Quick and Easy Healthy Breakfast

When I first met my husband, he was on a serious health kick.  I, on the other hand, had no idea what 'eating healthy' even meant.  His go-to breakfast that he could toss in tupperware and eat while driving to work consisted of oatmeal, peanut butter and syrup.  My initial reaction (being someone who really didn't like oatmeal in the first place, didn't understand the point of natural peanut butter and couldn't believe someone would eat something other than REAL Maple Syrup) was "blech."  It was probably also, "ewww" and "um, gross?"

Fast Forward 7 years.

One of my favorite things to do is always take one bite of whatever Dan is eating.  It can be a sandwich, a pickle, a bowl of cereal, a Fiber bar or his weird oatmeal concoction.  While I learned my lesson on not eating a bite of the protein bars, I do find most of the things he eats quite tasty.  Enter the oatmeal concoction.  I'm a fan of donuts, pop-tarts and anything else sweet and totally bad for you for breakfast. I just didn't get the whole eating healthy for breakfast idea, never had.  Finally, during wedding planning last year, I decided the pop-tarts probably weren't helping me fit into that pretty white dress.  After a few tries, I decided this oatmeal concoction may rank just slightly higher than "um, gross."

Start with a half of a cup of Quick Oats in a tupperware bowl (for easy transport to work)

Add 1 Cup of water and microwave for 1 1/2 minutes.

Add a couple of spoonfuls of Peanut Butter to the oatmeal.  

Oh and ps...Chunky is SO much better than smooth.  

We use the natural peanut butter because it has no added sugar like non-natural peanut butters.  It tastes just as good, but you do have to refrigerate it.  Sometimes it gets too hard to spread, this is normally towards the end of the jar and it means I didn't stir in the oil well enough.  Just take the top off and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute.  Nice, soft PB again!  The gross part is the stirring when you first open the jar.  There is about 1/2" of oil settled at the top of the jar.  You just need to stir and stir and stir to mix the oil back in with the peanut butter.  Sounds gross, looks gross and is gross but tastes great once mixed.  :)  

Finally, add a quick squirt or two of sugar free syrup.  We buy this at Walmart:

If the oatmeal is too thick, the main reason I stayed away for so long, I'll add some more water or milk to the oatmeal to loosen it up a bit.  Try it sometime.  It's an easy meal that you can toss into a tupperware bowl and take to work with you when you're running late...like I was this morning.