I hadn't gotten that reaction in awhile. Sadly as a person in the full time work force, many of my lunches are taken solo. The other week I brought my dinner a la brown bag to the racquetball club where I take/teach yoga since I didn't have time to go home or pick up food. I got that disbelieving stare of "you're eating that?"
It was steamed snap peas, chickpeas, and cut up pickles with their juice. Really easy, really quick. I liked the sweetness of the snap pea, the savory chickpea and crunch/tang of the pickles. Call me weird. Or give it a try first (If you like sour). I am curious to see if you rate it "tasty" or "nasty."
Ok, as an adult I am a fan of sour things as evidenced by a few of my posts
Pickled Rice, Salmon and Summer Veggies
Tomatillo Mac N' Cheese and Salsa
Lemon-coconut Cookies
and twice in posts I referenced
101 Cookbook's Lemon Chutney
If you're not into sour savory or strongly sour lemon recipes as those given above, maybe give this sweet story a listen!
One of my upper management bosses is leaving this month. He was a really good sport in doing flash mob style dances and being the lead lip-synch-er to Gangnam Style and What Does the Fox Say? with our team. He helped boost morale by giving as a rotating prize, his parking spot (big deal, saves us 15 minutes of walking in the morning!) monthly through silly contests (limericks, March Madness, holiday cards, cookie decorating among other things). He would help us push projects that were in danger of getting stuck if we could justify them. I'm going to miss having him around. One of the send-offs is a dessert party (our officer joked our new name would not be Desert team but Dessert team) and I made:
LEMON BLUE BERRY OATMEAL MUFFINS
For the most part exactly as the recipe calls for from Quaker...just very minor preference/food sensitivity changes. I use Coach's Oats from Costco (chewy texture), use coconut sugar and don't do a streusal topping.
I always like a new way to try to eat my oats and this one is portable.
Slight detour before we get to the recipe, speaking of oats, I just tried an oatmeal recipe from a blog that shares predominantly oats recipes (Oatgasm)---LEMON CHEESE CAKE OATS: use 1/3 cup oats, 1 tsp cream cheese, vanilla extract to taste, 1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice and sweetener of choice with 1/2 to 1 cup of milk alternative (making 1.5 total cups of liquid, the rest water). I like to add half a scoop of Sun Warrior Protein powder (unflavored) for extra staying power to all my oatmeals.
Makes 12 muffins
1.5 cups oats
1 cup flour (I used a hand-mixed gluten-free blend-the Land O'Lakes go to one-refer to bottom of this pancake recipe page)
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup Silk coconut milk (sweetened or unsweetened)-play around with variety and amount of coconut sugar if you feel it needs more/less sweetening when you make a second batch!
1 egg
2 tsp oil
1 tsp grated lemon zest (I use my fine cheese grater)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup of frozen berries (don't thaw) -blueberries did go nicely with lemon!
1. Heat oven to 400F. Either line the muffin tins or use oil/butter to grease.
2. Combine and mix up dry ingredients in a large bowl
3. Combine and mix up wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. Wait to add the blueberries until after you mix dry and wet ingredients.
4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients, adding the berries, stirring until just evenly moistened.
5. Fill the muffin cups nearly full. Bake for 20-22 minutes until golden. Remove and test with a toothpick or other small skewer to see if it comes out clean. If it's clean you can move them to a cooling rack, letting them rest for 5 minutes before digging in-otherwise pop them in a few more minutes and retest.
QUESTION:Which of your foods get questions from by-standers? Or what do you like that you or others share at your workplace?
