Nourishing Breakfasts Archives - Healthy Green Kitchen

Pumpkin Protein Waffles

Hey, pumpkin loving people! I’m back with a new recipe for protein waffles made with pumpkin tastiness for you. It’s only been 2 years since my last recipe here at Healthy Green Kitchen…and that one featured pumpkin too. This is all normal, right?! I promise I eat things that don’t involve pumpkin. Sometimes. Hahaha. Seriously, though…right now … Read more

High Protein Pumpkin Cake with Chocolate Frosting

This cake is much higher in protein, and much lower in carbohydrates and fat, than a typical cake. It’s dense, moist, and not overly sweet: leftovers keep very well in the refrigerator, or cut unfrosted cake into slices, wrap tightly, and freeze for later.

Serving size: 1/9th of an 8×8 inch cake
Per serving:
Calories: 188
Protein: 13.6 g
Carbohydrates: 16.2 g
Fat: 7.8 g

(If you bake your cake in a different size pan and cut it into more or fewer slices, the macros will be different!)

It’s been more than two years since I last wrote anything here at Healthy Green Kitchen. Did you miss me? (If you didn’t notice I was gone, I’m not the least bit offended lol.)

For me, the time really flew: I found lots and lots of things to do. I got certified as a nutrition coach, then a strength coach, and I’ve been working with clients in both capacities for some time now. Also: I’ve been running an Airbnb at a family-owned property in partnership with my dad, and I just packed my oldest child up to go to college.

My decision to stop blogging wasn’t a spur of the moment thing: I’d thought long and hard about it. And I remained certain I’d make the right decision about until just recently, when I realized that I miss creating and sharing recipes here. I’d never gotten around to taking the site down…so I’ve decided to give it another go.

To long-time (long ago?) readers of this blog: I really cannot thank you enough for sticking around. That said, I do want to give you a heads up that things are going to be a little different this time around (I’ve listed 3 new things you may notice below). Two years is a long time: I’m not the same and the way I cook and plan to run this blog isn’t going to be exactly the same.

I have shared many granola recipes here on the blog over the years, but it’s been quite a while since I made a new batch. I’ve even caved and bought granola from the supermarket a few times recently …gasp! But homemade granola really is much tastier in my opinion, and with milk or yogurt, it’s truly one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast or for a snack. So I figured it was high time to get my act together and make some more.

This recipe, from Tara O’Brady’s new book Seven Spoons: My Favorite Recipes for Any and Every Day, is a definite keeper. It’s clumpy, nutty, sweet, and a wee bit spicy (from the ginger), and I love it. I’ve been eating it topped with all sorts of fresh berries including local strawberries, gooseberries from my garden, and black raspberries from my yard.

Though I don’t personally know Tara, I have admired her work from afar for years (feast your eyes on her cakes!!!). Her photos, both on her blog and in this cookbook, are exquisite, as her writing. So far, I have read and cooked almost exclusively from the Breads and Breakfast chapter: I look forward to making my way through more of Tara’s stories and recipes.

Pacific Foods makes a variety of non-dairy beverages and they recently sent me some of their new organic coconut milks.

I’ve only ever purchased coconut milk in cans before, and I use those cans for soups and other recipes where I am looking for a creamy product with really distinct coconut taste. Pacific’s coconut milk is entirely different. It tastes light, mildly sweet (it’s sweetened with coconut water only), and quite hydrating/refreshing. It contains notable amounts of vitamin b12, vitamin D, and potassium, as well.

I’ve been playing around with different oatmeal recipes lately, and decided to try cooking my steel-cut oats in Pacific’s Original Coconut Milk instead of water or regular milk. I like how the coconut milk imparted a subtle sweetness to the cooked oatmeal. I portioned out the steel-cut oats cooked with coconut milk and added pomegranate seeds, toasted walnuts, plain yogurt, and a little unsweetened coconut as a garnish, then drizzled some pomegranate molasses on top to finish. So good!

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I am competing in my first powerlifting meet tomorrow. I am nervous but also looking forward to it. I’ve spent this week training pretty light, stretching a lot, and trying to get as much sleep as possible so I can go in with lots of energy and minimal anxiety.

I decided to compete in this meet about two months ago and since then I’ve made some adjustments to the way I eat, especially when it comes to my protein intake. Protein is always important, but perhaps even more so when you strength train with heavy weights. I work particularly hard to make sure I am eating enough of this macronutrient.

Though I previously wasn’t that big a fan of protein powders, I have found them to be nothing short of essential as of late: without supplementing with some protein powder on a daily basis, I simply don’t eat enough protein to meet my current needs. Right now I am eating about 110 grams of protein a day (this is 1 gram or protein per pound of my body weight).

Does this mean I think everyone should be supplementing with protein powder? No, not at all. While protein at or near the amount I am consuming may be useful to you, the amount of protein you need and whether or not protein powder is right for you depend on the context of your lifestyle and activity level, not mine.

{Ah, context. Such an important concept when it comes to matters of nutrition. We don’t all inhabit the same body nor do we live the same life (obviously!), so “one size fits all” nutritional recommendations really don’t make sense, do they?}

I like this recipe because I can quickly mix up 4 individual servings. Then I can grab one from the fridge in the morning and add a little more milk and maybe some fresh fruit (in these photos I’ve used pomegranate arils) before I head out to the gym. The lid makes tucking one into my purse super easy.

I don’t usually put my recipes through a nutritional calculator but just for kicks I decided to do it this time. The calorie and macronutrient breakdown of this overnight high protein oatmeal recipe (without any fruit or anything else added on top) comes out as follows:

For each serving (presuming 4 servings), approximately:
300 calories
10 grams fat
34 grams carbs
24 grams protein

I think this is great because there’s almost 1/4 of my protein requirement right there.

This recipe was inspired by Refrigerator Oatmeal from The Yummy Life. I used short 1 cup glass canning jars with plastic lids to make this recipe.

Pumpkin Protein Waffles

High Protein Pumpkin Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Tara’s Fig and Ginger Cluster Granola

Steel-Cut Oats with Coconut and Pomegranate

Overnight High Protein Oatmeal