Time for a healthy change

We have a little white box on the bathroom floor, which to be very honest, I have avoided the past few months.  I stepped on it today and oh my, no more puddings for me.  I did join Weightwatchers 5 months ago and paid for a 6 month membership.  The six months ends a week before we leave for a vacation in Maui and I thought at the time since I paid for it, I would use it.  Wrong.

Signing into Weightwatchers and entering my weight, I find I've gained a few since my last visit to the page in August.  So time to get serious.  There's no way to lose what I want before vacation, but time to get serious.

A recipe for baked oatmeal on Pinterest from greenlitebites caught my eye a couple of days ago.  I love oatmeal.  Doesn't really matter if it's cooked for breakfast, baked in a cookie or on top of a crisp and I love muffins, so the recipe was the best of two worlds.  After the scale episode this morning, time to bake oatmeal.  I basically followed the recipe posted but made a few tweaks, so I'll post mine.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Mix together in a large bowl and let sit 5 minutes.

2 mashed bananas
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup Splenda
2 beaten eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
3 cups Oats (I used large flakes)

Stir in 2 cups frozen berries, still frozen.

Divide batter into 18 muffin cups.  I lined mine with paper liners and high recommend this.

Bake 20 - 30 minutes or just the edges just start to turn brown.

Ready for the oven

Fresh from the oven

Best eaten with a spoon if eating while still hot

Oh my, these were so good.  Will I make these again?  You bet.  Best of all only 2 ww points.  I think they're going to be a perfect part of a breakfast-to-go or a mid morning snack.  Now that I've made my "healthy eating" declaration, I figure I'll be accountable.

The Long Weekend in August

The long weekend in August is Saskatoon Berry picking time. If the spring is warm and bright with lots of bees to pollinate the trees, the berries are plentiful. But the best years are years with good summer rains for big, plump berries. The Saskatoon berries hang like grapes from the trees and when fully ripe a little massage from the fingers will release the berries and they’ll roll right into your hand.

Years ago, we’d pack the kids and buckets into the car and head to our favorite berry patch across the highway. During a good year we could do quite a bit of picking up and down the roads close to the house. The day would end with purple mouths, purple fingers and a buckets of Saskatoons. We’d bring them home, clean them up and make a wonderful Saskatoon pie for supper as well as put a few bags in the freezer for pies during the winter.

It’s been a few years since we’ve gone berry picking. Yesterday while weed-wacking around the edge of the yard, something touched my head. I’m usually very leery about trees touching me (spiders and such) and I tend to back away and remind myself that that branch will have to come out later. (The penalty for touching me) This time I looked up, and there were the plumpest, ripest, purplest Saskatoons I’ve seen in years. Not quite enough for a pie from one tree, but more than enough for a handful for a sweet treat with plenty left over to mix in the morning’s yogurt.

All photos have a layer of Kim Klassen’s Aurora. Sharing with Texture Tuesday.