Groats 101

Here are those elusive Luna Moons that managed to escape from this morning's posting!

Breakfast was a very refreshing juice of 4 stalks celery, a few handfuls spinach, 1/2 lemon, and 2 apples. Delish!!!!

I spent the morning doing laundry and cleaning, and then for lunch decided to have some of the soup I made from yesterday, which wasn't as good as my regular carrot-avocado bisque due to not having enough carrots, and the addition of cuke.

I spiced it up by throwing in another avocado...... didn't do it. Time to try again.

Then, I threw in a huge can of whole tomatoes....... THIS did it!! I prefer the fresh stuff, but I would rather save the fresh veggies to eat on their own. The tomatoes definitely made this into a tasty gazpacho!

Bored later on, I baked some chocolate muffins and some mint chocolate chip brownies for our garage sale tomorrow and Saturday (in Mt. Prospect, IL, in case I have any readers there!)

I wanted to bake more even though we have tons of desserts laying around the house. Ohhhhhh, welll ;)

I wanted to do something with my Newman's Own Organic dried fruit - namely the prunes, raisins, and apricots. I ground these up in the mini-FP and threw in some cocoa powder, salt, vanilla Stevia liquid, cinnamon, and a splash of agave and maple syrup.

Last but not least, I added in about a cup of dried, unsweeted coconut. This is officially my favorite ingredient to bake with!!! Well that, and dates, and agave nectar, and... ok, so I love to bake with anything and everything :-)

Not very pretty, but I wasn't aiming for aesthetics here, I just wanted something to munch on! As of now I haven't eaten the whole bowl, but who knows how long that will last ;)

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I got some questions on yesterday's posting regarding groats - here is a short explanation:

* Buckwheat groats:

- are a misnomer since they are not wheat at all, but rather buckwheat is a part of an edible fruit seed

- are gluten free

- easier to digest than grains

- high in protein

- low in fat

- low on the glycemic scale

- supposedly helps in preventing the accumulation of fat

- reduces blood pressure

- slows the aging process

* Oat groats:

- regular oats have been heatened and steamrolled, which destroys the ezymes

- full of soluble fiber

- known to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol

From my understanding oat groats are more starchy than buckwheat groats, but both are a great alternative to regular wheat flour, and definitely preferable to refined white flour!

Hope that helps! :)