Trading Up Downtown

Over the weekend, I spent the night at my in law’s house. In the morning, everyone did their own thing for breakfast (since we all had different plans for the day), so I whipped up a big bowl of oatmeal with a few key ingredients to amp-up its nutritional profile, including fat free milk, an egg, and cereal. I added some cinnamon and vanilla extract for some added flavor.

In the mix:

• Quaker Old Fashioned Oats (NuVal score: 57)
• Kashi Go Lean Crunch (NuVal score: 36)
• Hood Fat Free Milk (NuVal score: 100)
• Eggs (NuVal score: 33)
• Cinnamon
• Vanilla extract

I added everything to a pot (yep, even the egg!) and cooked it on the stovetop until the oatmeal started to thicken.

Breakfast is served! I ate my delicious, nutritious, and satisfying oatmeal with a cup of coffee with steamed milk. (I swear, you couldn’t taste the egg mixed in!)

What trade-ups have you made with your breakfasts lately?

Trading Up Downtown Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who entered this week’s giveaway! Here’s your winner: 46!

46. Lela

I love grinding up oats and using them in place of part of the flour. Gives a great texture!

Congrats, Lena! Please email me at thaupert@nuval.com with your full name and mailing address to claim your prize!

Remember when I professed my love for almond flour last week? Well, I’m still in love with it, so I thought you guys might want to see what it’s all about– and maybe you’ll fall in love with it, too?

Here’s your chance to win a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Finely Ground Almond Meal/Flour, which scores a 77 on the NuVal scale.

To enter: Just leave a comment on this post about your favorite way to trade-up the nutrition of your baked goods. I’ll randomly pick a winner tomorrow morning.

Good luck!

My husband and I were superstars with meal planning this week. On a whim, we stopped by Trader Joe’s yesterday afternoon to do our grocery shopping for the week. Usually, we sit down and plan out our meals with the help of coupons, in-store sales, recipes, etc., but this week, we got it together in about 60 seconds while standing in the bread aisle of Trader Joe’s. I’m still impressed. We had quite a bit of food leftover from last week’s trip, so our shopping wasn’t all that big.

In this week’s cart:

• Bananas (NuVal score: 91)
• Dry Roasted Pistachios (NuVal score: 67)
• Butter (NuVal score: 1)
• Romaine hearts (NuVal score: 100)
• Avocados (NuVal score: 89)
• Eggs (NuVal score: 33)
• Frozen shrimp (NuVal score: 75)
• Frozen edamame (NuVal score: 91)
• Rib eye steak (NuVal score: 30)

Save

Our grocery shopping trip was last-minute this week, so we shopped for in-store sales and used our reusable bags to save as much money as we could without planning ahead of time. We still managed to come in under our weekly grocery budget, but I think if we had coupons and really paid attention to the in-store sales and planned our meals around them, we would have saved even more. Oh, well. There’s always next week, and I’ll be sure to get my save on big time!

Do you tend to spend more when you don’t plan out your meals? How much more would you say?