirm that microwaving it in oats is not good. I think they might even recommend against microwaving it somewhere on the website or packaging. I have stirred it into hot oatmeal after it’s cooled a few minutes, and that’s okay. I’ve also used it in baking.
Maybe other protein powders handle microwaving better, but I like Promix because it doesn’t have artificial sweeteners like so many do. (Nothing wrong with that—just can’t stand the taste!) I’ve also tried Promix in one of the microwave protein mug cake recipes trending and had the same unfortunate results. It just gets mealy and chalky.
Agreed-I like how pared-down the Promix ingredients are.
Ohhhh, ok, so I am not losing my mind here! I also have had bad experiences with heating it. Maybe it's something unique to Promix.
I, too, grate my orange peelings and keep the zest. I store it in the freezer. We eat more oranges in the winter than in warm weather, and the freezer keeps it well. I've used orange zest in many ways; one of my favorites is to add a little to my homemade applesauce in the fall. Fresh apples + homemade orange zest = delicious.
Kristen, in the hospital where I work, there are several therapy dog volunteers, and the dogs have their own volunteer badges! 🙂 It's so cute. The dogs are of various breeds, from a tiny dog named Lola (I don't know her breed), to a huge black Newfoundland (such a gentle giant!) who was recently retired. They bring so much joy to the staff and patients alike.
And thank you for answering my questions about chia seeds. I know they add texture and sometimes "thickness", as well as the health benefits. I've watched some reels on Facebook of a Registered Dietitian who does "Sunday meal prep" videos, and she *always* adds chia seeds to homemade puddings and some drinks she makes.
My goodness, I wish I worked somewhere with therapy dogs (or cats)!
I have just set up my new-to-me laptop computer. Testing 1, 2, 3. Hopefully, you folks can read this OK. Could one of you pls. respond if you see this? Thanks!
Congrats, you did it - laptop successfully set up and posting!
Hooray!
Thanks for letting me know.
I will detail my computer adventures tomorrow, but I got a bunch of very cheap secondhand item -- and all but one are working great. The one that wasn't working, the computer guy gutted it and used the parts to fix my old desktop that I thought was dead.
Hi!
Thank you for these! I don't know how you had time!
We had Goldens--both purebred despite being rescues. Favorite breed EVER. They LIVE to please their people, don't they?! And sooooo laid back. Got the first one trained to be a therapy dog, and that was a wonderful experience for us and for the elderly patients!!
Wondering, Kristen: What is it you don't like about dogs? Did you grow up with cats? I grew up with dogs, and I think that makes a huge difference re: liking them so much now.
Grew up w Goldens. My parents had 5 over time with the last two being rescues. Best dogs ever—except for the shedding! Tumbleweeds of golden fluff end up everywhere!
Not Kristen, but I prefer cats, probably because I grew up with them. I do love dogs but I don't know if I'd want to own one - you have to walk them and they generally seem to need more attention. I like that cats respect your space (apart from when they jump on your lap at inconvenient times 😉 ).
I've noticed that it seems more socially acceptable to dislike cats or even hate them, whereas it seems a lot more questionable to have mixed feelings about dogs.
When it's berry season I used to go to a "U-Pick" berry farm or buy the berries already picked from local berry farms, but they are fewer and farther between now. I'd wash them carefully, make sure they are dry (and the leaves, stems and wrinkled berries are picked out) and then freeze them in freezer bags. I used to freeze them on baking trays and then into bags but found that step is unnecessary as long as the berries aren't wet when they go in the freezer. However, our freezer space is more limited these days, we used to have a separate freezer.
Now I just buy the big bags of big, organic, frozen blueberries from Costco. They are picked at the height of the season, less expensive than organic fresh berries at the supermarket with no waste, and I like eating them frozen, especially during summer.
Those checkers remind me of the good times dad and I had playing! Your food looks delicious. I am trying to try new things in the crock pot. (Try not to overwork hubby).
My BF is my surrogate gardener. So far this spring we have planted elephant ears, bleeding hearts, hostage. Have on order some BOGO Japanese iris, Louisiana iris and shamrock . Share all with my BF for her generous help.
DH put a clear bird feeder on my bedroom window for my birthdayWed.
Have named my frequent visitor Sally Sparrow lol! Found frugal birdseeds online.
I make a high protein baked oatmeal that includes protein powder, Greek yogurt, eggs, flax seed or almond flour (or whatever I have on hand, oats, blueberries etc. No problems baking the yogurt or reheating.
Heating overnight oats. I haven’t read all the replies yet, so apologies if this is redundant.
I make an overnight oats recipe that includes almond milk and nonfat Greek yogurt (no protein power). I have heated this with no problems.
Thanks as always for all you do!
I make overnight oats and heat them up in the microwave, and the milk (1/3 cup) and Greek yogurt (1/3 cup) are fine. I add a tablespoon of PB Fit to each serving too, and it works fine as well. Is PB Fit considered protein powder? I don’t know. I love overnight oats and use the 1/3 ratio, and it’s delicious and a perfect serving for me. I also add fresh raspberries or a banana after I heat it up.
Better half cared for a family's golden for a year when they were transferred. Alas the pup he got from the golden had stage 3 of 4 Dysplasia, she made it 12 years. You have to wait until the dog is 2 years old to be tested.
She literally found her best buddy in the world - a calico kitten who was dumped.
I too am not much of a dog person but any dog who has a cat buddy is okay by me.
I have cooked with yogurt as a replacement for sour cream in a pinch, and although it tastes fine, it breaks, so it's not pretty.
I always considered blue batter a feature not a bug! :-)