One half cup of old fashioned rolled oats (your choice of brands) or steel cut oats if prefer

One cup of nonfat milk or water or soymilk or whole milk if you prefer

One small/medium apple, cored, seeded, coarsely chopped, or finely chopped for variation
Tart apple or sweet apple, peeled or unpeeled-whatever’s in season and your preference

Small amount of raisins or dried cranberries/blueberries (optional)

Dash of vanilla extract, your choice of brands

Generous sprinkling of cinnamon (add nutmeg if you like)

Small quantity of chopped pecans/walnuts (optional) for added flavor and interest

Stevia or aspartame or sweetener of your choice (brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup for richer flavor)

A heaping scoop (or more) of your favorite flavor of protein powder. Use vanilla, or unflavored, or even an exotic flavor to experiment with. If you’re going to add a scoop of protein powder, you need to increase the starting amount of water/milk/soymilk, otherwise the mixture will end up too thick and pasty–experiment for best results with or without addition of powder. Usually I would stir in the protein powder about halfway through or near the end of cooking time just to allow mixture to be smooth and not clumpy.

Add liquid to small saucepan over medium heat, stir in oats and any other ingredients that are ready to be added to begin heating while you’re chopping and adding apple, stir in additional ingredients as the mixture is warming up and beginning to bubble. Turn down heat a little to avoid scorching. Continue to stir and keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn, and doesn’t sit there with too little heat and stop cooking.

If desired, stir in desired amount of protein powder near the end and continue to cook long enough to end up with a smooth mixture. Your kitchen should be filled with the aromas of freshly baked oatmeal cookies, with vanilla, cinnamon, cooked apples, raisins, etc.

Enjoy! Add up the protein content divided by the number of servings. Cook in double batches and refrigerate leftovers for a cold breakfast on the run the next day or whenever.

Vary the ingredients. Leave out undesirables, add fresh fruits, simplify to meet your needs or preferences. The idea is to make something as healthy as possible while adding variety and relieving monotony, according to your tastebuds, allergies, dietary goals.

P.S. It’s GREAT on a cold winter’s evening in front of a fire! And not much kitchen cleanup-only one saucepan and a wooden spoon.

Then I add 11 chocolate covered almonds. It has 11g fat and 13g carbs.

I keep greek yogurt and chocolate almonds at work and eat it twice a day. It’s amazing and a cheap way to get my daily protein.

I’ll add blueberries on my high carb days. I never feel like eating the cookies, brownies, etc that’s in the office.

Raza

Ryan