Baked oatmeal - 4 points on WW blue

I absolutely love oatmeal. I eat it for breakfast, sometimes for lunch and often as snacks. I don't even need to put sugar in it if I load it up with fruit, chocolate chips or nuts. However, I often find these delicious additions don't fit well into my daily points when I'm trying to follow weight watchers.

In fact, when I chose my WW plan, I went for blue because oatmeal is zero points on purple and I knew I would over eat it if it didn't have any points attached. I also love sweet potatoes, so that would've been another temptation!

In moderation though, oatmeal can be a great option and this baked oatmeal is further fortified with eggs and applesauce to make it fluffy and filling and only 4 points.

Ingredients

2/3 cup quick oats

2/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

2 eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tsp Lankato granulated monkfruit or other zero calorie sweetener of your choice, optional

1 cup fresh or frozen fruit (such as mixed berries, blueberries, chopped apples, chopped peaches)

1/4 tsp of baking powder

1 generous sprinkle of cinnamon

cooking spray

Cooking equipment: small baking pan, I use a 7" round pan.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray small baking pan with cooking spray. Put fruit in the bottom of the pan. Mix wet ingredients, taking care to whisk the eggs fully. Add dry ingredients and mix well into a wet batter, pour into the pan over the fruit. Bake for 18-22 minutes until the oatmeal is fully set.

Half the pan is 4 points.

You can also double the recipe and make four servings and use a standard 9" round pan to bake it. I tend to each too much when I do this, since I love oatmeal so much.

4 serving double recipe - this one had peaches on the bottom!

On the WW blue plan if you use the recipe builder it's 4 points for one serving and 7 if you eat two servings. Since WW sometimes has weird math, if you put half of the ingredients individually, it's only 3 points. I use the higher recipe builder calculation.

Instant pot egg souffle

These are lightest and most decadent eggs you will ever eat! Mixing them and then steaming them in the Instant pot gives them a heavenly, airy texture. They are even great heated up the next day for a quick, make ahead breakfast.

I use a 6 quart Instant pot Duo to make this recipe and a 7in pan Fat Daddio pan, if you use another size pan it might impact your cooking time.

Ingredients:

5 Large Eggs
1 cup of part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup of Fat Free Greek Yogurt
1 tsp of Garlic salt

Ground pepper to taste

Without additional toppings, each slice is 1 point on the blue Weight Watchers plan when cut into 8 slices.

You can add additional toppings that you like such as:

• cooked, crumbled bacon (additional points)
• cooked, sliced/crumbled sausage (additional points)
• diced peppers, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, spinnach, broccoli (all of these are zero!)

A few notes on the ingredients and their points:

• You can use any cheese you want but the points given include mozzarella.
• The only points will be for the cheese you use and the toppings you add.

Directions: Put the eggs, yogurt, shredded cheese and seasonings into a blender and blend until fully mixed, about 1 minute. Check the yogurt has been well incorporated and isn't in a clump, if needed blend it longer.

I use my Epica smoothie blender and it works great.

This Amyu Breakfast Sausage added 1pt/slice to the recipe.

Put your toppings in the bottom into a a lightly greased 7in pan and pour the blended egg mixture on top. Gently stir to mix the toppings into the eggs.

Cover the pan with foil. Pour one cup of water into the bottom of your Instant pot and using your trivet, lower the pan into the pot. The pan will be on top of the trivet.

Set your IP to steam for 19 minutes. Quick release the steam. You can cut slices and eat it from the pan, or you can flip it out on to a plate. It easily releases from my Fat Daddio pan. 

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Peach Iced Tea in the Instant Pot

Pressure cooking is amazing at infusing flavors in minutes rather than hours. Honestly I am not even sure how long it would take to make peach iced tea if I had to wait for it to infuse the peach flavor naturally but I'm guessing quite a long time and probably some amount of muddling.

My trusty Instant Pot makes all of this unnecessary. It makes peach iced tea in one minute! Ok, it really takes more like half an hour because the full pot takes quite a while to come to pressure, if you've been pressure cooking a while you know how misleading those cook times can be! #realtalk

This tasty beverage is also a great option for healthy living it is Whole 30, Paleo and zero points on Weight Watchers (green, blue and purple). If I am feeling fancy, I add carbonation to it with my Drinkmate beverage fizzer. If you haven't tried sparkling peach iced tea, you are missing out. Be careful though it fizzes A LOT.

Take the tag off!

Ingredients

8 cups of water

2 family sized tea bags (I use Lipton Cold Brew)

1 can of peaches in 100% juice

optional: sweetener of your choice (none for Whole 30)

Directions: Put water and peaches (do not drain!) in your Instant Pot. Remove any paper tags from your tea bags and add to the pot. Set Instant Pot to sealing, manual pressure for 1 minute. Turn off the "keep warm" setting. Following the end of the cook time, allow to naturally release for at least 5 minutes and then quick release the remaining pressure.

When I'm following Weight Watchers, I add 1/2tsp of Lankato Monkfruit 0 calorie sweetener (0pts) to each large glass! This is not Whole 30 or Paleo compliant though.

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Dairy-free, fluffy mashed potatoes

While you can make mashed potatoes by simply smashing up your potatoes the fluffy, creamy potatoes that many of us are accustomed to eating usually involves some kind of dairy - butter, milk, cream or actually in my family, we really like to add cream cheese to ours.

The dairy really transforms them into another dish. So, how do you make them dairy free but still decadently delicious? Well, you might think I am crazy but coconut milk or more specifically, coconut cream. The creamy/solid part of a can of full-fat coconut milk.

I promise you will not taste coconut in these potatoes at all. It's amazing to me how close the taste is the dairy laden potatoes of my childhood.

Ingredients

2 lbs potatoes, diced into 1" cubes, peeled if desired or not

1 can full-fat coconut milk

2 Tbl ghee

Spices - whatever you like in your mashed potatoes, I use garlic, salt and pepper.

Cooking equipment: potato masher or hand mixer

Boil your potatoes until they are soft in enough water to cover them, about 20 minutes. Drain the water and add the coconut milk using only the solid coconut cream, reserving the liquid from the can. Add the ghee and spices to your taste. Mash the potatoes, I use my kitchen aid hand mixer to mash. If the potatoes are too thick you can use some of liquid from the can or additional ghee until they are your desired consistency.

I like to mix a little extra ghee in when I eat them too. :)

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Dairy-free ranch in your blender!

You are not going to believe how much this non-dairy dressing tastes like ranch! I am shocked myself and I am a ranch aficionado. 

This dairy-free recipe makes a smallish batch and be made in a personal sized smoothie blender and it's perfect for lactose free, paleo or Whole 30 diets. I made it because I'm doing Whole 30 and one of the biggest W30 challenges is condiments or sauces to liven up vegetables that you eat by the truckload. But also, you are supposed to have "plated fat" with every meal and this counts!

I mix it up in my Epica smoothie blender and it's filled to the top. My blender is 20oz if yours is smaller, it will be too small for recipe as written as it basically fills my blender. The nice thing about making this recipe in a smoothie blender, is I can use the top as a convenient pour spout.

When it's first mixed, it's a little thin. If you chill it about 30 minutes it will be perfect consistency but you can eat it right away. If you know you are going to eat it immediately you can use less of the "watery" part of the coconut milk when you blend it so it's thicker.

Ingredients

1 can full fat coconut milk (see note on making a thicker dip)

1 egg or 1/4 cup liquid egg

2 Tbsp of red wine vinegar

juice of half a lemon or about 1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp garlic powered

3/4 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp ground black pepper

Cooking equipment:

Blender with at least a 20oz capacity

In the blender

Put all of the ingredients in your blender and mix for 2-3 minutes until well blended. You may serve immediately or chill for 30 minutes for a thicker consistency. Can be refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Please note this recipe contains raw egg. Consuming raw egg can increase your risk of food-borne illness.

If you want a thicker dip, don't use all of the liquid in the coconut milk.

 Do not allow the ranch to warm to room temperature and then put it back in the fridge for consumption later as it contains raw egg. 

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